A couple of years ago I made a similar post revealing my mileage tracking spreadsheet for United (or any airline for that matter). And while I love technology and my favorite app that still tracks my United balance (and so much more: PageOnce), I get a certain satisfaction out of my old school method.

I made a couple of changes since the last time I posted it, so I thought I’d share my updated version below – click it for a full view.

United Mileage Tracking Spreadsheet

Each line represents mileage earning or redemption (none currently showing) activity and I currently track redeemable miles (RDMs), elite/Premier qualifying miles (PQMs), cents-per-mile (CPM) fare information and lifetime miles.

The first line is my beginning MileagePlus balance as of January 1, 2013. My first flight of the year on January 19 was United Express flight number 6228 at a purchased fare class of “T” on a Canadair CRJ-200. I use the leading letter of the fare basis code – “T” in this case – as it’s the one that determines mileage accrual rates. I geek out tracking aircraft registrations, so I keep a record of those in the next column.

Continuing on, it shows I was seated in 4B, I earned 500 “butt-in-seat” miles for the flight, another 500 miles as my 100% elite Premier 1K bonus, and zero for any fare bonus to total 1,000 redeemable miles for the flight. I keep a running tally of those miles to quickly compare my spreadsheet amounts against what United shows online.

Next, I record my individual PQMs for each flight and a corresponding tally. After that comes the cents-per-mile (CPM) calculation, which is a formula dividing my out-of-pocket cost (the $ SPENT column) by the total PQMs for the itinerary. And since I’m oh so close to million-miler status, I have a lifetime mileage column that progressively adds each line’s flight mileage (so long as it’s United metal).

I add everything booked and not yet flown (the redacted portion) to reveal a total CPM and airfare spend for the calendar year, along with the amount of miles remaining to hit million-miler.

And this year I decided to add e-cert data at the bottom as a back up to my paper versions filed away.

Do you maintain a spreadsheet or have you gone totally online to track your miles & points with a service provider?

Related posts:

My United Airlines Mileage Tracking Spreadsheet (2011 Edition)

Airfare Pricing Buckets and Airline Fare Basis Codes Explained

I never really paid attention to United’s Award and Premier Accelerator program until just recently. If you’re not familiar with it, the program allows you to purchase redeemable MileagePlus miles with the option to add Premier Accelerator giving you an equivalent amount of Premier Qualifying Miles (PQMs).

The offer appears on each of your ticketed reservations on United.com and is also displayed during the check-in process. Since my mileage balance is always healthy and I haven’t needed to worry about hitting my desired elite level in previous years, I’ve always passed on the offers not paying much attention to them.

I may be changing up my travel this year and in the past month I started looking more closely at the PQM offers and reading up on them a bit on Flyertalk. It appears the pricing fluctuates quite frequently with lower rates typically offered at the beginning of each year and prior to hitting a new elite level.

Here’s an offer I received last week for an upcoming reservation:

The $1,260 displayed would provide 60,000 redeemable miles. At 2.1 cents-per-mile (CPM), that’s actually not a terrible rate when compared to purchasing miles outright using the Buy Miles program. It would cost me $2,257.60 to get 60k miles there. And 2.1 CPM ends up being about double the rate I’d earn redeemable miles on a normal mileage run. But I’d rather just fly and earn miles the “fun” way, so I probably wouldn’t ever buy miles under this program. It’s an option to consider, though, instead of Buy Miles if you’re looking to top-off your account.

But more glaring in that offer is the rate for Premier Accelerator. Wow! Only an additional $15,000 to get 60k PQMs?! Premier Accelerator isn’t separate from Award Accelerator, so you’d have to buy both to get the PQMs. At a total of $16,260, that’d be 27.1 CPM for 60k PQMs. Waaaay out of my threshold of tolerance.

Today, though, I logged in to find the following offer on the same reservation:

The price for Premier Accelerator dropped by nearly $10,000 to an all-in level of 10.6 CPM to buy 60k PQMs. That’s still pricey, but it dropped significantly. And it’s still well more than I’d probably ever pay if I had several thousand dollars just sitting around with no other purpose. This rate, however, seems to be the lowest CPM United has gone as of recently for purchasing PQMs.

As an elite, the mileage amounts offered (usually two options) are generally a specific number rounded off to the thousand and based somewhat on the total amount of miles flown on the reservation in question. Non-elites, I’ve read on Flyertalk, seem to get offers either doubling or tripling the miles flown on the corresponding reservation. And it appears people have been successful in booking a refundable ticket, buying the Premier Accelerator and canceling the reservation getting their money back for the ticket and keeping the PQMs. That’s something to consider if you’re in a bind for “cheaper” redeemable miles and PQMs.

Would you or have you purchased Award and Premier Accelerator?

United Airlines today introduced a new program where MileagePlus members can convert their retail gift cards with balances of $25 or more into award miles. More than 60 retailers are participating and according to the FAQs, mileage “rates are determined by market pricing, which is affected by several factors.”

I have a $25 Target gift card, so decided to plug it in just to see what type of offer United would make.

The offer of 670 miles for my $25 card was more than I was expecting and it comes out to a rate of 26.8 miles per dollar, but is slightly worse than the 28.6 miles per dollar you can get by purchasing miles outright (not taking into consideration the 7.5% excise tax for MileagePlus Personal Miles). The amount is likely scaled based on the value of the gift card in question, so I’m curious to know how higher value cards would fare.

The benefit of this program is subjective, in my opinion, as it depends on whether or not you’d personally get more for your dollar redeeming gift cards as they are originally intended. Still, though, it’s a nice offering if you receive a gift card from someone for a store where you wouldn’t normally be inclined to shop.

Do any of my readers have a gift card they’re willing to plug in and then leave a comment with the mile/$ rate offer?