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United’s Billion Mile Giveaway: Win 1 Million Miles!

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United’s Billion Mile Giveaway

United is giving 100 grand prize winners a 1 MILLION points each. Yes that’s 1 MILLLLLLLLLION points each. Who doesn’t flipping love free Miles?! They are also giving away 10,000 prizes of 25,000 miles and 130,000 prizes of 5,000 miles each. There are a couple ways to enter this giveaway, plus the easiest is if you already have a Chase United credit card. I’ll detail the 2 options below, but I highly encourage to you enter United’s Billion Mile Giveaway.

United's Billion Mile Giveaway

2 ways to enter

  1.  Spend on your Chase branded United credit card.
  2. Enter manually here

Miles and I got a United Mileage Plus Explorer card earlier this year when we were targeted for a 50k sign up and an additonal 5k for an authorized user. Not a bad grab at points, but we missed out on the HUGE 70k target. What’s annoying is that my account was targeted for it, but it was outside of the 90 days to match my sign up bonus to a better offer. Can’t win them all. I’m currently thinking of some creative ways to get multiple entries on this great offer… Remember you have until September 30th to enter in the contest.

*update* United will also give the grand prize winners cash to offset taxes

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Reader Gene had some interesting thoughts on that and we had a good exchange in the comments below. Odd that United is valuing points at difference prices depending on the prize won.

  • 1,000,000 valued at $27,500 or $0.0275/mile
  • 25,000 valued at $500 or $0.02/mile
  • 5,000 valued at $100 or $0.02/mile

Even the whole prize of 1 Billion miles is valued at $20,750,000 or $0.02075/mile. Makes me scratch my head as to why the grand prize isn’t valued at $20,000…

 

United's Billion Mile Giveaway

What would you do with 1 million Mileage Plus Miles?

I actually loved my experience in Global First last year. But I think I’d definitely spend some big Miles on partners and try out some of the International First Class products…even if they aren’t the best redemption options.

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


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The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

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Annual Fee

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We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

4 Comments

  • Timothy Dudenbostel August 20, 2016

    Lower level prizes will value the miles at 2 cents apiece. That means that a 25,000 mile prize is worth $500, beneath the $600 reporting threshold.

  • Gene August 3, 2016

    Winning those 1 million miles will result in a 1099 for $27,500. If your tax rate is 40% or so like mine, those free miles will cost you $11,000 in taxes. That is still a price I would buy at, but something to keep in mind.

    • Miles August 3, 2016

      Good point Gene – I should have put in the article that United will also give the grand prize winners a check for $7500 to offset taxes. So in your model you’d only be paying $3500 out of pocket. The weird thing is that on the smaller prizes they assess the points at $0.02, but on the bigger prize it’s at $0.0275. Big difference when scaled up and makes me wonder if a good accountant could do something with that information. Even the total aggregate value that United is valuing the Billion miles at is only valued at $20,750,000 or $0.02075/mile. At the aggregate valuation you’re looking at roughly $8100 in taxes and $7500 paid in cash…netting out $600. Would be a great deal.

      • Lee Ann June 16, 2017

        I am certain any gain is taxable so the 7,500.00 paid in cash also taxable. How is this disbursed? Will the winners name be on the “check”? That is taxable. It is nice but going back to the example. 27,500 + 7500=35,000 (taxable gains) * .40 = 14000 owed. So, what to do….pay 14,000 to get 35,000= good return. Let’s not get into the topic of interest in the card. Let’s assume full balances are paid each month. Aggregate at the mileage will help.

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