United Mileage Plus offers 15,000 bonus miles when hotel points are exchanged into 50,000 miles through November 30, 2012. You can convert hotel points from any of eight hotel loyalty programs into United miles to reach the 50,000 miles.
You can transfer points from multiple hotel programs into miles and the cumulative total United miles earned from all hotel points transfers is used to determine bonus miles earned from this promotion.
Hotel Points to Mileage Plus Miles Bonus
- Hotel Points to miles: 5,000 – 9,999 miles = 1,000 bonus miles (20% bonus for 5,000 miles).
- Hotel Points to miles: 10,000 – 19,999 miles = 2,500 bonus miles (25% bonus for 10,000 miles).
- Hotel Points to miles: 20,000 – 49,999 miles = 5,000 bonus miles (25% bonus for 20,000 miles).
- Hotel Points to miles: 50,000 or more miles = 15,000 bonus miles (30% bonus for 50,000 miles).
- Bonus miles will post by January 31, 2013 based on miles earned from all hotel points transfers Oct 26-Nov 30, 2012.
United Mileage Plus promotion registration is required by November 30.
United Mileage Plus Bonus Miles T&C.
The Mileage Plus bonus miles peak at the minimum thresholds of 10,000 miles (25% bonus miles), 20,000 miles (25% bonus miles) or 50,000 miles (30% bonus miles).
8 participating Hotel Points to United Miles hotel loyalty programs:
- Club Carlson
- Choice Privileges
- Hilton HHonors
- Hyatt Gold Passport
- IHG Priority Club
- Marriott Rewards
- Starwood Preferred Guest
- Wyndham Rewards
Marriott, Wyndham and Club Carlson are the three viable options for a good value exchange rate with this United Mileage Plus offer.
Most of these hotel partners can be eliminated right away due to poor points-to-miles transfer rates. United Mileage Plus link to hotel transfer rates. Note that the transfer rate shown as 8 points = 1 mile is not totally accurate for Club Carlson, a program with a variable points to miles transfer rate.
Starwood Preferred Guest has a poor exchange rate with United Mileage Plus. It is one of the few airlines where 2 Starpoints = 1 mile while most airlines offer a 1:1 exchange. SPG takes 20,000 points to get 12,500 UA miles. Forget that.
Hyatt Gold Passport exchanges at the rate of 100,000 Hyatt points = 50,000 miles. You can convert 100,000 Hyatt points and receive 65,000 United miles, but that is not a good trade for most Gold Passport members who probably value the Hyatt points more highly.
Choice Privileges, Hilton HHonors and Priority Club have a fixed rate of exchange and these programs do not offer a good rate for points to miles transfers. You need 5,000 points with Choice or Priority Club for 1,000 miles and 10,000 HHonors points for 1,000 miles. Forget those options. The points are worth far more than the miles.
Marriott Rewards is a variable rate points-to-miles transfer program. Marriott Rewards has good rates of exchange at high point levels.
125,000 Marriott points = 50,000 United miles. You can exchange 125,000 Marriott points and receive 65,000 United miles with this transfer bonus. That is a decent deal.
Even better is a Marriott Hotel Package where you can book 7 nights at a category 5 Marriott Hotel and receive 50,000 air miles for 200,000 Marriott points. This package is available for any Marriott or Ritz-Carlton Hotel at any tier level. Basically you pay the normal redemption rate for 7 nights at the hotel category you choose and the 50,000 miles are added into the deal for an additional 50,000 points. Marriott Hotel Packages improve the exchange rate to 1 Marriott point = 1 mile.
50,000 Marriott points = 65,000 United miles with this Mileage Plus bonus offer. But you have to have at least 200,000 Marriott points to take advantage of the Marriott Hotel Package deal.
Wyndham Rewards has fixed exchange rates, but you can only transfer Wyndham points in three increments.
- 30,000 points = 12,000 miles
- 17,500 points = 7,000 miles
- 8,000 points = 3,200 miles
125,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 50,000 miles normally.
30,000 points x 3 transfers = 36,000 miles. 17,500 points x 2 transfers = 14,000 points.
This bonus offer means 125,000 WR points = 65,000 United miles.
If you were lucky enough to buy Wyndham Points during the Daily Getaways sales last April, then you might possibly have bought 125,000 points for $400 or so.
That means $400 purchased 65,000 United miles. A great deal for the lucky few who actually landed points purchases in the first minute of the April Daily Getaways before the Wyndham Rewards points sold out.
Club Carlson Points-to-Miles Exchange Rate is one of the best for hotel points.
In the past year my wife and I picked up over 400,000 Club Carlson points on their two Radisson promotions for 50,000 points with one night, Country Inn 44,000 points for one night and Park Inn 44,000 points for one night.
One of the great features of Club Carlson is any two members can transfer hotel points between accounts with no fee. I can move my wife’s points into my account to get a total of 300,000 points, the magic number to reach 54,000 United miles and trigger the 15,000 bonus United miles.
Club Carlson has a variable points-to-miles exchange rate.
- 2,000 points = 250 miles (8 points = 1 mile)
- 50,000 points = 8,000 miles (6.25 points = 1 mile)
- 100,000 points = 18,000 miles (5.56 points = 1 mile)
300,000 Club Carlson points = 54,000 miles + 15,000 bonus miles.
69,000 United Mileage Plus miles for 300,000 points (4.35 points = 1 mile).
300,000 points for 6 nights at a category 6 Club Carlson Radisson Blu hotel in Europe or Africa where the room rate might be $400 per night is a good use of points. Potentially my 300,000 points are worth over $2,000 at hotels.
But I didn’t spend anywhere near $2,000 to earn 300,000 Club Carlson points during the past year with the great Club Carlson promotions.
In fact, I spent less than $600 to earn the 300,000 points.
Besides having stayed 6 hotel nights with my $600 in Club Carlson hotels spend over the past year, I now have the option to exchange the points into 69,000 United miles.
The cost for 69,000 United miles is less than $9 per 1,000 miles based on what I spent with Club Carlson to earn 300,000 points.
Related Post: Club Carlson 50% bonus on purchased points.
Ric Garrido, writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. You can follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.
