One of the best ways to earn airline miles is by leveraging shopping portals to earn miles on your everyday spending. All you have to do is click through the portal before you shop or install the browser extension, and you’re on your way to earning points from the comfort of your desk.
Most major airlines have their own shopping portal — so in this guide, we’ll take a closer look at United MileagePlus Shopping and how you can use it to earn United miles.
What is United MileagePlus Shopping?
Online shopping portals partner with many retailers to reward you for purchases you already make. MileagePlus Shopping currently offers over 1,100 merchants, so chances are your favorite store participates.
The amount of miles you earn is based on the merchant you shop with and how much you spend. Earning rates can change day to day, and they may vary depending on what you buy.
For example, at the time of writing, Macy’s offers 1 mile per dollar on furniture, lighting, mattresses and products sold by third-party sellers and 3 miles per dollar on everything else. However, some categories are excluded from earning miles, like gift wrapping and purchases made through the app.
That means if you purchase a new shirt for $25, you’ll earn 75 miles toward your next trip.
Sometimes you can earn far more. Take FTD.com Flowers & Gifts, whose current offer through the portal is 20 miles per dollar.
If you order flowers online for birthdays, graduations or other special events, you could rack up some serious miles with this offer. Spending $100 on flowers would yield 1,500 United miles, worth $20.25 per TPG’s April 2025 valuations.
However, it’s important to note that retailers on the MileagePlus Shopping portal have their own restrictions on what purchases earn miles through the portal. Make sure to check these terms and conditions to ensure the items you are purchasing are eligible for the promotion. For example, Apple often restricts its newest devices from earning miles through shopping portals until a few months after launch.
Daily Newsletter
Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter
Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG’s experts
Getting started with MileagePlus Shopping
Ready to start earning miles? All you need is a United MileagePlus account.
Sign up for MileagePlus Shopping
MileagePlus Shopping is integrated with United’s MileagePlus loyalty program, so there’s no separate registration required for the portal. Just head to the MileagePlus Shopping website and click the “Sign in” button at the top of the page.
Then, sign in using your United frequent flyer credentials. If you don’t have a MileagePlus account, you can create one through the link at the bottom.
Shop through the portal or browser extension
Once logged in, you’ll be greeted with thousands of offers from various retailers. You can search for your merchant of choice using the search bar at the top of the screen or click “Explore stores and more” to browse by category or offer. You can also click the heart icon on a merchant to save it as a favorite.
Click on the retailer you want, then click “Shop now” to be redirected to the merchant’s website. From there, you can log into the merchant’s site, fill your cart and check out. But if you navigate away from the merchant’s site at any point before making your purchase, you’ll need to revisit the MileagePlus portal to reactivate mileage earnings.
If this is your preferred shopping portal, you may want to install the MileagePlus Shopping browser extension to make mileage-earning more seamless. Once you add it to Google Chrome, a pop-up will appear whenever you are on a website that participates in MileagePlus Shopping. Just click the “Activate” button before you check out.
Related: Download these 4 shopping portal buttons to amplify your earnings
Earn more miles with promotions
Shopping portals sometimes offer spending-based bonuses, especially around holidays. These are often based on your cumulative spending across all merchants by a certain date. For example, you might be able to earn 500 bonus miles when you spend at least $100 in 14 days.
These promotions can be extremely lucrative. For instance, going back to our Macy’s example, let’s say you spent $100 on clothing. You’d earn 300 miles (3 miles per dollar) plus 500 bonus miles for a total of 800 miles. That’s an excellent return of 8 miles per dollar. And don’t forget you’ll earn additional rewards when you pay with a rewards credit card.
Related: How to get maximum value from the United MileagePlus program
Link your card to earn miles in-store
Earning extra miles isn’t limited to online shopping. United MileagePlus Shopping partners with select retailers for in-store earnings, too.
To see where you can earn miles in-store, click “Explore stores and more,” then under “Shop by offer,” click “In store offers.” You can browse featured offers or enter your location to search for nearby stores.
To earn miles in-store, you must click “Link offer” and shop within the specified time frame. You must also pay with the credit card linked to your MileagePlus Shopping account. To add a credit card, head to “My account,” scroll down and click “Manage your in-store credit cards.”
When it comes to in-store shopping with United MileagePlus, your options are much more limited, but it’s worth checking to see if you can earn some miles on your next store visit.
Related: The best store credit cards
Tips and reminders
Although using MileagePlus Shopping is fairly simple, it can take a few tries to use the portal seamlessly. Keep the following in mind:
- If using the portal on a laptop or mobile device, make sure to click “Shop now.” Visiting the retailer’s website directly will cause you to miss out on miles.
- Similarly, when using the Google Chrome plug-in, be sure to click “Activate” when alerted by the pop-up.
- Only use promo codes listed on the MileagePlus Shopping portal; others may make your purchase ineligible for miles.
- Browsing in “incognito mode” or “private browsing” won’t allow purchases to be tracked because cookies are disabled. Additionally, incognito mode on Google Chrome doesn’t display extensions such as the shopping button.
- Only one shopping portal can be used at a time. For example, you cannot earn miles with MileagePlus Shopping and AAdvantage eShopping at the same time. Doing so will activate one portal while deactivating the other.
- To find the best rate across your favorite portals, we recommend using a shopping portal aggregator.
Related: The best credit cards for United Airlines flyers
Bottom line
Using the MileagePlus Shopping portal is an effortless way to rack up United miles on your everyday purchases. You can maximize your earnings by taking advantage of shopping portal promotions, linking in-store offers and stacking rewards with what you earn on your credit card.
There are several other creative ways to earn United miles, like trading in unwanted gift cards and shopping through the MileagePlus X app. The more miles you earn, the sooner you can redeem them for free United flights.