If you are seriously interested in miles and points, you probably follow more than one blogger who focuses on the subject. But if you stop to think about who is actually writing these blogs, you might picture a single man or woman gallivanting across the world in First Class, drinking champagne and staying in five-star hotels. You probably don’t picture a family of four, if only because it’s hard enough to travel with young children, much less find time to blog about it! And a picture of a frazzled parent dragging their children through airport security isn’t quite the exotic image that collects website clicks…
But even if you started out in this hobby as a young, carefree singleton, you might eventually add members to your family. And when you do, you definitely don’t want to miss out on the miles that your partner and young ones could be accumulating on those family holidays…
Which Programs Allow You to Pool Miles?
These are the programmes that appear to allow family accounts. As I go along, I will update this list with links to the detailed articles.
British Airways Executive Club
British Airways offers the “Household Account”. the HHA comes with a few strings attached, but otherwise is relatively simple to operate. Click here for details.
All Nippon Airways Mileage Club
Family accounts are available for those members resident outside of Japan. A registration fee of 1,000 miles is charged to add a family member.
Asiana Club
Asiana’s Family Mileage Plan allows you to add five family members. Asiana Club is quite under-rated in general and is well worth considering as your main Star Alliance program.
Aegean Miles + Bonus
If you hold Silver or Gold status, you can set up a “Together” account and add up to 5 members.
Egyptair Plus
Although far too exotic, even for me, I understand that the Egyptair Plus family account even pools your status miles, meaning that family trips could result in Star Alliance Gold status for the head of the household…
Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles
If you have elite status with Miles & Smiles – Classic Plus, Elite or Elite Plus – then you are allowed to set up a Family Membership account and pool your miles with your spouse and children.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Only members with top tier Gold status can pool miles with up to nine family members.
Qatar Airways Privilege Club
Privilege Club allows members to add up to 9 family members – parents, spouse and children – with the main member’s tier bonus applied to ALL family members.
Emirates Skywards
Not regularly covered by the miles and points blogosphere due to an unattractive award chart, but Skywards does offer a Family Account.
Conclusion
For those readers who are interested in earning miles AND have their family join them (at least occasionally), then you are definitely interested in making sure that each and every member collects miles.
And if I’ve missed a airline that offers a family account, please let me know in the comments section…
Thanks for the handy summary. I suspect very few travelers are aware that some airlines allow this. I’ve been pooling miles for more than a decade with British Airways, and although much of their technology is hopelessly broken, this is one area that they make fairly easy to manage. In your account, they’ll show a summary of “Household Miles” and “Personal Miles” so as to differentiate the two.
Good article, thanks..Virgin Australia allows family pooling of points and Status Credits. On top of that, they allow you earn points and SC’s on the ground. Virgin Aust Elite status has reciprocal recognition with several airlines eg VS, SQ, DL, etc