United Airlines Makes Gifting Lounge Passes Nearly Impossible

Buried in the numerous updates from United Airlines yesterday, you may have missed a negative change for one-time passes to visit a United Club lounge at the airport.

Going forward, gifting these passes to other travelers will be nearly impossible.

Here’s what you should know about the changes to lounge passes on May 1, 2025.

Changes to United Club One-Time Passes on May 1

Cards like The New United℠ Explorer Card and The New United℠ Business Card offer cardholders a pair of one-time passes each year, valid for visiting a United Club. You can’t bring any guests when using these passes, but since you have 2 of them, you can access the lounge twice by yourself or use a pass for yourself and use the other pass to bring a guest.

Previously, you could gift these passes to anyone you wanted. This was great for anyone with expiring passes who wanted to elevate a friend’s travel experience. “Hey, visit the lounge before your flight. Here you go!” It was a nice perk.

Unfortunately, that’s changing.

United’s website details changes to these passes, effective May 1, 2025. The new rules are as follows — we’ve reprinted the airline’s language exactly as it is on their own site:

• One-time passholders may use their pass only within three hours of their scheduled flight departure. This doesn’t apply if the pass is being used during a connection.
• One-time passholders can’t visit United Club Fly locations.
• One-time passes issued from United MileagePlus credit cards must be redeemed by the primary cardholder, an authorized user or guests accompanied by either.

To sum up the biggest changes: Going forward, travelers with one-time lounge passes will only be able to gift them if they (or an authorized user on the card) are present at the time of redemption.

Additionally, these one-time passes will only be valid at United Club locations and not grab-and-go United Club Fly locations.

Why Is United Doing Making Lounge Passes Harder To Use?

United has big plans for its lounges in the coming years, and we knew changes would come. However, that doesn’t mean the loss of flexibility will make travelers happy. If you had a United Club one-time pass you couldn’t use, you could gift it to a friend — even if you weren’t traveling together. That will end on May 1.

United is opening, renovating, and expanding multiple United Club locations as part of its vision for its lounges. Reducing the number of guests in the lounges — or charging a premium for travelers who want to bring them — seems to be part of that vision.

Final Thoughts

United continues to make changes to its lounge access and guest policies at United Clubs. After May 1, you won’t be able to gift your one-time visit passes to anyone you please. That’s likely to make travelers unhappy, as more passes will expire without being used.

Unfortunately, we think that’s likely what the airline is trying to accomplish with this change.