Estimate your potential United MileagePlus earnings.
Estimated Annual MileagePlus Miles Earned
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Understanding the United Mileage Calculator
This calculator helps you estimate the number of United MileagePlus miles you can earn in a year based on your typical flying habits and your MileagePlus status. Earning miles is a core benefit of loyalty programs like MileagePlus, allowing members to redeem for flights, upgrades, and other rewards.
How Mileage is Calculated
The calculation involves several key factors:
Number of Flights: The total number of one-way flights you anticipate taking annually.
Average Flight Distance: The typical mileage of your flights. Longer flights generally earn more miles.
Base Mileage Earning Rate: This is the fundamental rate at which miles are earned per mile flown. For United, this is often a 1:1 ratio for standard economy fares, but can vary with fare class or promotions. For this calculator, we use a general rate.
Premier Status Bonus: United MileagePlus has elite tiers (Premier Silver, Premier Gold, Premier Platinum, Premier 1K). Higher tiers receive a bonus percentage on miles earned, further accelerating your mileage accumulation.
The Formula
The formula used by this calculator is as follows:
Total Annual Miles = (Number of Flights * Average Flight Distance * Base Mileage Earning Rate) * (1 + (Premier Status Bonus / 100))
Let's break this down:
The product of Number of Flights, Average Flight Distance, and Base Mileage Earning Rate gives you the base miles earned before any elite status bonuses.
The Premier Status Bonus is expressed as a percentage. We convert it to a decimal by dividing by 100 and add 1 (to represent the original 100% of earned miles) to get a multiplier. For example, a 25% bonus becomes 1.25.
Multiplying the base miles by this multiplier gives you the total estimated miles earned, including your elite status bonus.
Use Cases
Planning Rewards: Understand how quickly you can accumulate miles for a desired award flight or upgrade.
Evaluating Loyalty: See the potential mileage benefits of flying with United and its partners.
Maximizing Earnings: Identify factors that contribute most to mileage accumulation, encouraging strategic travel choices.
Budgeting Travel: While not a direct cost calculator, understanding mileage earned can inform the perceived value of a flight purchase.
Disclaimer: This calculator provides an estimation. Actual mileage earned may vary due to fare class, specific airline partner agreements, fare rules, promotional offers, and changes to the MileagePlus program. Always refer to United Airlines' official MileagePlus program terms and conditions for the most accurate information.
function calculateMileage() {
var flightsPerYear = parseFloat(document.getElementById("flightsPerYear").value);
var averageDistance = parseFloat(document.getElementById("averageDistance").value);
var baseMileRate = parseFloat(document.getElementById("baseMileRate").value);
var premierStatusBonus = parseFloat(document.getElementById("premierStatusBonus").value);
var resultContainer = document.getElementById("result-container");
var totalMilesElement = document.getElementById("totalMiles");
// Input validation
if (isNaN(flightsPerYear) || flightsPerYear < 0 ||
isNaN(averageDistance) || averageDistance < 0 ||
isNaN(baseMileRate) || baseMileRate < 0 ||
isNaN(premierStatusBonus) || premierStatusBonus < 0) {
alert("Please enter valid positive numbers for all fields.");
resultContainer.style.display = 'none';
return;
}
var baseMiles = flightsPerYear * averageDistance * baseMileRate;
var bonusMultiplier = 1 + (premierStatusBonus / 100);
var totalMilesEarned = baseMiles * bonusMultiplier;
// Format the output to a whole number of miles
totalMilesElement.textContent = Math.round(totalMilesEarned).toLocaleString();
resultContainer.style.display = 'block';
}