Book United flights with partner miles, not MileagePlus

Four doors to one United seat

Star Alliance's own earn-and-redeem page says one frequent flyer membership lets you redeem miles across the whole network, and the list of member programs on that page includes MileagePlus, Aeroplan, Lifemiles and KrisFlyer. For someone holding bank points, that turns one flight into four separate purchases. The same United-operated flight number can be priced by United in its own miles and by three partner programs in theirs, and each of the four has its own price, its own cash on top, and its own rules for what happens after the ticket is issued.

This guide prices the booking, not the program. It does not say which door is best in general, because the answer moves with the flight, the date and the bank in your account. What it offers is a way to put four prices on one scale: bank points sent, cash that survives, and cents per point for that one seat. The award search order guide covers finding the seat; this page starts once the seat is found and the question is which currency to spend on it.

One limit shapes everything below. United's own award pages do not print a chart this guide could quote, and a MileagePlus price depends on the date, the route and the account you search from. So no MileagePlus price appears here as a fact. Where a worked example needs one, it is a stated input you replace with the number on your own screen. The numbers that are facts are the ones the partner programs and the banks print: Aeroplan's chart, KrisFlyer's published terms, and each bank's partner list.

Which of your banks reaches which door

The table crosses four bank currencies with the four programs. It records what each issuer's own page showed on October 22, 2026, and nothing else. A cell reads "Listed, ratio not printed" where the bank names the partner but publishes no ratio on the page read, which is how Chase's transfer guide works.

Reading the bank table without over-reading it

Two patterns stand out. First, only Chase and Bilt can reach United's own program, so an Amex or Capital One balance never meets a MileagePlus price at all; for those two banks the United question is always a partner question. Second, Aeroplan is the one door all four banks open, which makes it the common yardstick when you hold more than one currency. The two-bank booking guide covers what to do when a single award needs both balances.

Citi is missing from the table on purpose. Citi's public Strata Premier page names American Airlines, JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic, Cathay, EVA Air, Choice Hotels and The Leading Hotels of the World "and others", and none of the four programs here. That does not prove Citi cannot reach them. It means the only reliable answer is the transfer screen inside your own ThankYou account, read before you plan around any of the four.

Chase's page prints a list and no per-partner ratio. This guide's Chase rows therefore treat 1:1 as a stated input, not as a Chase fact. If your transfer screen shows a different ratio for the program you choose, redo the bank-points column with it. Amex prints each ratio in its transfer data as 1,000 to 1,000 for these three partners, Capital One's page groups all three among its 1:1 partners, and Bilt's help article, updated October 20, 2026, prints 1:1 for MileagePlus, Aeroplan and LifeMiles and does not list KrisFlyer.

Timing differs too. Amex says transfers typically take 48 to 72 hours, and its transfer page estimates 72 hours for Avianca LifeMiles. Chase says most process by the next business day but may take up to 7 business days. Bilt's help article says most transfers are immediate and allows up to 48 hours, while its Transfer Partner Terms say most transfers complete within 20 minutes and may take up to 48 hours, and that the partner account must be in your own name. Capital One's page states no posting time. Every one of these banks treats a transfer as final: Amex says it cannot be reversed, Chase calls partner transfers final, Bilt says transferred points cannot be reversed, and Capital One says there is no way to transfer miles back.

From a program price to bank points sent

A partner program's price is rarely a clean multiple of the bank's transfer step. Amex says that in most cases transfers are in multiples of 1,000 points, Chase says points can typically only be transferred in increments of 1,000, and Bilt requires 1,000-point increments with a minimum of 2,000 points for Blue status and 1,000 for Silver, Gold and Platinum. Capital One states a 1,000-mile minimum and no step size beyond it, so the table below assumes 1,000-mile steps. The assumption can only be checked on your own transfer screen.

The table runs the rounding on prices that appear in Aeroplan's chart, at a 1:1 ratio, for one traveler on one ticket. The leftover is not lost; it stays in the airline account. It is still a cost when the account is one you will not use again, because an Aeroplan balance cannot be moved back to the bank that sent it.

