MileagePlus X

I’ve been using this app for the past week specifically to purchase gift cards — which is the most reliable way to secure your miles on in-store purchases without worrying about whether a retailer link properly tracks. Smart strategy, right? Except the app won’t let me do it. Every single attempt to purchase a gift card results in a denial. No clear error message, no explanation — just a dead end. I’ve done my homework: verified my account settings, confirmed cookies are enabled, and even followed the workarounds circulating on Reddit and travel miles forums (delete and reinstall, turn off Wi-Fi, toggle settings back and forth). None of it works consistently, and none of it should be necessary in the first place. The real-world impact is real: I’ve been left standing at checkout, holding up the line, unable to complete a purchase because the one reliable method the app offers doesn’t function. That’s embarrassing and completely avoidable. This isn’t a fringe bug — search any travel rewards forum and you’ll find pages of users hitting the same wall. United, this needs to be a priority fix, not a workaround users have to crowdsource themselves. The concept is solid. The execution is broken. Please fix the gift card purchase flow so the app actually does what it promises.

I have been using the MileagePlus app for years. What I usually do is anytime I’m going to purchase anything I double check and see if the vendor is on the app. If I was going to spend money anyway buying from that vendor, I always go through the app and get miles for it, no matter how small the amount, my miles have been adding up. I think this is a great app if you are like me and travel occasionally, but do a lot of shopping and there are a lot of different vendors as options so anyone is bound to be able to use lots of them. I have all my payment info and I have never had a security issue with this app, and I’m very happy that I have never had an issue using any of the gift cards purchased to make payments anywhere that I go shopping. this is the best mileage earning app, and I think it puts United at the forefront of this type of service.

Spent way too much time last night trying to purchase e gift cards for the holidays from merchants in the Mileage Plus X system. The major problem seemed to be its inability to process credit card payments. First it suggested I use my Mileage Plus credit card from Chase, which I tried. Then it rejected that credit card (no problems noted by Chase). Next I tried to enter another Chase credit card, but even when the form was filled in completely, there was no way to accept it and move forward. Also tried another brand credit card unsuccessfully. Later, I purchased the gift cards using one of the same credit cards directly on line with the same merchants but totally outside the app. The app also was annoying in demanding access to my location. As I was trying to make an on line purchase, I resisted this. Yet, I reluctantly tried to purchase with location granted, and it told me there were no stores in my vicinity. (Dah, I was traveling outside the US.) I continued to the e-gift card selection at my desired merchants, only to run into the same credit card stumbling block. My impression is that most people will use the app for on line purchases, not at physical stores. So is the app just poorly thought out or an attempt at cheap software development without thorough testing, including a beta version? By the way, the App Store says the recent update was for bug fixes, presumably solving them! (There’s another review months ago listing similar credit card problems.). My impression is United should scrap these software developers and start over. This really leaves a bad taste.