Today only: One-way United fares as low as $39 or 3,900 miles

In case you missed it, today is National Plan for Vacation Day. To celebrate, United Airlines is offering a flash sale with one-way flights as low as $39 or 3,9000 miles to travel throughout the U.S.

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Deal basics

Airlines: United.
Routes: To/from BNA/BOS/CHI/DFW/EWR/HOU/LAX/SFO and others.
How to book: Directly through the airline, no promo code needed.
Travel dates: Feb. 7–May 18, 2022.
Book by: Today only — Jan. 25, 2022.

Sample flights

Flights featured in this deal start at just $39 or 3,900 MileagePlus miles each way, including:

• Nashville (BNA)–Chicago (CHI).
• Boston (BOS)–New York (EWR) and Washington, D.C. (IAD).
• Chicago (CHI)–Saint Louis (STL).
• Detroit (DET)–New York/Newark (EWR).
• Houston (HOU)–New Orleans (MSY).
• Los Angeles (LAX)–San Francisco (SFO).

Be sure to search for basic economy seats in searching this deal, which is the carrier’s most restrictive fare.

If you’re hoping to redeem miles for this deal, you might have to play around with your departure time to ensure you are getting the saver award of 3,900 miles. Note that $5.60 in taxes and fees are not reflected in the mileage price shown.

Related: United Airlines is about to resume its longest flight — for now

United allows their basic economy passengers one personal item that fits underneath the seat. You can pay $25 at the gate to check a full-size carry-on or $35 to check a bag, at which point, you may want to consider upgrading to economy.

The advertised deal is for one-way fares only, but you could book two tickets separately and stack the two to take full advantage of the deal on both legs of the trip.

If your dates are flexible, be sure to check out United’s flexible fares calendar to view the lowest fares for the month, as shown below.

Maximize your purchase

Don’t forget to use a card that earns points on airfare purchases, such as The Platinum Card® from American Express (5 points per dollar on airfare booked directly with the airline or through American Express Travel), on up to $500,000 on these purchases per calendar year, Citi Prestige® Card (5 points per dollar on airfare), Citi Premier® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve (3 points per dollar on airfare), American Express® Gold Card (3 points per dollar on airfare when booked directly with the airline or through Amex Travel) or the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (2 points per dollar on travel). Check out this post for more on maximizing airfare purchases.

The information for the Citi Prestige Card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Bottom line

For the $39 fares, using cash versus miles would save you $11 in value based on TPG valuations of United miles. Be sure to use TPG’s Awards vs Cash Calculator to determine the best use of miles versus cash for other deals.

Act now because this deal will be gone by the end of today!

Featured photo of United airplane landing at EWR on Jan. 19 by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.