When rounding stops being trivial

For one seat the leftover is at most 999 points, a small amount against a 17,000-point price but a visible one against a 6,000-point short hop. It grows into a real question only when you book several tickets in separate transactions, because each transfer rounds up on its own. Two travelers on one reservation priced at 12,500 each need 25,000 points, with no remainder. The same two seats booked as two separate one-traveler tickets would need two transfers of 13,000, which sends 26,000 and leaves 1,000 stranded. Send one combined transfer for everything the reservation needs, then book.

The guide to moving points to an airline covers the mechanics of the transfer itself. The part that matters here is order: the seat is verified in the destination program's own search first, the transfer comes second, and nothing leaves the bank until the price in that program, with its fees, has been compared against the others.

What United prints about its own award prices

United's most recent public statement on award pricing is a newsroom release dated February 19, 2026. It says United cardholders get at least 10 percent off every United flight award ticket they book, and cardholders who are MileagePlus Premier members get at least 15 percent. Its examples are arithmetic you can check: an economy award priced at 15,000 miles costs 13,500 miles for a primary cardholder without Premier status, and a Polaris business class seat priced at 200,000 miles costs 170,000 miles for a primary cardholder with Premier status. It also says United will soon show the discounted prices to everyone.

Treat this as a program term, not a reason to hold any card; whether a card belongs in your wallet is a credit decision this site does not make. The reason it matters for a bank-points holder is narrower. A transfer from Chase or Bilt lands in your own MileagePlus account, and the price you see there depends on that account. If your account already carries a discount, the discounted number is the MileagePlus number to compare. If it does not, the public number is.

The same release describes Saver Awards as United's lowest priced award tickets and says currently about a third of flights that have Saver Award fares have exclusive inventory just for cardholders and Premier members. That affects the comparison in a way the release does not resolve: it does not say whether partner programs see the cardholder-only inventory. So the search in the program you intend to book through is the only evidence for that program. A seat on united.com is not proof of a seat in Aeroplan, and a seat on Aeroplan is not proof of one on KrisFlyer.

The release's closing list of MileagePlus benefits includes miles that never expire, no change fees on flight award tickets, and miles pooling that lets travelers combine miles in a joint account. Those three are the terms to hold against the partner rules further down, because each partner program handles changes, expiry and combining differently. The United MileagePlus program page records the program's other rules.

Aeroplan's chart rows for United

Aeroplan's Flight Reward Chart, dated 2026-08, prints two kinds of price. For Air Canada and its select partners it gives a "starting at" price and a median. For all other partners it gives one flat price. United Airlines is named in the select-partner list, along with Emirates, Flydubai, Etihad, Canadian North, Calm Air, Bearskin and Provincial Airlines. So a United seat sits in the variable row, not the flat one. The chart explainer covers the pricing shapes, and the Aeroplan pricing walk-through prices an award from each column; this page reads only the rows a United flight can land in.

The chart's footnotes limit how far any number can be trusted. Points shown, including the median, are estimates for one-way travel and informational. The median is based on member redemptions with Air Canada and select partners from January 2025 through December 2026 as the chart words it, which means it blends Air Canada flights with United flights and is not a United-only average. Starting-at amounts are not guaranteed with all carriers. Points are based on the actual distance flown, and the number varies with the itinerary and with travel in high-demand periods.

The first table covers flights within North America, which is where most United domestic itineraries fall. Economy and business are shown with the flat all-other-partners price beside them for contrast.

Transatlantic United flights on the same chart

Between North America and the Atlantic zone, the chart shows the same two-column structure. The reading rule is the same too, but the gaps are far larger in business class, which is where a median is least useful for planning a single seat.

How to use a floor and a median together

Two readings of the tables are safe. The starting-at figure is a floor: the chart does not say any United seat is sold there on a given day, only that the chart's lowest level for that band starts there. The median is a planning figure for the blended population of redemptions behind it, which tells you roughly where the middle of the market sat, not where a particular United flight will price.

One feature of the tables is worth noticing. In the longest North America band, economy for select partners starts at 17,500 while the flat all-other-partners price is 22,500, so the variable column can start well below the flat one. In the longest Atlantic band, business for select partners starts at 110,000, level with the flat price, while its median is 141,900. The variable column can match or undercut the flat column at its floor and sit far above it at its middle. The column that looks cheaper on the chart is not necessarily the one that will be cheaper on a given day, which is why the search result decides and why a floor and a median are inputs rather than answers.

