United Airlines is now allowing members of its MileagePlus loyalty programme to pool their miles with family and friends into a joint account.
Groups of up to five MileagePlus members, whether relatives or friends, can now share and redeem miles in one linked account.
While the member creating the pool (the “pool leader”) must be over the age of 18, there is no minimum age for the four remaining members since the free-to-join MileagePlus does not have age restrictions.
When logged into their MileagePlus account, members will find out more on how to contribute miles to the group pool, as well as how to redeem pooled miles for award flights on United and United Express.
There are no limits to the number of miles contributed to a pool, and pooled miles can be used when booking a ticket on United.com or via the mobile app.
Note that contributing miles to the pool will not affect an individual members’ Premier status. 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.
As an example, United said:
“If a group of friends is planning an upcoming summer getaway and each friend has their own individual MileagePlus accounts with their respective number of miles, they can combine all, or a select amount of their personal miles into one central ‘pool’ that can be used to purchase flights and offset the cost of ticket prices.”
Luc Bondar, chief operating officer of MileagePlus, commented:
“MileagePlus miles pooling further reinforces United’s position as the leader in family and group travel and gives our members more flexibility to use their miles while making it easier to connect to the destinations and moments that matter most, with the people that matter most.”
US carrier JetBlue also allows up to seven TrueBlue members to combine points, while Frontier Airlines allows eight members to pool points.
