It’s now just a little bit easier to earn United MileagePlus miles in Australia, with the launch of a new MileagePlus shopping portal.
With MileagePlus Shopping Australia, you can earn up to 4 United miles per dollar spent with participating Australian online retailers. There are currently 205 online stores available via the MileagePlus Shopping portal in Australia, with most awarding either 0.5, 1 or 2 United MileagePlus miles per AU$1 spent.
Online retailers that partner with United MileagePlus Shopping Australia include Bonds, Rebel Sport, Priceline Pharmacy, Kathmandu, Dymocks, Spotlight, Bing Lee, Groupon, Harris Scarfe and Freedom Furniture – which also now happens to be a Velocity Frequent Flyer partner.
Bizarrely, one online retailer appears to award zero miles per $1 spent – which does make you wonder what it’s doing there.
To earn United miles, you would need to log into your MileagePlus account on the MileagePlus Shopping website and then click through to the online retailer’s site from there. As long as you’ve enabled browser cookies, United will then track your purchases. Any purchases made will appear on your MileagePlus Shopping Australia account within 5 days as “pending”, and will then take up to 120 days to become “approved”. After that, you’ll receive the miles. (Yes, seriously – it takes 4 months.)
As United is a Star Alliance member, you can redeem United MileagePlus miles to travel across the Star Alliance network. In general, there aren’t too many ways to earn United miles in Australia, although you can buy United miles directly from the airline. Another method to earn small quantities of United MileagePlus miles in Australia is to book hotels through Agoda PointsMAX (and elect to earn United miles for your booking).
Most Australians won’t be able to earn a huge amount of United miles through MileagePlus Shopping, but this could be a useful way to top up your miles.
As of 28 August 2019, United miles do not expire.
In Australia, you can also earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points for online shopping via the Qantas Shopping online mall, or Velocity points through the Velocity eStore. In addition, Singapore Airlines offers the ability to earn KrisFlyer miles for shopping online through KrisFlyer Spree.
Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: United launches MileagePlus shopping portal in Australia
