United Miles Pooling: How it Actually Works (2024)

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Back in March, United made headlines by allowing travelers to pool their United miles with friends and family for free – albeit with a little bit of a rocky start.

With this new feature, up to five MileagePlus members can share and redeem miles for free from a joint account – and they don't have to live in the same household … or even be related. Plus, each member can decide individually how many miles to kick in to share with the group: You don't have to share your entire balance of miles just because you join a pool.

Other airlines like British Airways, Emirates, and even JetBlue have long allowed members to pool their points and miles – but this is a first among big U.S. carriers. Before this new feature rolled out, the only way to share miles with someone else was by completing a costly transfer that rarely made sense.

Gone are the days when your child's or partner's miles are stuck in limbo in their account: Now, a family can use all those earned points and book together, making this a big win for traveling families. Just be warned, there are a few catches with this new miles pooling feature that makes setting up your family's pool ahead of time a near necessity.

Here's everything you need to know about pooling United miles.

How Does Miles Pooling Work?

Miles pooling allows two or more MileagePlus members (up to a maximum of five members) to contribute and combine miles to a single shared account. These miles can then be used to book award flights for members in the account. Combining miles allows members to enjoy awards faster or share miles between family members or close friends.

Each member can decide individually how many miles to kick in to share with the group: You don't have to share your entire balance of miles just because you join a pool. While pool leaders must be at least 18, there's no age requirement for other members to contribute miles.

Once a pool is created, the pool leader can contribute miles to it right away. Other members will have to wait 72 hours after joining a pool before they're able to add or redeem miles. The pool leader is also the only one who's automatically able to redeem pooled miles, but they can also give redemption authority to other members of the pool.

Not only is this new feature especially useful for families looking to combine their miles together for a single redemption, but it also allows pool members to take advantage of certain benefits that are exclusively available to individual members.

For example, my wife holds a United co-branded credit card which gives her access to expanded saver award availability – the lowest priced award flights you can book. Now with mileage pooling, I can combine my United miles with hers and book from her account in order to get better awards.

There's only one major limitation: When redeeming pooled miles, you can only use them to book United and United Express-operated flights– not on United's many Star Alliance partner airlines like Lufthansa, SWISS, All Nippon Airways (ANA), and others.

Setting Up a Pool

To set up a miles pool, the pool leader will need to log into their United MileagePlus account and navigate to the “My United” account overview page. You can find this by clicking your initials in the upper right-hand corner of the screen or by going to the MileagePlus tab up at the top.

Once you're on the “My United” page, you'll want to click “MileagePlus” from the left-hand menu and then choose “Miles pooling.”

Click on “Create a pool” to get started. Next, there will be a few pop-ups with all the ins and outs of miles pooling to help you better understand what you're getting into.

Once you've created the pool, you'll be swimming by yourself until you invite your friends and family to come join you. In order to invite others, you'll need to have their MileagePlus number, email, and date of birth.

Once you hit “send invite,” they'll be notified by email that you've invited them to join to pool and can accept the invitation.

Adding Miles

Once the pool is set up, any member can contribute miles to the pool but only the pool leader will be able to manage those miles and authorize others to make a redemption.

Adding miles to pool is super simple, and will be accessible under the same miles pool tab you initially used to set the pool up. One you get to the miles pool page, you'll see your existing pool there and be able to click on “Add miles.”

A box will pop up displaying your current mileage balance and allow you to type in how many miles you want to kick into the pool. Once you type in a number, it will show you your new balance, as well as the new pooled miles balance. Next you'll click “Add miles” one more time before getting a final chance to review your choices.

You'll notice that there is a small but important warning on this screen. Any miles that you add to the pool are pending for 24 hours.

This means that if you're just now going to pool your miles together for a great award, there's a chance it could be gone by the time your miles become available. And remember, if you're just setting up a pool for the first time, it'll take 72 hours before new members can add or redeem miles, period.

While this part is mildly annoying, it's likely meant as a guard rail to keep MileagePlus members from abusing the system by buying and selling miles to people they don't really know.

