Hi all,

I’ve run into a slightly confusing situation regarding JAL’s Family Club point pooling and how the JGC annual fee was deducted this year. Hoping someone here might have some insight.

Both my wife and I are JGC members — we qualified before the rule changes a couple of years ago. We’re also enrolled in the Family Club, with me as the primary account holder and my wife added as a family member. Over the past few years, JAL waived the JGC renewal fee due to COVID, so this year was the first time in a while that points were actually deducted for renewal.

Here’s what happened:

• My account had a little under 10,000 points at the start of this year.
• My wife’s account had around 50,000 points.
• I noticed two separate 2,000 point deductions from my account in March, both labeled as JGC Annual Fee.
• But oddly, before that, I also saw two transfers of 2,000 points from my wife’s account to mine, both labeled something like FAM POOL TO (my account).

What’s confusing is:

• My account had enough points to cover the JGC fee on its own, so why did the system transfer points from my wife’s account to mine before deducting the fee?
• Was this an automatic thing triggered by the Family Club pooling logic — like, does the system always pull points from the account with the higher balance first before applying the deduction?
• Also, I thought each person’s JGC annual fee would be deducted independently from their own account. But now I’m wondering — if I only have, say, 500 points next year, would I still be covered as long as someone else in the Family Club has enough points?

I’m trying to figure out what's the rules there.

Anyone else had this happen? Appreciate any insight!