Earn Up To 35,000 Airline Miles (United, Spirit) When You Borrow Money With Prosper

The Offer

Prosper have partnered with a number of airlines to offer you “free” miles when you borrow money with them. If you’re unfamiliar with Propser they are a peer to peer lending platform (similar to LendingClub) that allows individual lenders and borrowers to conduct transactions.

You’ll earn 1 airline mile per $1 you borrow and there is a cap of 35,000 airline miles ($35,000 in borrowing). Some airlines are also offering you 200 free airline miles just to check your rates (no hard pull).

Participating Airlines

• Spirit Airlines. 1 mile per $1 borrowed and 200 miles for checking your rate.
• United Airlines. 1 mile per $1 borrowed

The Fine Print

• No hard pull is done when you check your rates, a hard pull will be done when you commit to borrowing
• Valid until April 10th, 2015
• Must be a US resident & be over the age of 18
• Miles will be deposited within 6 to 8 weeks after the loan proceeds are deposited into an eligible participants bank account

Our Verdict

This offer doesn’t really make any sense to participate in unless you actually need a loan, you’re able to get more than 35,000 miles from a credit card sign up bonus and both of these will affect your credit but at least with a credit card you don’t need to go into debt and pay interest.

I guess technically you might be able to take a loan out and immediately pay it back, but I am sure Prosper charges a penalty for doing this which would likely wipe out the value of this offer. I’ve experimented with peer to peer lending before (on the lending side) and found that the fees charge wipe out any potential for a good return on investment. I haven’t used these sites on the borrowing side, so I can’t comment on what the interest rates are like.

If you’r desperate for 200 Spirit miles I guess checking the rate won’t really hurt, but I doubt it’s worth the time involved.

Hat tip to View From The Wing for alerting me to the Prosper/Spirit offer