BP – United Partnership
BP has partnered with United to offer bonus miles on every fillup:
- Get 3 miles per gallon when filling up on premium gas, provided you link the credit or debit card
- Get 2 miles per gallon on other fillups, provided you link the credit or debit card
- Get 1 mile per gallon without a linked card
This mileage bonus offer is instead of the cash BP Driver Rewards offer of $.10 off per gallon after having spent $100. (Readers note that it’s really $.01 cent off per gallon per $10 spend completed.) When comparing the United bonus to the $.10 Driver Rewards bonus, the United one is a bit simpler since it’s just a straight earn on the purchase, without the need to redeem it on the next fillup.
200 Miles Signup Bonus
There’s also a 200 United miles signup bonus for those who select United MileagePlus miles as their reward type in their Driver Rewards account and have linked a form of payment to their account. To earn the bonus, you must then make a fuel transaction at a participating BP station that earns MileagePlus awards miles.
Redeem United Miles for Gas
Another interesting thing here is that this is a new partnership offers a new way to redeem United miles.
- Use 60 United MileagePlus award miles per gallon for $0.50 off per gallon on a maximum of 20 gallons (for a maximum of $10 off) per fuel purchase.
To be eligible to use miles at participating BP stations, you must have an eligible form of payment linked to your Driver Rewards account and have at least 1,200 miles in your MileagePlus account at the time of purchase. Then, you’ll pay 60 miles per gallon pumped and get $.50 off per gallon.
Yeah, the value is poor, but it might be the best almost-cash redemption option out there. Until now the best cash-out option to ‘cash out’ United miles is buying gift cards from the MPX app at .64% value. This .833% value is a bit higher and for some this is closer to cash (depending if your local BP is well-priced).
Our Verdict
We wrote about this last week, but a lot of the details were wrong since the offer wasn’t live yet. For someone who uses BP a lot this could amount to a nice bonus by getting 2x per gallon. Just be sure to link your regular gas cards (you can link more than one card), else the earnings will probably be just 1x. And as mentioned, it can also be a redemption option for someone who can’t use the miles for travel.
Wait a minute…60 United miles for $0.50 off per gallon on up to 20 gallons gives you $10 savings for 60 miles or 16.66 cop. How is this a bad value? Don’t know if it stacks, but if you’re using say a United card , which earns 2x on gas, plus 3x from the BP card link program, that’s 5x United miles per dollar. At $2.50 a gallon that’s 250 miles for a 20 gallon fill-up. This seems like a tremendous value!
I signed up a few days ago and used the linked card Monday night for gas. Today I got the 200 point bonus and 3x points for the gas. I put in about 6.5 gallons and it appeared on United as 7 points for “Premium Fuel Bonus’ and then 13 points for “BP Premium fuel Purchase”. I don’t spend much on fuel so I never focused on getting a card that gives a great return on gas. The supermarket I frequent does not have a gas partner either and there are two BP stations that I pass on a regular basis. So while I realize this might not be the best way to maximize gas purchases it is a welcome addition for me. Plus I live in a United hub so I will use the points for flights.
Yes, I called up the customer service number and asked if they prompt for any security info at the pump and she said NO. She said they (the thief) would have to know that you signed up for Fuel Rewards and your telephone number! And I thought to myself, and everyone in the customer support center knows / has access to my telephone number. I promptly deleted my linked credit card immediately. Not worth the 200 miles bonus.
I may be wrong, but I think after entering the phone number, you still need to insert a credit card to pay for the fuel. The phone number is only used to identify you so that the rewards points can go to your account. That said, I have not yet tried it out at the pump.
Security Alert: If you link your credit card, there is no password / security protection. All one needs is your telephone number to access and fill their tank !
Is this true?
So this is better than FR Gold, assuming equal prices (I have both where I live) which is at 5 cents per gallon off, it seems.
With BP, you have to buy at full price 30 gallons and earn 2x United points per gallon. Assuming the $.50/gal applies to the next fill up of up to 20 gals, you’d save ~$10 on 50 gallons. Versus 5 cents per gallon for 50 gallons for FR, you’d save $2.5 for 50 gallons.
So i guess my question is… is 100 (2 x 50) United miles worth >= $10?
But then again, I also go to Giant Food a lot… oyy, this is making my head hurt.
BP GC can be bought at ~0.9 discount quite regularly，which beats the extra 1/ or 2 miles per gallon rebate
You can currently earn the cents/gallon discount with gift cards. Not sure if you could earn miles, but even if you could you wouldn’t get there bonus for using your linked card.
Right, it’ll be 1x United instead of 2x if you use gc.
Are you sure? Does it actually say pay with your linked card or just have a linked card to earn an additional mile
Not sure
This is actually a decent/easy option to extend mileage expiration date.
My thought exactly
I normally fill up Regular. So for 1 gallon, I’m earning either $0.10 or 2 United Miles. 2 United Miles are approximately worth $0.03-$0.04. Am i missing something? Seems like the cash is much better option outside of the $100 threshold.
Don’t you earn 10 cents off per gal. (up to 20 gal.) for every $100 spent?
If yes, it means that after you spent $100 in cash you will get maximum (if you fill up exactly 20 gal) $2.
And with miles after you spent $100 (assuming $2.5/gal = 40 gal) you will get 80 miles.
For me miles will work much better – especially since I never fill up 20 gal.
It’s $0.01 per gal earned for every $10 in gas purchases, or $0.10 per gal for every $100 spent. If you fill 20 gal it comes to 2% cashback and if you do 15 it’s 1.5% cashback, etc.
When earning cents off/gallon, it doesn’t actually make you reach the $100 threshold to use the rewards. For example, after I fill up for $30, I have $0.03 cents off/gallon to use next time.
I think I’ll stick with earning cents/gallon
I see, so then it’s 2% cash discount instead of 2x United. Yeah, cash might be better for a lot of people, except that miles is easier in that it doesn’t have to be redeemed. Also, if you fillup less than 20 gallons during the redemption, you’re value is less than 2%. Let me update the post.
You have 365 days to use your cents off reward, so all you have to do is skip redeeming except for when your tank is almost empty, and even that could be just 1-2 times a year.
I think these rewards are a tad misleading, because something like $0.03 off/gal is isn’t actually 3%, because it’s off per gallon and not per dollar. If gas is $2.50/gal where you are, $0.03 off/gal is actually only 1.2% off. And it also depends how much gas you fill up on?
Or maybe I’m doing the math wrong.
EDIT: Oh, it’s effectively a discount off the initial purchase, and then it also depends how many gallons you purchase. I misread a lot of the comments here.
BP ruined the Gulf of Mexico. No more safe seafood. No more business from me.