I am a *A gold (CO) and did this in February when going skiing in DRO. The UA call center told me on two separate calls that companions receive the same allocation of bags. UAs website is very unclear on this. I had no problems checking all of the bags for free. At my origin I used the kiosk and it accepted all of them and at the destination (return flight) the GA checked them in with no problem and joked about how many we (my family) could check for free since the other GA (not realizing I was *A Gold) was trying to convince me to carry some so I wouldn't have to pay for them.