United MileagePlus

1.76 cents per point: the median of 12 cash-versus-award pairs read off the program's own booking engine on 2026-09-08, the cash side logged out, the award side from Ryan's signed-in session the same day — united.com prices awards only to a member. 8 routes across 5 bands of nonstop block time (A, B, C, D, E), all departing 2026-10-20 one way: LAX–SFO, EWR–ORD, IAH–DEN, ORD–SFO, EWR–LAX, EWR–LHR, SFO–NRT, EWR–GRU. For each route the flight sampled is the airline-operated nonstop with the lowest economy award price that day, and the award and the cash price both come from that one flight. The award prices are Ryan's, read signed in: united.com serves cash to anyone and awards only to a member, so the recorded URL is the cash search and the award price is that same result page with "Show price in: Miles" selected. The economy comparator is the higher of the two columns united.com labels "United Economy" — it shows two, a lower and a higher, and names neither Basic, so the higher is paired on the reasoning R39 used for Main Cabin and the lower is recorded without being given a fare-family name the page does not give it. The business comparator is Polaris business on the four routes that sell it. Premium Plus and domestic First are recorded and excluded: the index page compares economy-plus-business medians, and counting premium economy would move United from 1.76 to 1.57 cents against figures built the other way. The divisor is the standard member price throughout; the "Cardmembers pay" line, 10% lower, is recorded in the session file and used nowhere. Each pair is (cash fare minus award taxes) divided by award points. Economy alone medians 1.77c and business alone 1.09c. Every figure is a live price on a bookable date, and it will move. The rows themselves are on this page above, with the search that produced each one.