How to protect your MileagePlus miles while you are alive
There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a MileagePlus account. While the account holder is alive, United Airlines allows transfers to another member, gift purchases and family pooling.
United Airlines decides requests about MileagePlus miles after a death case by case, so nothing in its terms promises a survivor anything; what the account holder sets up in advance is what holds. There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a MileagePlus account. While the account holder is alive, United Airlines allows transfers to another member, gift purchases and family pooling.
How to protect your MileagePlus miles
- •Redeem for flights on United, United Express, Star Alliance and partner airlines
- •Book award flights for family members using your own miles
- •Use miles for seat upgrades, hotel stays, car rentals, merchandise or experiences
- •Gift or transfer miles to another MileagePlus member through the Buy or Transfer Miles program, at $7.50 per 500 miles plus a $30.00 processing fee per transaction
Naming who acts after a death
- Designation
MileagePlus has no beneficiary mechanism; there is no way to name who receives the miles at death.1
What United Airlines's terms say about sharing and transfers7
- Pooling with family
MileagePlus offers free miles pooling. Any member 18 or older can start a pool as its leader and invite other members, family including children or friends, up to 5 people in a pool; every member can contribute miles and the leader can authorize members to redeem.2
A member belongs to one pool at a time and loses the pool miles on leaving. Miles added can be removed within 24 hours, then cannot be reversed or moved back to an individual account, and pooled miles do not pay for Money + Miles tickets.2
- Family plans and household sharing
Pooled miles redeem for award travel on United, United Express and the 42 partner airlines United lists; Emirates and flydubai are limited to select flights, and Hawaiian Airlines pooled redemptions to interisland flights.2
- Gifting and purchases for others
Members can gift or transfer miles to another MileagePlus member through the Buy or Transfer Miles program.3
- Transfers to another member
Transfers of 500 to 100,000 miles to another member cost $7.50 per 500 miles plus a $30.00 processing fee per transaction, plus taxes and fees.4
- Fees
Purchased miles cost $35.00 per 1,000 miles, with a minimum purchase of 2,000 miles, plus taxes and fees.4
- Authorized users and delegates
The rules bar delegating or granting access to a MileagePlus account to a third party, by power of attorney, contract or otherwise.1
- Expiry and activity requirements
Miles have no time-based expiry: mileage is held in the account until it is redeemed for an award or forfeited under one of the triggers the rules list.1
Should you save your passwords for your family?
Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:
- Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
- It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
- Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).
Sources
Data sourced from United Airlines primary sources (6 pages reviewed). How we research.
MileagePlus customer support
MileagePlus Customer Service
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