Big news for those who fly United Airlines—United now allows miles pooling! This is especially beneficial if you are traveling with someone with elite status who can book a better seat. For instance, I am Platinum Elite on United. My daughters and I are planning a trip this summer to Portugal. There is a very reasonable flight from the Azores all the way to Denver (with a stop in EWR) for only 40K United miles. I can book myself and up to 5 other people in an Economy Plus seat, so this works great for my daughters to send me their miles while I do all the booking.

This is also helpful if a couple wants to travel together and one person doesn’t have enough miles for a ticket, but another person has more than enough. By pooling their miles, they can both go.

In the past, you could transfer points to someone, but there was a fee to do so. This is a major advantage that I am so happy about.

How Pooling Works

This new feature can be used by friends and family alike. As long as you are a United MileagePlus member, you can pool miles with other members. Groups of up to five people can now share redeemable miles and apply the miles towards the price of an award ticket. There is no limit to the number of miles any member can contribute to an active miles pool.

One person has to be designated the leader, and they can invite up to four people to join the pool. The leader must be at least 18 years old.

First, visit the miles pooling home page, sign in, and select “Create a pool.”

Information will pop up about who can be in the pool and who can be a leader. Once you agree to the MileagePlus miles pooling terms and conditions, you can start your pool. On the next screen is where you start adding members.

The pending member has to accept the invitation to be added to the pool. The image below shows how it looked once my husband accepted the invitation to join my pool. Once members are successfully added to a pool, they can begin adding miles to the pool and redeeming miles from the pool.

This shows that my husband and I can now pool points. Yay!

Members can only participate in one mile pool, and when a member departs from a pool, they lose access to the miles in that pool. Pooled miles can be used to book United or United Express award tickets only. Pooled miles cannot be used to purchase upgrades, seat assignments, onboard food and beverages, inflight Wi-Fi access, or anything else.

Bottom Line

United now allows miles pooling, which has made it much easier for family and friends to travel together. I have United elite status, so it is nice that my daughters can pool their points with mine, and I can book Economy Plus seats for all of us. What are your thoughts about this?