Best cards that earn United miles

Featured cards

All 6 cards that earn United miles, with what each one is actually best at. Tap any card to jump to its row.

1. 1 United Gateway Card — Best overall for earning United miles: 2x on gas, no annual fee — 2.5¢ back per dollar
2. 2 United Business Card — Best for business spending: 2x on travel, $150 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar
3. 3 United Explorer Card — 2x on hotels, $150 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar
4. 4 United Quest Card — 2x on travel, $350 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar
5. 5 United Club Business Card — 2x on travel, $695 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar
6. 6 United Club Infinite Card — 2x on travel, $695 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar

Ranked by real value, not multiplier

Headline rate is each card's best bonus rate that pays anywhere in its category. A rate that only pays at one brand or through one portal (14x at Hilton, 8x on United fares, 5x via Chase Travel) is printed in grey and excluded from the ranking — it is a loyalty rate, not a category rate. Real value is the headline rate × 1.25¢.

Co-brand rates — only at their own brand

9 brand-locked rates across these cards. Each is real if that is where you spend — United Business Card really does pay 8x at United, worth 10.0¢ per dollar at our 1.25¢ value — and pays nothing extra anywhere else, which is why none of them set a card's headline rate above.

What United miles are worth

We value United miles at a conservative 1.25¢ per point — the same number the optimizer scores your charges with, and deliberately not the best-case figure a points blog would quote. United miles live inside one airline's programme — powerful for that airline's awards, and worth nothing anywhere else. Above a penny, so a point here beats a cash-back point — if you redeem near that value.

Full United miles valuation and methodology →

Which one should you carry?

On paper United Gateway Card earns the most per dollar at its headline rate, and it charges no annual fee. A headline rate only pays on the category it names, so the card that earns you the most United miles is the one whose bonus categories match your actual spending — which is the whole reason we built the optimizer instead of a top-ten list.

How we rank

One arithmetic rule, applied by code to our maintained card database. There is no editorial pick, no hand-ordering and no sponsored slot.

• Printed earn rate. Each card's best non-portal bonus rate — its headline rate — as printed by the issuer. Where a card has no bonus category, its base rate is used instead, and the table says which.
• Conservative point value. Every rate is multiplied by our conservative 1.25¢ value for United miles, the same number the optimizer scores real spending with. Because every card here earns the same currency, that value cannot change the order — it sets the scale, and it is what lets you compare this page against a guide for a different currency. Every point value we use, published →
• Annual fee. Printed against every card and used to break ties. The best fee-free earner is United Gateway Card at 2.5¢ per dollar.
• Caps and limits. Where a headline rate stops after a spending cap, the cap is on the card's own page. Check it before treating a high rate as your everyday rate.
• Pool and cutoff. 221 open US cards are in our database; 6 of them pay out in United miles and qualify. All 6 are ranked above; there is no cutoff on this page.
• Rotating and pick-your-own categories. Kept out of the headline ranking, because they only pay in the right quarter or with the right election. Issuer-travel-portal-only rates are excluded for the same reason: they pay only if you book through the portal.
• Commission. The ranking code has no access to which cards pay us a commission — the ordering function never reads the affiliate file. Any apply link is attached after the order is already fixed, so it cannot move a card up or down. How that works.

Full methodology, including how each point value is set: how we value points and rank cards →

Common questions

More guides

Every guide on this site is built by the same code from the same card database, so the numbers on one page mean exactly what they mean on another. Jump sideways:

All 70 best-card guides → · Best card for a specific store or bill →