Because pricing follows the distance actually flown, routing matters before the date does. A nonstop and a connection between the same two cities can fall into different bands, and the search shows the price for each. Check the band against the flight's distance in the search result, then read both numbers in the chart.

The cash and rules Aeroplan adds to a United seat

Aeroplan's Flight Reward Policy lists charges and conditions that sit on top of the points. Booking online costs nothing. Booking through the Contact Centre costs a non-refundable $30 CAD fee, charged even when a reservation cannot be completed online. For any reservation that includes a flight operated by an airline other than Air Canada, a $39 CAD partner booking fee is charged per ticket. A reservation may also include a U.S. Tax Recovery Fee, and the policy gives no amount for it. Cash amounts are quoted and charged in Canadian dollars.

For comparison, this guide converts at an assumed C$1 = US$0.72, a stated input and not a live rate. At that input the partner booking fee on one ticket is $28.08, and on two tickets $56.16. Use the CalculatorVillage CAD to USD converter at calculatorvillage.com/calculators/conversion/currency/cad-to-usd/ for the current figure. Taxes on a fare paid wholly in points can be paid wholly in points or wholly in cash; on a points-plus-cash fare they must be paid wholly in cash. The award taxes guide walks through the government charges that survive on any award.

Aeroplan terms that change what a United award can do

Read together, the conditions below make an Aeroplan-ticketed United seat a different product from the same seat in MileagePlus, even when the flight is identical. The guide to cancelling an award flight covers where redeposited points go; the point to carry from it is that they return to the Aeroplan account, not to the bank that sent them.

• Points leave the Aeroplan account when the reservation is made, and a Flight Reward must be ticketed immediately. The points have to be in the account before you can book, so the bank's posting time sets how long the seat stays unverified in your head.
• Waitlisting a Flight Reward is not permitted, so a transfer made to join a queue buys nothing.
• The reservation must be in the traveler's full legal name as it appears on the passport, and name changes are not permitted once the ticket is issued. A United record booked for a family member through your account follows the same rule.
• Changes and cancellations can be made up to 2 hours before departure; after that the ticket is forfeited and no longer valid for travel or point reinstatement. Fees are in Canadian dollars and depend on the fare option: the policy's table runs from no fee to C$175 for a Contact Centre cancellation. Which fare option a United seat carries shows at booking.
• Stopovers are not permitted within Canada, the United States or China, so a US domestic United itinerary cannot be turned into two stays. A single reservation permits up to 6 flight segments per direction.
• Aeroplan members and members of partner programs are ineligible to earn points or miles when travelling on a Flight Reward. A United award ticketed through Aeroplan earns no MileagePlus miles.
• Codeshare flights are not eligible for Flight Rewards unless permitted, and eligibility on partner airlines is subject to the partner airline's restrictions.

KrisFlyer: a round-trip chart cut in half

Singapore Airlines publishes its Star Alliance award chart as a round-trip chart, effective November 1, 2025, with figures in thousands of KrisFlyer miles. Its notes say the chart is valid for flights operated by Star Alliance member carriers, or in combination with flights operated by Singapore Airlines, and that a one-way award requires half the number of miles shown. KrisFlyer's terms add a condition: the one-way price applies only when the one-way itinerary includes no stopover. This guide quotes no cell from the chart. The chart is a grid of region pairs, and the cell for your own pair, North America to North America for a US domestic United flight, is the number to read. The KrisFlyer bank-transfer guide prints the North America row of that grid, halved to one-way prices, for all twelve zones.

The halving is simple arithmetic. If a cell for your region pair read 40 for a round trip, that would mean 40,000 KrisFlyer miles, and a qualifying one-way award would need 20,000. A hypothetical like that is for the method only. The grid prices a region pair and a cabin, so it does not move with the date the way a dynamic program's price does, and it does not distinguish between flights inside the pair.

Singapore's redeem-miles page describes two award types, Saver and Advantage. A Saver award requires fewer miles but is popular and availability may be limited. An Advantage award requires more miles and offers a choice of more seats on all flights. Singapore's adjustment notice says its charts changed for tickets issued on or after November 1, 2025, including a 5 percent increase in Saver rates across all cabins for flights to and from Europe and the United States. Tickets issued before that date keep the old level.

