Share Your United Miles with Friends and Family—Here’s How to Do It

United Airlines has unveiled two new tools designed to simplify your travel experience.

These updates allow up to five individuals to connect their MileagePlus accounts and freely share some or all of their miles, along with an app feature that alerts you when your desired seat becomes available. United stands as the sole major U.S. airline offering these capabilities.

Here’s what you should know about United’s latest two programs.

What is the process for United’s mileage pooling program?

With the new MileagePlus pooling program, groups of up to five individuals can connect their accounts to share award miles within a single account. There are no restrictions on whether group members must be related—any small assembly (including family, friends, coworkers, etc.) can create a pool.

Setting up a miles pool is completely free, as is the sharing of miles. The only stipulation is that the pool leader (the individual who initially creates the pooled account) must be at least 18 years old, while other members can be of any age, provided they have an active MileagePlus account (which can be set up by a parent or legal guardian for those under 18). Members can contribute any amount of miles they desire, but those miles cannot be withdrawn afterward.

To create a pool, the pool leader simply logs into their MileagePlus account and selects “Create a miles pool.” They can then invite other members by entering their email address, MileagePlus account number, and date of birth. Once the invitations are accepted, the new members are added, although everyone must wait three days before utilizing shared miles. Only the pool leader (or a member granted redemption rights by the pool leader) can redeem the miles. MileagePlus members can only belong to one pool at a time, and if a member leaves, they cannot join another pool for 90 days. Additionally, no new members can join the pool during that 90-day period.

As noted by Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet, United’s decision to permit pooling provides its loyal members with greater flexibility.

“This could create more opportunities for families, where parents might possess a substantial mileage balance accumulated over the years,” French explains to Dinogo. “Parents can combine miles with their children to book award flights—even if the child hasn’t amassed many miles yet. This also minimizes the chances that miles will go unused. Many loyalty rewards end up wasted due to a lack of opportunities to utilize them. This update reduces that risk.”

It's important to highlight that pooled miles can only be utilized for flights operated by United; at present, booking seats on partner airlines within the Star Alliance, such as Air Canada or Turkish Airlines, is not an option.

Programs that enable loyalty members to pool their points are rare in the airline industry. Currently, United stands out as the only one of the 'big three' U.S. airlines (the others being American and Delta) to provide this feature. In the United States, the only other airline allowing all loyalty members to do this is JetBlue, through its TrueBlue program, which permits up to seven individuals to pool miles at no cost. (Other airlines like Hawaiian, Frontier, and Spirit restrict pooling to those with elite status or branded credit cards.) Globally, carriers such as Air Canada, Emirates, Air France, and KLM offer similar options, though some may stipulate that all participants must reside together and be related.

How does the new seat alert feature from United function?

United has introduced another exciting feature: an alert system that notifies you when your preferred seat becomes available, making it the sole U.S. airline to offer this service. If the seat type you want isn’t accessible at the time of booking, you still have a chance to secure it later if it opens up—this can happen when another passenger changes or cancels their reservation, freeing up the seat without any additional action needed from you.

Through United’s mobile app, travelers can specify their preferred seat type. If that seat becomes vacant up to 12 hours before your flight departs, United will automatically upgrade you to that seat. This feature is applicable for window, middle, aisle, exit row, or bulkhead seats within your service class. However, you cannot reserve a seat in the back of the aircraft and then request an upgrade to a business-class seat.