Lyft has partnered with several travel loyalty programs – Alaska Airlines, Hilton, and Bilt – for a number of years. It was originally possible to earn with more than one of those partners for each ride, but that double/triple dipping was sadly cut off.
There’s now a fourth travel partner with whom you can earn – United MileagePlus. There’s also a new Lyft user promotion that can earn you 1,000 bonus miles after two rides in your first 30 days.
The Deals
- Earn up to 4x United MileagePlus miles per dollar when taking Lyft rides.
- If you’re a new Lyft user, earn 1,000 bonus miles after two eligible rides in 30 days.
- Direct link to link accounts.
Key Terms
- 1,000 bonus miles promotion:
- Lyft Users who have never taken a ride with Lyft (“New User”) and link their United MileagePlus and Lyft accounts on or after November 5, 2025, are eligible to receive 1,000 miles after completing and paying for their first two (2) Eligible First Rides.
- “Eligible First Ride(s)” means a New User’s first and second Eligible Lyft Rides taken within 30 days of linking their United MileagePlus and Lyft accounts, and that are completed within the United States or Puerto Rico while “United MileagePlus” is selected as such New User’s rewards partner in the ‘Rewards’ section of the Lyft app.
Quick Thoughts
It’s always good to have more earning options on Lyft rides and this new United partnership could be regarded as the best of all of them for some people, while for others it’ll be the worst earning option.
That’s because there are different earning tiers for this partnership depending on the type of rides you take:
- 4x miles per $1
- Scheduled airport rides
- 3x miles per $1
- On-demand airport rides
- Extra Comfort rides
- Lyft Black rides
- Black SUV rides
- 1x mile per $1
- Standard rides
- Priority Pickup
- XL rides
For comparison, here are the earning rates via the other partnerships as of the date of publishing this post:
- Alaska Airlines
- 2x Atmos points per $1 on everyday Lyft rides including Standard, Priority Pickup, and XL rides.
- 3x Atmos points per $1 on airport rides and elevated Lyft rides including Extra Comfort, Black, and Black SUV rides.
- Hilton
- 3x Hilton Honors points per $1 on all rides
- Bilt
- 2x Bilt points per $1 on all rides
For regular Lyft rides, Alaska Airlines and Bilt will generally be the most rewarding options seeing as you’ll earn 2x points with them versus 1x with United. Depending on how you value United MileagePlus miles though, their 3x and 4x earning categories might beat out the 3x earnings from Alaska for similar rides or 2x from Bilt.
If you’re a new Lyft user, it could be worth at least initially setting your earning preference to United due to the 1,000 mile incentive if you take two rides in your first 30 days. After that you can reevaluate which is your best earning option.
Interestingly, the landing page for the United/Lyft partnership mentions:
In the coming months, keep an eye out for exciting partnership enhancements and more news from us.
That might mean that United Premier members will get matching Lyft Pink status, although it might be something less interesting like the ability to redeem MileagePlus miles towards Lyft rides at a suboptimal redemption rate.
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