How to earn United Airlines Miles when you ride with Lyft

Towards the end of 2025, Lyft joined up with United Airlines to allow MileagePlus members to earn miles when they take a ride. Since then, United has introduced a “pay with miles” option which, as the tmae suggests, gives MileagePlus members the option to pay for Lyft rides with miles.

Here’s everything you need to know about the United Airlines/Lyft partnership.

How it works/key terms

• To earn United Airlines MileagePlus Miles, a MileagePlus account must be linked to a Lyft account (here and then in the Lyft app)
• MileagePlus members earn miles as follows:
  • 1 mile per dollar spent on Standard, Priority Pickup, and XL personal rides
  • 2 miles per dollar spent on Standard, Priority Pickup, and XL rides with your company business profile
  • 3 miles per dollar spent on Extra Comfort, Black, Black SUV and on-demand airport rides
  • 4 miles per dollar spent on scheduled airport rides
• Eligible spend is defined as base ride fares for all available Lyft rideshare modes
• Points will not be earned on Wait & Save ride modes, bikes & scooters, or Shared ride modes.
• Points will not be earned on the taxes, fees, tolls, and tips that form part of your Lyft charge
• Full or partial ride payments paid for with gift cards or Lyft credits are not eligible to earn United MileagePlus miles. However, you will still earn miles on any remaining portion of the ride not covered by a gift card or Lyft credit.
• Rides using Lyft Cash are eligible to earn United MileagePlus miles.
• There is no cap on the number of MileagePlus Miles that can be earned from Lyft spend in a year.
• You may only earn points/miles through your Lyft account with one partner rewards program at a time.
• Lyft currently only operates in the US and Canada but you can only earn United Miles on rides taken in the US (includes Puerto Rico).

A link to the full terms and conditions can be found on this page.

The value on offer

At TFM, we value MileagePlus Miles at 1.2 cents each (based on the value we can get out of them without too much trouble) so, effectively, this United/Lyft partnership represents an effective rebate of between 1.2 cents/dollar (1.2%) and 4.8 cents/dollar (4.8%) on whatever we spend with Lyft every year.

Given that these earnings come on top of whatever we earn through the credit card(s) we use to pay for our Lyft rides, that doesn’t seem like a bad deal.

Right now, these are what we think are the better credit card deals available:

Points earning cards

Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card – 5 points/dollar with Lyft*

Chase Sapphire Preferred® credit card – 5 points/dollar with Lyft*

Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card – 5 points/dollar with Lyft*

Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Card – 3 points/dollar on select travel (includes rideshare services)

American Express® Classic Green Card (no longer open to new applicants) – 3 points/dollar on travel (includes rideshare services)

Note: All information about the American Express® Classic Green Card has been collected independently by Traveling For Miles. The American Express® Classic Green Card is not available through Traveling For Miles.

*Through 30 September 2027.

Cash back cards

• Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express – 3% cash back

We value Chase Ultimate Rewards points at a conservative 1.5 cents each so for our purposes, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and Ink Business Preferred all offer a 7.5% effective rebate (through 30 September 2027).

We value Amex Membership Rewards points at 1.5 cents each as well, so the American Express® Classic Green Card card offers us an effective return of 4.5%, and that’s a little more than the return offered by the only cash back card on our list – 3% from the Blue Cash preferred.

New user offers

Lyft users who have never taken a ride before will earn 1,000 bonus United MileagePlus miles for taking their first 2 eligible Lyft rides within 30 days of linking their United MileagePlus account to their Lyft account.

Paying with miles

United and Lyft added a pay with miles option on 29 April 2026, allowing MileagePlus miles to be redeemed for rides directly in the Lyft app. Accounts need to be linked in the same way they are for earning.

Here’s how it works:

• Select ‘Use Miles’ at the time of ride selection and miles are automatically applied against the Ride Cost, which is the ride amount displayed at that point
• A minimum of 1 MileagePlus mile is required to use the feature
• Miles can be applied to a Ride Cost up to a maximum value of $250
• Rideshare modes only are eligible, so bikes and scooters are excluded
• If a member’s mileage balance doesn’t cover the full Ride Cost, the entire balance is applied and the remainder is charged to the default payment method on file
• Where miles cover part of a ride, only the portion paid through a personal payment method is eligible to earn miles

Neither United nor Lyft publishes a cents-per-mile rate for this option and it can vary from ride to ride. That being said, on average, MileagePlus members are offered around 0.65 cents per miles they use and that makes this a very uneconomical way to use MileagePlus miles.

Bottom line

There’s nothing really to dislike about the United/Lyft partnership.

Unless you would prefer to earn Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards Points (2 or 3 points/dollar), Hilton Honors Points (3 points/dollar), or Bilt Rewards (2 points/dollar), you’re not giving anything up by linking a United Airlines MileagePlus account with a Lyft account.

Also, you can increase your effective return by making sure that any spending you make with Lyft is charged to a credit card that earns bonus points for travel and/or transit (including rideshare) spending.

If you’re a United Airlines fan who uses Lyft and hasn’t yet linked your accounts, you should probably do that right now.