Call a Lifeguard? United Airlines Introduced a Points Pooling Program — Then Didn’t?

On Thursday afternoon, United Airlines announced a program allowing MileagePlus members to pool their miles with friends, family members, colleagues, and anyone else into a “shared reservoir of miles. It’s more than just pooling miles — it’s pooling dreams, destinations, and experiences.”

But then, a web page explaining how the program works (or was supposed to work?) suddenly disappeared.

Did they need to retract something? Was it announced too early? Did a crush of people so excited to pool their points cause the site to crash? Did United have an exclusive with a website?

Who knows.

But here’s a screenshot of a Facebook post that United originally issued:

As of this post’s publishing time, we get this message when visiting the Miles Pooling page:

But the press release is still live. (In case it’s taken down, I have it here for posterity.)

Based on everything I saw before things went weird, here’s what I learned.

United Points Pooling

Here’s the gist of what was first in place:

• Any MileagePlus member at least 18 years old can start a mileage pool. That person is the “pool leader.” They can invite any other MileagePlus member — including children — to join the pool. MileagePlus members can be members of only one pool at a time.
• Pools can have a maximum amount of five people. (So, maybe this is actually more of a points hot tub?)
• Participants may contribute any many points as they want to the pool. If they leave that pool, they forfeit whatever miles they tossed in. There are no fees to transfer points. (*ahem*)
• The leader manages the pool — and can authorize pool member mileage redemptions.

Initial Reactions

There are some things I really like about this concept and others I don’t.

The Good

First, not applying transfer fees is great.

Second, this is so convenient for some families (whether they are official or “unofficial.” We count a couple of very close, trusted friends as family.) For example, I’d love it if my wife, daughter, father-in-law, mother-in-law, and I could pool our Delta SkyMiles together. It would make booking trips so much easier than having five separate accounts.

The Bad

Here’s where I can see some things going sideways.

First, you need a trustworthy team leader who won’t abscond with the miles. I can see some groups turning into a Bernie MilesOff scheme for some folks.

Next, some employers might learn how many miles their employees earn on trips – and then somehow make them transfer those miles into a pool.

Final Approach

United Airlines may or may not allow MileagePlus members to pool their points into groups of five people or fewer.

Developing…

H/T: #Moist