Updated February 22, 2023 – If you have some United MileagePlus miles sitting in your account that you think you probably aren’t going to use anytime soon, you might be tempted to redeem them for gift cards in order to unlock some of that value. However, you should know that, in general, each MileagePlus mile is only going to be worth a little more than 3/10 of a penny when redeemed for gift cards. In other words, 1000 miles would usually be worth about $3.
Specifically, here are the denominations of gift cards and how many miles would be required for each:
- $5 gift card = 1666 miles
- $10 gift card = 3333 miles
- $25 gift card = 8333 miles
- $50 gift card = 16,666 miles
- $100 gift card = 33,333 miles
United does offer a ton of retail store and restaurant gift cards, however, so you can at least be sure you’ll find a gift card that you’d actually use. Options include:
- Airbnb
- Apple App Store & iTunes
- Dick’s Sporting Goods
- Disney
- Domino’s Pizza
- DoorDash
- eBay
- Google Play
- GrubHub
- Home Depot
- Kohl’s
- Lowe’s
- Marshalls
- Nordstrom
- Olive Garden
- Panera Bread
- REI
- Sephora
- Starbucks
- Subway
- Texas Roadhouse
- T.J. Maxx
- Total Wine & More
- Uber
- Walmart
- …and many more.
Buying gift cards is obviously not the best use of your United MileagePlus miles. But, if they are in danger of expiring and you won’t be able to use them, you might as well salvage some value from them, and United does give you a wealth of choices.