United Mileage Plus offer of 70k miles
If your goal is to travel to Asia, the new United Mileage Plus offer seems like a solid strategy. While checking the new Basic Economy fares on United, I ran across this offer on the Complete Purchase page:
- 70,000 United miles
- $50 Statement credit
- $3000 required spend in 3 months
The annual fee is not waived but the $50 statement credit has no requirements except a single purchase so for the first year, the annual fee is essentially $45.
A $3000 spend is easy. If you think you will have trouble meeting it, you can pay your rent or mortgage once or twice to help. Though, as usual, I recommend not getting into this habit due to common Credit Card Churning Pitfalls.
Add Authorized User
All Chase cards allow you to add an authorized user for 5,000 miles. The authorized user can be anyone in your family (and the card doesn’t ever need to be used). This will get you to 75,000 miles.
At least 78,000 miles
After the signup bonus, authorized user, and $3000 spend, you will have 78,000 miles with United. 2,000 more is all you need for a round trip to Bangkok! $45 + $32 (taxes) is a decent price for a vacation to Thailand!
A note on United’s new Basic Economy
If you fly United domestically, this card will also allow you to carry on a bag with United’s new Basic Economy. This actually makes Basic Economy useable in my opinion.
Does that mean you can keep this card? Well, $95 is a big fee to overcome with miles. The only reason I’d recommend keeping the card is if you fly United regularly in order to take advantage of early boarding and the new Basic Economy perk.