We're trying to understand if it's worth setting up family pooling for a redemption. (We're new to pooling as it's not long been offered in the UK.) It'd be a redemption for 2 of us in economy in Europe. Not great value usually but it gives us cancellation flexibility and it's quite an expensive cash fare.

I'm short of about 10000 miles for the whole redemption amount for the two of us. My husband has enough miles but, as he has a bigger balance than me and higher status, we wanted to hold onto as much as possible of his balance for now ad ideally use my miles. He's Platinum for Life and I'm now just Explorer.

I think we have two options to try to use my miles for this redemption. I could buy the 10000 miles which would then clear out my account, which is probably OK as I'm not gaining that many miles at the moment anyway. Or he could set up a pooling account with himself as the head so that we use all of my miles and a small amount of his. But we're not sure how this actually works if he 'takes' the miles out of my account. The terms say that the miles taken into the head of the family account will expire in 2 years from transfer. Do they sit in a separate 'bucket' in his account? As miles (for non-elites such as me) expire if there's no activity for 2 years but for Platinum for Life they don't expire at all, would these transferred miles not expire while they sat in my husband's account or they expire if they sit in a separate 'bucket'? If they could expire, then when you make a booking using pooled miles, do you have the option of using the transferred in miles first and then the remaining miles needed from the leader's account?

Any advice appreciated as I can't find answers on Flying Blue FAQ to help me understand just how this works.