FlyerfolioMiles and membership
English

Status: checked against official sources; automated independent review

GUIDE

How to Transfer Airline Miles to Another Person

Transferring airline miles to another person means moving award miles out of one frequent-flyer account and into a different member's account, or giving miles as a gift, rather than spending your own miles on an award ticket for someone else. American Airlines lists a "Buy, gift or transfer miles" area within AAdvantage [1].

Facts checked: 18 October 2026

Key takeaways

  • The AAdvantage page reviewed lists a "Buy, gift or transfer miles" entry in its navigation [1]. That page gives no fee, minimum, cap or processing time for transfers or gifts [1].
  • The Delta transfer URL returned "404 - Page Not Found" on 18 October 2026, so no Delta SkyMiles transfer terms were retrieved and the Delta position is not established from the sources [3]. The United pages reviewed cover partner earning and award booking; they do not address transfers, so no conclusion is drawn about whether MileagePlus offers a transfer facility [4] [5] [6] [7].
  • Miles credit to the account whose membership number is on the booking: United asks members to add their MileagePlus number to the reservation and to have it on the boarding pass at check-in [4] [5] [6] [7].
  • Keeping the miles and spending them on an award is the route the sources do describe: award flights on the partner airlines checked are booked online or through reservations, and award tickets cannot be issued at the airport [4] [5] [6] [7].

The account the miles land in

United's MileagePlus pages for Virgin Australia, Turkish Airlines, Thai Airways and TAP Air Portugal all describe the same crediting step. A MileagePlus member earns award miles and Premier qualifying credits (PQP and PQF) on eligible flights by adding the MileagePlus number to the reservation and making sure that number is on the boarding pass at check-in [4] [5] [6] [7]. The instruction is tied to the membership number in the reservation and on the boarding pass. These are partner earning pages; they do not describe moving miles already in an account to a different member [4] [5] [6] [7].

That distinction matters when the aim is to help someone else.

Details not established by the sources

For a transfer, the useful details are who may send and who may receive, whether the two account names must match, the fee, the smallest amount that can be moved, any yearly ceiling, and how long the miles take to appear. The AAdvantage page shows the navigation entry but does not give these details [1]. The United pages reviewed cover partner earning and award booking; they do not address transfers [4] [5] [6] [7]. The Delta URL returned a "404 - Page Not Found" on 18 October 2026, so no Delta transfer terms were retrieved and no Delta position can be stated from these sources [3]. Treat each point as unknown rather than as zero, and do not carry a rule from one programme across to another.

Because these details are not established, a transfer cannot be planned from these pages alone. Check the programme's own current transfer terms on the day you intend to act, and work through the questions on the transfer points checklist before confirming anything. If miles you expected to see in an account have not appeared, the steps on missing miles claim deal with credit that has gone astray.

Booking an award for someone else

For MileagePlus, regular award flights on Virgin Australia, Turkish Airlines, Thai Airways and TAP Air Portugal can be booked online or by calling the reservations line [4] [5] [6] [7]. Service charges may apply, depending on the type of ticket, the travel dates and the member's MileagePlus status [4] [5] [6] [7]. Award tickets cannot be issued at the airport [4] [5] [6] [7].

Exceptions and limits

  • Same programme, different airline. The United partner pages carry their own earning conditions, so a fare class that earns on one partner may earn nothing on another. On Turkish Airlines-operated flights bought outside United, fare classes F, G, I, N, P, R, U, W and X earn no MileagePlus miles [5]. On Thai Airways-operated flights, for travel on and after 1 July 2026, classes E, I, L, O, N, R and X earn none [6]. Flights operated by AJet are not eligible for mileage accrual or redemption [5].
  • Dated earning rules. For tickets issued on and after 2 April 2026, a general MileagePlus member earns 3 miles per dollar on tickets bought directly from United, against 5 miles per dollar for tickets issued before that date [4] [5] [6] [7].
  • What sits outside this page. Moving credit card points into an airline programme is a different transaction and is not covered here. Household or family pooling is separate and is described under family points sharing; this page concerns transfers between frequent-flyer accounts.
  • No transfer figures. The AAdvantage page gives no fee, minimum, ceiling or timing [1]. The Delta transfer URL returned "404 - Page Not Found" on 18 October 2026, so no Delta terms were retrieved [3], and the United pages reviewed do not address transfers [4] [5] [6] [7]. There is therefore no transfer exception table to compare across the programmes from these sources.

Sources

Sources accessed on 18 October 2026. Other programmes are not covered, and credit card points moved into airline programmes are outside this page.

  1. American Airlines: Buy, gift or transfer miles, checked 18 October 2026
  2. Delta Air Lines: transfer-miles URL returned "404 - Page Not Found", checked 18 October 2026; no Delta transfer terms retrieved
  3. United MileagePlus: earn miles on Virgin Australia, checked 18 October 2026
  4. United MileagePlus: earn miles on Turkish Airlines, checked 18 October 2026
  5. United MileagePlus: earn miles on Thai Airways, checked 18 October 2026
  6. United MileagePlus: earn miles on TAP Air Portugal, checked 18 October 2026