toomanybooks

Club Carlson lets you transfer points freely between people at the same address with no charge.

If you are Gold (which you can get with credit card), you can call and transfer to anyone, as I understand it.

9DayH

I've been trying to set up a BA Household account for me and my wife. The set up process is just not working on the web site. I've tried adding her to my account and she's tried adding me to hers. Each time it says it's sent the email to the other person but it never arrives (and yes, we've checked spam filters). Once you've started the process from one account, the other says it's already part of a household account, but because the email never arrives, the process never really completes.
I suppose I'll have to call them, but I'd much rather just do it online at my convenience (i.e. in the evening) rather than have to call when the phone lines are manned.

SquarePeg

[seen a different thread:]
Is this still valid? I couldn't find it on the BA website.

TIA

9DayH

Tried to call BA. The first time I got the recorded voice saying it was over an hour wait. The second time someone answered after about 10 minutes wait. I said I was trying to set up a household account but neither of us was ever receiving the confirmation email. This was obviously not on the script because the person on the other end said "Yes, you can set up a household account". I waited to hear what else they had to say, thinking they'd walk me through it step by step and I'd have to explain I'd done all the steps right up to receiving the confirmation email...

There was about 10 seconds of silence at the other end and then they hung up.

BA= Bad Attitude

blackcows

My kids (3 total) don't fly on a regular basis but probably get on a plane 3 or 4 times a year for vacation, conferences with family, etc. I have always made it a point of signing up for every FF program when they fly on an airline for the first time. Is there anyway to consolidate any of the points the kids have into the account of my wife or I?

I see there is some threads that discuss the buying and selling of points so it's obvious this is possible but not sure how legitimate it is. Worst case I will just do what I can to maintain their points so as they get older they may have some points to build on.

scoow

Buying / selling miles violates the terms of your FF program, so you risk losing all your miles and having the account closed if you try that route.

I've heard of some airline (BA?) that has or had a family account where you could deposit multiple family members miles. But someone else will have to confirm if that's still available.

Most programs permit gifting miles (from the kids to your account), but fees usually defeat the benefit.

Your best bet is usually to open one account per person per alliance & credit the miles from partner flights to that account. But definitely open enough accounts that you earn miles somewhere for each flight. Then use the shopping mall, dining rewards, credit a hotel stay or similar to maintain the account until the kids have enough miles to use themselves. They will thank you for those miles someday!

arollins

Some programs, like AA, allow you to transfer miles form one FF to another, the problem is that the cost of transferring is so high that it is almost worthless to do it. You can check into a BA family plan, I'm not familiar with it, but it seems to allow you to pool your miles.

If you want to maximize your miles and FF program, I suggest its best concentrate on one/two program (main carrier, backup carrier) instead of flying different ones all the time. This will allow you accumulate miles faster and perhaps achieve elite status depending on how much you fly per year. Accumulating miles will give you opportunity to redeem them for award travel or upgrades, depending the program. Achieving elite status, this would probably be helpful to you if you travel a lot per calendar year. Whenever you book your family trips together, your family will be able to share in the perks that come with your status. Priority seating, boarding, security, free baggage check among them.

Mwenenzi

As posts above, signing up for every new airline FFP is not the best way. Many airlines are part of alliance’s & have alliance & non alliance airlines partners that can earn miles in the primary FFP

For example AA/US, UA, DL & AS all have USA & international partners
From now on best to put the miles onto 1 Star, OneWorld or/and Skyteam FFP or an airline like AS that has many partners. Having a few miles in many FFP’s are of little value. You need a reasonable mile balance to be able to use them

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html
http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...-overview.aspx
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/ea...lines/main.jsp

MSPeconomist

It seems to be a few foreign carriers that allow family accounts, for example KE, BA, and IIRC some of the mideast carriers.

OP needs to be careful about expiration dates for miles. Using a FF program where miles don't expire would at least preserve the kid's miles until they can be used in the distant future. Otherwise it will be a pain to track individual program rules and make sure that there's sufficiently frequent account activity.

bosman

Jet Blue has a "Family Pooling" plan whereby each family member can allocate their points to themselves or to the family account (I have my kids signed up for 100% to the family account). It's pretty easy to sign up, though each kid has to agree to the pooling via an email response.

That's the only domestic carrier I am aware of that does this,

MSPeconomist

How old to kids have to be to participate in this program? How could a two-year-old give a meaningful or legally binding email response to a question?

Open Jaw

AM has a family program where all members can move miles between accounts. A parent can even earn miles on AM flights their children fly without this parent. The program is called Family Plan in English or Plan Familiar in Spanish. See Aeromexico.com for details.

MSPeconomist

Remember when picking FF programs that you will have to deal with that airline's customer service and award ticket rules as well as expiration policies. With some foreign carriers, redeemable miles expire a certain number of months after they are earned; having activity in the account is not sufficient to preserve older miles.

Troopers

I know HA allows pooling/sharing miles with the CC. Are there any other FFP that allow pooling/sharing miles without a transfer fee? Thanks.

Yoshi212

I think TK's Miles & Smiles program has a family account program without fees.