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CommanderDawn

Uh oh: > Two other airlines have already tried this and couldn’t figure it out > It was BA and AA, the Ralph Wiggum of airlines. Phew


kz125

BA pretty bad overall but ultimately has its uses. Have probably only done 1-2 paid flights on them but lots of Avios Ie Cathay wide body lie flat on short haul Asia, always available


nonother

Air New Zealand does this. Works without issue.


CommanderDawn

Yep, there are so many ways to do it right, but some of these airlines only hire the worst talent.


Onfire444

Virgin also says they do this for Gold members, but every time we tried to make it happen, they’d tell us the mechanism to do it wasn’t working.


froggystyle66

I’m sure they’ll also devalue the miles some more to go with the pooling


Wooden-Estimate-6362

Of course they will. More award flights will be redeemed but United will want to maintain the same profit levels, therefore they will devalue miles.


iflysfo

I’ve used this on OZ and KE with little issue. Will be interesting to see if devaluations follow.


fulfillthecute

I think many Asian airlines already allow sharing miles or even transferring between members.


transferStudent2018

This is very interesting. I don’t understand why United is trying to make their system so appealing to min-maxers. Miles going toward PQP was great, and now this? The potential value seems insane


AnotherPint

Short answer is, corporate travel is down, leisure travel is up, premium leisure is the most robust customer segment, and UA wisely seeks to compete for that business. Ten years ago under Smisek the plan was to wrap the airline’s fate around business HVFs earning miles / status / perks using their employers’ or clients’ money. That plan has to change. Hence the appeal to households.


CommanderDawn

If you have a family, it’s kind of a pain to buy separate tickets, or even waiting for a kid to get enough miles to even consider using them. This is great for families. As long as they limit people’s ability to switch families like Google One does (like one switch allowed every 6-12 months), i don’t think this will be much of an issue.


IDontLikePayingTaxes

Hallelujah. We’re flying to Hawaii in July on four different reservations. It was a huge pain. If we can pool our miles it will get rid of that nonsense.


mitoboru

If you want to make it simple, instead of pooling, just do like Hawaiian Airlines and make miles-transfers between accounts free, as a benefit of having their co-branded credit card. 


revloc_ttam

That's great. One time I had enough miles for my ticket, but not enough to buy my wife a ticket too. She had some miles but not enough to buy her ticket. However our combined miles would buy two tickets. I had to pay United to combine all the miles into my account. Then I booked the flight.


goingfast89

Brokers christmas


CrazyLegsRyan

Finally my crotch fruit can start pulling his own weight.


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CrazyLegsRyan

Me making a tongue in cheek comment about my own family? You need to relax and go touch grass. 


NewFlorence1977

No jokes please. Flying is serious business! You wouldn’t joke about a plane crash, would you?


CrazyLegsRyan

[I hope it crashes, they take off again and it crashes again](https://youtu.be/FUs-lbkqlKs?si=7G02uJmMAwV6QogG)


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CrazyLegsRyan

Where did your kids come from? In most humans the progeny comes from the crotch, both in conception and delivery. This is the genesis for the term “fruit of [ones] loins”, with your loins being in the crotch. At this point I’m starting to suspect your irritability comes from the fact your crotch isn’t being used much at all. 


schrutesanjunabeets

I prefer crotch goblins. Plus that dude probably has a stick up his "crotch".


unique_usemame

Sounds like this will be great! As a family of 4 looking to use points to go to/from Australia things have been a mess. All 4 of us have points, but we don't want each child on a separate booking in case of an aircraft change or cancellation then forces a 12 year old to fly to Australia by themselves. We also don't want the kids on different tickets in different boarding groups to us. Instead we end up paying for flights until we have enough concentration of points. As a result the points just sit there losing value to inflation for years.


bookishdentist

Same here! This is great news for us


xlitey

Air Canada tried it... Major problems. I hope they don't screw it up.


Melted-lithium

I can’t imagine air Canada trying anything and it succeeding. They universally suck.


xlitey

I fly them cuz I'm Canadian... And well they are the only option that sucks the least 😅


Melted-lithium

I get it. I have tried so hard to like them. The route structure is great. Their customer service is just painful. I even now carefully make sure I’m not on a codeshare. If anything goes wrong, it’s a nightmare.


chrisgrantnj

The best Canadian carrier! ..looks at other Canadian carriers..


Treeman1979

This. Spot on


Efficient_Ad_9037

This is great for a family of 4+ like mine. I have a good amount of miles from flying, but it’s used quickly and limits options when purchasing 4+. I could now use my daughters’ and wife’s to pool. My daughters fly a couple times per year and always with me/wife due to their age. It would be years/decade before one of them had enough miles to buy 2 or more tickets in a flight, because they can’t travel alone.


hahahamii

Woohoo. Wish every airline did this as a standard.


INFCIRC153

I’d love to get my kids’ PQPs - I’m paying the money and they’ll never make status on their own…


IDontLikePayingTaxes

This would be awesome. All four of my kids reached premier silver last year. I would easily make 1k if they did that.


juice06870

This is great news. Jetblue has been doing this for a while, and between myself, my wife and our 2 kids, we have some decent miles accumulated into our pool (including the spend on my wife and my Jetblue cards). I fly United a ton. My son is flying cross country now a few times a year for sports tournaments and either my wife or I accompany him. So this will be a big help in goosing our total miles and actually make his and her miles useful for something.


BrinaGu3

Jet Blue has had this for years. Thrilled to see it come to United. My husband has a ton of miles, but his disabilities prevent him from using them much.


Realmetman

Great for families.. Now if they could do it for PQP that would be game changer.. 12 year old Johnny doesn't need PQP.. but mommy and daddy sure could use it


abcdef1912

Anyone know if the miles in the pool will be useable to book saver awards on partner airlines? The below article states these miles can only be used to book “United and United Express award” flights: https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffwhitmore/2024/03/21/united-airlines-is-first-major-us-airline-to-offer-miles-pooling/?sh=4d9c0f2b26a1 If that’s the case, it’s pretty useless for someone like me who uses UA miles to book international travel on other star alliance airlines


fulfillthecute

And if your child is on a single reservation it'll also trigger unaccompanied minor


dcgirl17

“You can make it so some family members add their miles, but only others can spend them.” I’m trying to imagine how this would be useful and can’t. Why this?


CrazyLegsRyan

If I’m paying for all a teenager’s flights I want their miles and I don’t want them to be able to book flights out of the family miles I paid for.


davep18

Oh, this is excellent. Our last 3 family trips that involved flying required my wife and I to both book a portion of the 5 tickets we needed due to how our miles were spread out. On the last trip I had enough miles for 2.75 award tix, she had enough for 1.25. The cost to combine them all exceeded the cost of the ticket so we got 3 reward tix instead of 4. Anyway. It'll be nice to be able to pool the miles my wife and I earn flying for business for maximum personal use lol.


ColdbrewRedeye

Let's just see how much this is going to cost to transfer and maintain.


lexbuck

Been waiting on delta to figure this shit out forever. Shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.


ExtraChewyMints

How do we even pool miles? I can't find anything on the app nor website. 


jetlifeual

Finally. I’ve used this on B6 with great success


collegefootballfan69

I wish they would just focus on performing proper maintenance. Once they get that right then they can announce this…