Need Shoes? 21X United Miles @ Shoe's.com

A few days ago, I saw an email from United offering 21x miles for purchases at Shoes.com. This offer is only for those with United Mileage Plus Credit Cards. Otherwise, its been reported that payoff is 15x miles per $1. To earn the points, you have to log-in to the United Mileage Plus shopping portal.

I didn't think about it much about the email. United sends them all of the time and I tend to glance at them. That changed last night when I looked at my dress shoes:

My plan was to buy new black dress shoes next month, but 21x points per $1 is a great deal. I decided to move up my purchase. I am a big Johnson & Murphy fan, so I bought two pairs of their shoes. One for good weather and another for not so great weather:
                                            
In addition, until 8/31, you can get 20% off of your entire order plus free shipping.

Typically, you can not use codes and earn miles. However, this one comes from the United website and per the terms and conditions, this code is allowed:

Unfortunately, my shoes were not eligible for the discount. Therefore, my shoe purchase earned me 5,460 United miles - $260 x 21 = 5,460

I am trying to earn 75,000 United miles in the month of August, so this purchase goes a long way.
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Investments

United Airlines has partnerships with Fidelity and ShareBuilder that allows MileagePlus customers the opportunity to earn miles for signing-up and investing money with these companies. The amount of miles you can earn is determined by the amount of money you have to invest. The good new is between the two companies there is an option for people at all investment levels.

For those who have $25,000+ to invest, Fidelity's offer is better.

Fidelity currently offers MilagePlus customers the opportunity to earn up to 50,000 Mileage. The current offer is tiered with those investing $25,000 to $49,999.99 earning 15,000 miles, $50,000 to $99,999.99 earning 25,000 miles and $100,000+ earning 50,000 miles.

The terms and conditions state that you must open a new non-retirement account or add new money to an existing brokerage account. Those opening a new account have 60 days to transfer the funds to earn money; while those adding new money to an existing account have 30 days to make the transfer to qualify for the miles.

For those with significantly less money to invest, like me, Sharebuilder is the offer to look at.

The current offer from ShareBuilder is 2,000 miles after opening a new account and making your first trade.

The offer does not have restrictions on the type of account, other than it being an investment/brokerage. You can open up general investment, retirement or custodial accounts.

Also, unlike the Fidelity offer, there is no minimum investment required. However, you will need enough money to complete your first trade; therefore, you could call that the minimum investment.

I would be remiss not to give a warning here. Investing money comes at a cost. Each of the companies charges to make trades on your behalf. Please look at the cost sheet before making the decision to sign-up for either promotion. If, like me, you are in the market to start investing money, these are good (not great - I have seen better) offers to use.

Happy Investing!


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 Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com