United Airlines will begin allowing MileagePlus members to pool frequent flyer points in shared accounts.
Under the program, up to five people will be able to share and redeem frequent flyer points in a linked account. The feature will not apply to status accruals, which MileagePlus members still must achieve individually.
United briefly enabled the pooling feature on its website Thursday, but took it down on Friday morning due to technical issues. The carrier is now working to restore the functionality.
"We're always looking for new ways to provide the most value to all of our loyalty members and are proud to be the first major U.S. airline to allow our members to pool their miles with their loved ones and friends," said Luc Bondar, COO of MileagePlus.
To pool MileagePlus points, participants select a group leader, who can set up the group while logged into their account on United.com. The group leader can then invite up to four others to join.
Once a group is established, members will be instructed via their MileagePlus account on how to contribute frequent flyer points to the group as well as how to redeem points for travel.
United is the first network U.S. carrier to enable point pooling, but not the first mainline U.S. airline to do so. JetBlue, Frontier and Spirit already allow pooling.