United Airlines

Review by eFreeware

The United Airlines app is the official Android companion for flying with United, published by the airline itself and free to download. It carries a 4.7 average from more than a million ratings, which suggests it has become the default way many passengers handle their trips. What makes it worth considering is the range: it covers the whole arc of a journey, from looking up flights and booking them to checking in, tracking bags and finding your way around an unfamiliar airport.

Rather than a single-purpose tool, it tries to be the one place you open before, during and after a flight. If you travel with United a few times a year or more, the case for installing it is straightforward.

Booking and managing a trip from the phone

The app lets you search United's global network and book flights directly. Once a trip exists, you can check in and pull up a boarding pass before you get to the airport, which removes the need to queue at a kiosk or print anything. Seats and flights can be changed from the app when something better opens up, so a schedule shift does not have to wait until you are standing at a counter.

Baggage is handled in the same place. You can add bags, use bag drop shortcut at the airport and follow your luggage as it moves along the journey. For anyone who has stood at a carousel wondering whether a suitcase made the connection, that tracking is the kind of feature that quietly earns its keep.

The Travel-Ready Center is there to help you get everything in order before departure, and MileagePlus members can enroll or manage their account and redeem miles for award travel without leaving the app. The developer's recent notes say the focus has been on streamlining and self-service, which fits the overall shape of the tool: most routine tasks are meant to be finished by you, on your phone, without a phone call.

Help on the day of travel

On the day itself, the app leans heavily on live information. Boarding progression updates arrive in real time so you can see when your group's turn is approaching, and flight updates, transfer times and gate details are grouped together so a connection is easier to plan. Notifications surface in a tray and on the lock screen, which matters when you are moving through a terminal and not staring at the app.

The built-in terminal guide and airport maps are meant to get you from security to the right gate without hunting for a sign. If a flight is delayed or canceled, the app offers a way to work out your next move, and you can talk, text or video chat with an agent when a question needs a person rather than a screen.

There is also an inflight side. Movies and games are available in the air, snacks and drinks can be paid for through the app, and high-speed Wi-Fi enabled by Starlink is now offered on select flights, free for MileagePlus members. The word to hold onto there is select: the connectivity is not fleet-wide, so on some aircraft you should not count on it.

What you need before you start

Getting going is simple in the sense that the app is free and there is nothing to buy inside it. There are no ads and no in-app purchases, which keeps the experience clean compared with apps that interrupt planning with promotions. You will need an Android device to use the app.

A MileagePlus account is the thread that ties several features together. Enrolling or signing in is how you manage miles and book award travel, and membership is what makes the Starlink Wi-Fi free on the flights where it is available. If you fly United with any regularity, setting that up early is the sensible move.

The app dates back to 2011 and was last updated in September 2026, so this is a long-running product rather than a new experiment. The recent release notes point to continued work on making it easier to use and giving travelers more ways to serve themselves.

Who gets the most from it

This app is built for people who fly United and want to run the trip from their phone. That includes the occasional leisure traveler who values checking in early and having a boarding pass ready, and the regular business flyer who changes seats, tracks bags and depends on connection details being in one place. Anyone connecting through a large, unfamiliar airport will find the maps and terminal guide more useful than a generic airport app.

MileagePlus members have the strongest case, since award booking, account management and free inflight Wi-Fi on select flights all run through membership. Families and groups traveling together also benefit from having bag tracking and boarding updates in a single app rather than spread across several phones and emails.

The narrower fit is anyone who does not fly United. The app is tied to one airline's network, so its value rises with how often that network appears in your plans. For a traveler whose itineraries rarely touch United, the features here would go largely unused.

A dependable companion for United flyers

The United Airlines app is strongest on the boring, essential parts of a trip: booking, check-in, boarding passes, bags, gates and rebooking when plans fall apart. It is free, carries no ads and no in-app purchases, and has the install base and rating to suggest it does these jobs reliably for a lot of people. The inflight extras, from movies to Starlink Wi-Fi on select flights, are a bonus rather than the main draw.

I would suggest it to anyone who flies United with any frequency, and especially to MileagePlus members who want their miles, boarding passes and bag tracking in one place. If your travel rarely involves United, there is little here for you. For everyone else, this is the app to install before the next trip.

What's new in version 4.2.98

In this release, we’re continuing to focus on streamlining and improving the app to make it easier to use and provide more ways for you to self-serve.