KrisFlyer's terms list conditions that matter for a United booking. Waitlisting is not permitted except on Singapore Airlines operated segments. A maximum of six travel segments are allowed per itinerary. If an itinerary mixes classes, the award level for the highest class applies to the whole ticket. Complimentary stopovers are not permitted on one-way awards, or if the itinerary is only between the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Taxes, fees and any fuel or other surcharges imposed by the partner airline are collected in US dollars at ticketing. KrisFlyer miles cannot be combined with any other means of payment, and all the miles for an award must be earned by the same member under the same account number.

Changes work differently from Aeroplan's. The terms allow changes to the destination or airline on an issued ticket only if travel has not commenced, and those changes require reissuance at a service charge; the amount sits on a separate Service Fees page this guide does not quote. For Basic, Elite Silver and Elite Gold members KrisFlyer miles expire after three years, so a transfer made well before use carries a clock that MileagePlus miles do not.

KrisFlyer is reachable from Amex, Chase and Capital One in the bank table above, and not from Bilt. Its terms also say that if a Star Alliance airline does not appear in your online search results you can contact Singapore Airlines, and that service fees for Star Alliance redemptions done offline are waived in that case. They do not say United appears in the online search, so whether it does is something only the search shows. The phantom award space guide describes the two-screen test for exactly that situation.

LifeMiles: three banks reach it, the search sets the price

Avianca LifeMiles is the third partner door. Amex reaches it at 1,000 to 1,000, Capital One lists it among its 1:1 partners, and Bilt lists it at 1:1. Chase does not list it. Star Alliance's earn-and-redeem page names Lifemiles among the member programs, so it sits inside the same network as MileagePlus, Aeroplan and KrisFlyer.

This guide prints no LifeMiles price or fee, because the program's pricing is shown in its own search for your dates and its terms are not quoted here. Treat that as a gap to close before you transfer, not as proof that no rule exists. Read the total on lifemiles.com for the exact flight, add whatever cash it shows, and put that result in the same worksheet as the other three doors. A program you have not priced should not be the program you transfer to.

One seat, four prices, two travelers

What follows is an arithmetic illustration, not a live fare or award price. Two travelers fly one way on a United-operated nonstop of about 2,600 miles, economy, on one reservation. The cash fare is $378 each, $756 together. Government taxes and fees are $11.20 per ticket in every program, an input chosen to be in the range of the charges described in the award taxes guide. Aeroplan adds the $39 CAD partner booking fee per ticket, converted at the assumed 0.72.

The MileagePlus prices are inputs: 25,000 miles per traveler at the public price, and 22,500 for an account carrying a 10 percent discount. The Aeroplan prices come from the chart band for 1,501 to 2,750 miles: the median of 17,000 and the starting-at price of 12,500. Every ratio in the bank table is 1:1, so the bank points sent equal the program points, rounded to 1,000 already. Chase's ratio is the stated 1:1 input.

Reading the four results

Cents per point is the cash fare for both travelers, minus the cash that survives, divided by the bank points sent. For the Aeroplan median that is ($756 minus $78.56) divided by 34,000 points, which gives 1.99 cents per point. For the public MileagePlus price it is ($756 minus $22.40) divided by 50,000 points, or 1.47. Against a 1.60 target the ranking splits: public MileagePlus fails, the discounted MileagePlus price clears narrowly at 1.63, and both Aeroplan prices clear comfortably.

The partner fee is real money, $56.16 across two tickets, and it still does not change the ranking here. It would on a cheaper flight. Take a 400-mile economy flight with a $120 fare, one traveler. Aeroplan's chart starting-at price for that band is 6,000 points, and the $28.08 fee on one ticket is nearly a quarter of the fare. The calculation, ($120 minus $39.28) divided by 6,000, gives 1.35 cents per point, which fails a 1.60 target. If MileagePlus showed the same 6,000 miles with only the $11.20 in taxes, the result would be 1.81 and would pass. A small fare turns a fixed fee from a rounding error into the deciding term.

