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Earn 50 United Miles per Dollar at Magazines.com

Brendan Dorsey
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Brendan Dorsey is an Associate News Editor at TPG who covers nearly everything for TPG including aviation, credit cards, points, miles, ride-hailing services and more. He previously worked for TIME.
Aug. 22, 2018
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3 min read
United 767-300ER Polaris Where to Sit
Earn 50 United Miles per Dollar at Magazines.com
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Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

Shopping portals are an easy way to earn bonus miles, points or cash-back on online purchases. From time to time, great promotions appear that allow you to earn a whole lot of miles with a minimal amount of spend.

While magazines might not be high on your shopping list, they could be now with United's shopping portal bonus that will earn 50 miles per dollar at Magazines.com.

This is like purchasing miles at 2 cents apiece, and while that may seem high, especially since TPG values United miles at 1.4 cents each, it's easy to get more than 2 cents in value from United miles when redeeming miles for premium cabin awards.

For instance, a nonstop round-trip flight between Newark (EWR) and Tokyo (NRT) in United's Polaris Business class would run you 140,000 miles, or $6,231 if you pay with cash. That redemption would get you about 4.4 cents in value per United mile.

The best-ever price we've seen on purchasing United miles is 1.88 cents apiece, but that requires you to purchase at least 30,000 miles to get that price. This could be a good opportunity to top off your United balance if you're short a couple of thousands miles for a redemption. A $100 purchase would get you 5,000 United miles and a few magazine subscriptions to boot.

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If you want to earn United miles through other means, you can sign up for the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred, which both offer 50,000-point sign-up bonuses after spending $4,000 in the first three months of account opening. You can instantly transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to United or one of its dozen other travel partners. The United Explorer Card is offering a 40,000-mile sign-up bonus for spending $2,000 in the first three months.

While not as lucrative, other airline and bank shopping portals have elevated bonuses at Magazines.com. You can earn 30 Ultimate Rewards point per dollar, 30 Alaska miles per dollar, 25 American miles per dollar and 20 Southwest points per dollar on purchases at the retailer.

Make sure to use a credit card like the Chase Freedom Unlimited or The Blue Business®️ Plus Credit Card from American Express to maximize your return on the purchase.

New to online shopping portals? Here’s a quick overview:

H/T: MileNerd