mikeinseattle

A friend of mine is flying with me to Asia and does not have Amex miles and I am getting a ticket for him. If I use ANA miles, how strict are they on the family tree clause? His dates are slightly different from mine.

Mike

JackR

You need to provide proof of relationaship so if he is not family I would not risk it

AirBoy

If you have not already transfered the Amex miles into your account (or possibly even if you have) you can open a mileage club account for your friend and deposit the neccessary miles into the new account. This worked for me, and, I accidently had put all of my Amex miles into my account. ANA was good about moving the miles into another account.

Hope it works in your favor.

Chuckles

I have always wondered about this. I know it is in the T&C's, where there is even a detailed family tree diagram showing who is elig. But in reality, do they/can they really check? Let's take an example: per the chart, I can redeem a ticket for my brother-in-law (my wife's sister's husband). Now, the only way to 'prove' the relationship would be with ALL of the following docs:
1) my marriage cert to prove I am related to my wife
2) both my wife's and her sister's birth certificates to prove they are related
3) my sister-in-law's marriage cert to prove my brother-in-law is really who we say he is.

Now, let's be real!!! Who is going to bring all of these to the airport with them!!! My guess is they put this in the T&C's to discourage people from doing it, but in reality they never ever check. Anyone have an experience where they were checked? In addition, if you used your points with ANA to redeem for a partner award, no way the partner is going to check or care!!!

JackR

I had to provide a birth certificate (mine) copy to prove that my mother was 'real'
Once that was done my mother's name was recorded in my profile and there after no more needs to prove anything.
They might have become more lenient these days I don't know.
Good luck

Chuckles

You are able to simply go on-line and add family members now, no proof required. But I have only used ANA miles for partner awards for myself and my wife and daughter while I was traveling with them, so obviously there was no problem. But I wonder if ANA actually checks at check-in if a distant relative were to fly ANA metal without me? Again, I doubt at this point in time they bother/care.

schoflyer

Proof would be request at ticketing, not check in.

PHL

I want to revive this because I haven't seen many other threads when I did a search. I want to take my GF on a trip from US to Europe on a Star Alliance award (Lufthansa). Am I to understand that I can't book a ticket in her name, even if we're on the same itinerary, because she's not family?

Or, is that rule more for flying ANA metal? The booking engine doesn't let me add a 2nd person without filling out the family registration form.

tylorcl

Last year, one of my friend issued the award ticket for me without providing document of relationship proof. He just registered my name in the redemption group. Hope this will help!

daniellam

Just my guess as to how this can be enforced.

Perhaps what they do instead is ask the person at check-in, "so who gave you this ticket?" ? (Correct answer: "brother in-law")

If the person answers incorrectly (eg. "my brother", or "my cousin"), then he'll be denied boarding and asked to buy a new ticket.

JackR

No it would not work like that with a Japan based company

LGA

Ah, under "Award User Registration" under Update profile on the left side of the main frequent flyer page after being logged in. Handy.

snaporaz

If you're using Amex points to transfer them to ANA miles, I have worked around the ANA family qualification restrictions by registering my GF's ANA rewards number with Amex, and then transferring the miles directly into her account. The two catches are: 1. I think I had to issue my GF an additional Amex card to be able to link her ANA account to my Amex account, 2. You have to book the award travel over the phone with a CSR.

thepointsguy

I booked a Star Alliance award ticket for my "Brother In Law" AKA boyfriend with no issue. I don't see how ANA would be able to have the Singapore Airlines check-in people verify our actual relationship. As others have mentioned, I would only guess this issue would be on ANA metal at the time of ticketing.

LGA

You had to book your GF's award with ANA over the phone with ANA...?