【Updated 2024.3】This mileage-sharing feature is now officially live, and you can start creating a pool and sharing miles. Note that there is a 90-day cooldown each time you switch groups, so if you plan to change later, it’s best to add people before you need to use it.

About the UA Mileage Pool

UA has now also published information about its mileage pooling feature, though it looks like some of the intro content has been taken down.

The previously saved introduction is below:

  • The pool leader must be at least 18 years old and can invite up to 4 other people to join, with no age limit for those members. Pool leader must be 18+ but can invited up to 4 other people to join of any age (total of 5 people in the pool)
  • A person can only join one group at a time. You can only participate in one miles pool at a time
  • If you want to switch groups, you need to wait 90 days; if someone leaves a group, you need to wait 90 days before adding a new person. You need to wait 90 days between leaving a pool and joining a new one. If your pool was full (5 people) and one person leaves, you need to wait 90 days before adding a new person
  • Miles shared within the group can only be used to book UA or UA Express flights, and cannot be used for upgrades, seat assignments, food, Wi‑Fi, etc. Pooled miles can only be used to book United and United Express flights. Pooled miles cannot be used to purchase upgrades, seat assignments, onboard food and beverages, inflight Wi-Fi access or anything else
  • Elite status is not affected by the mileage pool. Contributing miles to a MileagePlus miles pool will not affect an individual member’s Premier® status.
  • Only the person actually flying can earn elite-qualifying metrics; other than miles, nothing else can be pooled. Only members who travel on a ticket using pooled miles will earn any eligible Premier qualifying points (PQP) , not the member who contributed them. Members cannot pool PQP, Premier qualifying flights (PQF) , PlusPoints, or TravelBank cash.

Our Take

Overall, UA is the first of the big three US airlines to launch a mileage pooling feature. The restrictions on entering and leaving a pool are probably meant to prevent mileage trading, and if pooled miles can only be used for UA’s own flights (it is still unclear whether international awards can be booked), that cuts down a lot on the resale potential, since the best redemption value for UA miles is often on international partner awards. But for ordinary users—especially families with members traveling between the US and China—this mileage pool is very useful. It lets families combine miles earned from their flights and use them together, instead of letting miles sit unused until they expire. Even if the miles can only be used for domestic US flights, actually using the miles is better than having them rot in your account.

Besides UA miles themselves, UR points can also be transferred to UA. But UR transfers between accounts have fairly strict limits, so now that UA miles can be combined, this indirectly makes UR points easier to use as well.

If you are planning to buy or sell miles, it is probably best to sell all the miles in an account in one shot, since both adding and removing members come with a 90-day cooldown. It’s unclear whether opening small throwaway accounts to receive UR, then adding those miles to a pool and selling them, would trigger any red flags.

Earlier News

According to DOC, an insider said that UA might launch a Mileage Pooling feature, allowing friends or family members to combine miles for use.