To the north, Air Canada Aeroplan's Family Sharing program has been shut down for nearly a year due to widespread fraud. Those concerns are part of the reason why this feature hasn't spread to the other U.S. airlines, whose loyalty programs and credit card relationships are massive financial engines.

One last spot-check is the final step in adding miles to a pool and if everything looks OK, you'll go ahead and hit “Confirm transfer.”

One nice thing about the 24 waiting period is that during this time you're able to cancel your mileage pool addition by going to your “Recent Activity.” In most cases when you transfer miles, it's a one-way street after hitting confirm. But if you change your mind during this cooling-off period or if you all of a sudden need to use those miles for something else, you can cancel and regain access to them in your individual stash immediately.

After 24 hours, the only way to get your miles back from the pool to your individual account is to close the pool. But depending on how many miles you contributed, you may not get them all back. Once the pool is closed, the pooled miles will be divided up equally among the pool members.

Redeeming Miles

When it comes time to redeem miles, you can just start an award search directly from United's homepage, the same way you would if you were using your own individual miles. Or if you're already on the miles pool page, you can select “Redeem miles” right next to the “Add miles” button.

Just remember that only the pool leader can redeem pooled miles and authorize redemption privileges to other members.

Once you select a flight that works, you'll see a banner at the top of the checkout screen, letting you know whether you're using your own individual miles or pooled miles. All you need to do is select “switch account” to toggle between the two options.

In my experience, it seems like the default option is to use the MileagePlus member's individual miles, instead of pooled miles – no matter where you're beginning your search.

Note that if you don't have enough miles in your pool for the full ticket price, you won't be able to mix and match with your own individual stash of miles.

In this case, you'll need to have someone in your group contribute more miles to the pool before booking (and wait 24 hours), or solely use your own individual miles instead.

Miles Pooling FAQs

How soon after creating a pool can I use the miles?

This is perhaps the biggest hang-up with United's miles pooling and something to be very aware of when joining and contributing miles to a pool.

For the pool leader, miles can be contributed as soon as the pool is created. All other pool members have to wait 72 hours after joining a pool until they can use pooled miles or contribute miles to the pool. After transferring miles into the pool, all members of the pool, including the pool leader, will have to wait 24 hours before the miles are available to use for booking flights.

Should you add all your miles to the pool?

Since there's a 24-hour waiting period before being able to use pooled miles it might seem like a good idea to proactively add all your miles to the pool so that you're able to use them when you want.

While that's a good idea in theory, there's a big limitation you need to keep in mind: Pooled miles can only be used to book flights on United and United Express. This means if you find an awesome business class award flying Star Alliance partners to Europe like Swiss or Lufthansa, your pooled miles won't do you any good.

Once they're in the pool, the only way to get them back to an individual account is to close the pool. And when you do that, they're divided up equally amongst all pool members.

Can I join more than one pool?

No, you're only allowed to be a member of one pool at a time. If you leave an existing pool, you'll need to wait 90 days before joining another.

What happens if you leave a miles pool?

If you decide to leave a miles pool, all miles that you've contributed to the pool will be forfeited and stay with the pool to be used by the remaining members.

Once you leave a pool, you are unable to join another one for 90 days – and no new members are able to join the existing pool for 90 days either.

Can you close a miles pool?

Yes, when you close a miles pool, any remaining miles will be equally divided amongst the members and all members will need to wait 90 days before they can join another pool.

What happens if the pool leader leave a miles pool?

Yes, if the pool leader leaves the miles pool, it is dissolved and any remaining miles in the pool will be distributed equally amongst the remaining members’ accounts in the pool at the time it was dissolved, including the pool leader.

This will result in closing the miles pool.

Can I redeem pooled miles for someone else?

Yes, the pool leader and anyone given redemption privileges can redeem for anyone – including members not in the pool.

Bottom Line

United's new(ish) miles pooling feature allows two or more MileagePlus members (up to a maximum of five members) to contribute and combine miles to a single shared account. These miles can then be used to book award flights for members of the group … or anyone else, for that matter.

This is no doubt an awesome feature that will help families pool miles together for a common trip, but there are a few rules in place that could lead to headaches for some.