One of the nice features of the British Airways Executive Club program is that they allow the creation of household accounts. Household accounts allow up to six people living at the same address to pool their Avios and apply them towards a single redemption. The “catch” is that when you create a household account you can only redeem Avios for people registered to your account.
Anyway, British Airways has just added a huge new benefit to household accounts by introducing a “my friends and family” plan. If you have a household account you can now also create a list of up to five nominees that aren’t in your household account that you can still redeem Avios for.
Here’s the description:
The Head of Household can create and manage the Family and Friends list for all Members, so that collectively you can spend your Household Avios on more people who are important to you. They don’t have to live at the same address as you either. You can also make cash and reward flight bookings for them more quickly because their personal details will be filled in for you.
- Share your Avios with more people than those in just your Household Account.
- Your family or friends don’t need to be members of the Executive Club to benefit.
- There are no residential or geographical restrictions on who can benefit.
And then here are some of the major terms:
You can have five people on your Family & Friends list
A person cannot be removed from your Family & Friends list until they have been on it for six months
Only the head of the Household Account can add or remove people from the Friends & Family list. De facto, it is one Family & Friends list per household account, rather than per person.
You need the full name, date of birth and an email address to add someone to your Family & Friends list
This is a huge improvement. I’ve never had a household account due to the inability to redeem AVIOS for someone outside the account, though with this change I might just create one.
(Tip of the hat to Gary)
@ Tom -- That's correct, if you're in a household account you can't transfer Avios to Iberia.
Is there a restriction on transferring avios from BA household accounts into an Iberia account to save on the fuel surcharges? I've read about this previously but then heard that household accounts couldn't do this.
@ Steve -- If you don't join a household account then you can redeem Avios for anyone, but you can't transfer or pool them. If you do have a household account then you can pool them towards an award in anyone's name, but up until yesterday couldn't redeem them for anyone not in the household.
Lucky, thanks for alerting me to this. I still don't fully understand though. If I want to give my parents some BA miles, but I don't live with them, is this not officially allowed? E.g., I have to live in the same house as them to combine/transfer miles?
@ Jeff -- If you pool those two accounts with your household account then you can use them all towards a single ticket. However, if you just add them as "family and friends" then you can't pool all the accounts towards a single ticket.
I have the household account for my wife and I and have never used it. I have a an adult child and brother who live out of state and together they have 80,000 or so points that they will not use. If I put them in this new friends account, can I simply move points, or pool them together, for free, for one ticket for myself and my wife? How does this work?
Today I found my Household account was dissolved. Anyone else?