The Offer
No direct link to offer, shows up when doing a dummy booking.
- Chase United Explorer is offering a bonus of $250 statement credit after your first purchase and 35,000 miles after $2,000 in spend within three months. The annual fee of $95 is also waived for the first year.
Card Details
- Annual fee of $95 is waived first year
- Chase 5/24 rule applies to this card
- 25% off in flight purchases when using your card (including WiFi and food/beverages)
- $100 Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 2 miles per $1 spend with United Airlines, restaurant and hotel purchases
- 1 mile per $1 spend on all other purchases
- Last seat availability
- Miles don’t expire
- Free checked bag when you pay with card (for 2 people)
- Priority boarding
- 2 Club passes per year
- No FX fees
Our Verdict
Standard offer is 40,000 miles. You can currently get 60,000 miles with a slightly higher spend requirement of $3,000. This is basically just $250 instead of 25,000 extra miles. Normally I’d say that almost everybody would prefer the miles, but given the current market conditions some people might prefer to bank some cash and still earn some miles at the same time. Most people won’t be eligible due to the 5/24 rule.
Hat tip to reader Jim S
Can the “first purchase” be NON-airfare and if not, how about NON-United?
The offer text on my screen says:
“Earn a $250 statement credit after your first purchase.* Plus, earn 35,000 bonus
miles after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months your account is
open.*
If you’re instantly approved you can use your card today to purchase your flight, and
the statement credit will post on the same statement as the purchase.
This card product is available to you if you do not have this card and have not
received a new Cardmember bonus for this card in the past 24 months.”
Note the “after your first purchase” and “if you’re instantly approved you can use your card today to purchase your flight…”. I couldn’t find the answers in the “Offer Details” text 🙁
Thanks in advance!
Could you apply for this offer then request a match to 60k?
You could try, doubt it will work. Chase usually doesn’t match offers when there is a statement credit attached.
I’d take cash over miles these days, if under 5/24.
I actually have 70000 miles or so to burn and just for curiosity i tried to see what value gift card i could convert it all to. Best i could find that was easy to use is walmart gift care. it was shy of 300$ value for over 70,000 miles. Unless you really want the miles. this offer might be better right now. chase 5.24 though.
I’m also interested in using miles to buy GC’s. I recall that the redemption rate is better if you have a Chase United card. If you don’t have one, the points value is very poor when redeeming for GCs
What is the true gift card redemption value nowadays? I remember 5yrs ago was $500 Home Depot GC for 50,000 points.
My experience was way lower. Maybe someone can chime in but i was seeing 200ish gc for 60000 miles. Maybe i was doing it wrong. lol
I was told if I spent 2000 the first 3 months I would get a 250.00 refund. They denied it and gave me miles instead, which are worthless because of covid.
This one might the be the most tempting of the 3 offers considering the cash back statement.