The result also depends on which side shows the lower number on the day. If the Aeroplan search shows 25,000 points per traveler where MileagePlus shows 17,500 miles, the ranking flips: ($756 minus $78.56) divided by 50,000 gives 1.35 for Aeroplan, and ($756 minus $22.40) divided by 35,000 gives 2.10 for MileagePlus. The table is a structure for the comparison, not a prediction of it. Put your own two numbers in, keep the cash that survives on each side, and let the cents per point show you the winner. The booking test calculator runs the same formula for one booking.

A business seat: how the displayed price moves the result

Premium cabins make the floor-and-median gap matter most. Take one United-operated transatlantic business seat, one way, in the 0 to 4,000 mile band. The cash fare is $2,900 in this illustration, taxes and fees are $120 in every program, and Aeroplan adds its $39 CAD partner fee at the assumed 0.72, $28.08. The chart's starting-at price for this band is 60,000 and its median is 133,800. The table shows the cents per point at four displayed prices, with and without the partner fee, so you can see the fee's weight at this scale.

What the business table says

At 60,000 the seat returns 4.59 cents per point with Aeroplan's fee and 4.63 without it, a difference of four hundredths. At the 133,800 median, with 134,000 points sent, it returns 2.05 and 2.07. At this scale the $28.08 fee moves the result by cents in the second decimal, which is why the fee decides economy hops and barely touches business long-haul. What moves a business result is the displayed price, which can sit anywhere between a 60,000 floor and a 133,800 median in the same band.

Transferring to the median means sending 134,000 points to cover 133,800, leaving 200 in the account. If the seat is the only reason for the transfer, the leftover is trivial. If a stranded 200 would block a later booking, the two-bank booking guide covers topping up from a second balance. Whatever the displayed price, a business seat is the case where checking the other doors is worth the time, because a 20,000-point difference is a much larger share of a balance than the fee.

What each door allows after ticketing

The table collects the post-booking rules the programs print. It lists only rules from the pages read on October 22, 2026, and a program missing from a row simply has no rule quoted here.

Choosing a door by bank

Read the table above by the bank in your account, and keep one rule fixed: the search comes first. The decision path for each bank is short.

• Amex holders have no MileagePlus option. Search Aeroplan, KrisFlyer and LifeMiles for the flight, price each in cash that survives, and compare. The Amex partner guide covers the excise tax offset fee, which is charged for transfers to a US airline program and so does not arise for these three.
• Chase holders can compare MileagePlus, Aeroplan and KrisFlyer. Chase's guide says transfers are final and most process by the next business day, up to 7 business days, which is the longest window any of the four banks states; leave room before a booking you cannot delay. The Chase partner guide sets out the full list.
• Capital One holders have Aeroplan, KrisFlyer and LifeMiles at 1:1 and no MileagePlus. The Capital One partner guide lists the rest of its partners and their ratios.
• Bilt holders have MileagePlus, Aeroplan and LifeMiles at 1:1, and Bilt's article recommends confirming availability with the partner before transferring and considering a hold. The Bilt partner guide explains the two timing statements.
• Citi holders should read their own transfer screen first; the public page does not name these programs.

Before the first point moves

The order that protects a balance is the same for any of the four doors. Find the United flight and fare in cash. Open the search in every program your bank reaches, and write down the points price, the cash on top and the ticketing rule for each. Compute cents per point on the bank points that would leave your account. Send one transfer that covers the whole reservation, wait for it to post, and book while the seat is still there.

If the decision comes down to two close results, choose the door with the cleaner after-ticketing rules for the trip you are taking: a trip likely to change deserves the program whose change terms you have read. For a seat on the board right now, the next read is the phantom award space checklist and its two-screen test, which fits this page's four-door comparison exactly. For the wider map of programs a US bank can reach, go back to the airline programs hub.

Checklist

• Write down the United flight, date, cabin and cash fare.
• List which of the four programs your bank reaches from the issuer's page.
• Search each reachable program for the same flight and record points, cash and fees.
• Convert any Canadian-dollar charges with a stated rate and note it.
• Check the program's ticketing, change and waitlist rules for the trip.
• Compute cents per point on the bank points sent, using the transfer ratio on your own screen.
• Send one transfer for the whole reservation, then book once it posts.