How to Combine British Airways Avios
There's a lot to love about the British Airways Club loyalty program, from great award rates to how easy Avios are to earn. British Airways is also one of the few airlines that lets you pool your miles with other travelers into a household account. Being able to pool your Avios can make the award booking process easier and help you get the Avios you need for a big redemption. We just put together a handy guide on transferring your Avios between your British Airways, Aer Lingus, Finnair, Iberia, and Qatar accounts. Now, we'll walk you through how to combine your British Airways Avios with other travelers using a household account.
What Is Points Pooling Or Combining?
Points pooling, or combining points, is when a loyalty program lets you move points from one person's accounts to another to book an award flight. You don't actually need to book an award with the points after combining them, but that's the idea. Sometimes a program will limit this to spouses, or only family members etc., and other times it allows you to do it with any other loyalty program member. While British Airways Club calls this a “household account,” it's no longer limited only to people living at your same address. This feature is great for booking your entire party on the same reservation or combining combining the power of your points to book bucket-list flights.
How Does A British Airways Household Account Work?
A British Airways household account allows you to combine your Avios with up to seven other travelers into a single pool that any member can pull from to book award flights. Anyone can join a household account, whether or not they reside at the same address.
Having a household account does not mean your British Airways Club accounts are merged. Each member retains their own Avios balance and earns Avios and elite status separately. Notably, you can only transfer your own British Airways Avios to other Avios programs like Iberia and Qatar; you cannot transfer household Avios.
Children under the age of 18 can join a British Airways household account, which is a great way to earn Avios when your children fly and redeem them for flights.
Any member of the British Airways household account can redeem household Avios for flights, but only for themselves other members of the household account. There is an exception, which we go into more detail on below.
When a household account member redeems household Avios for an award flight, Avios will be taken from each member's Avios balance in proportion to the size of their Avios balance. For example, say there are three members of your household account. You have 50,000 Avios and each of the other members have 25,000 Avios. If you book an award flight for 10,000 Avios, 5,000 Avios would be taken from your account and 2,500 Avios would be taken from each of the other two members' accounts.
How To Combine British Airways Avios With Others
Here are step-by-step instructions on how to combine your British Airways Avios with someone else.
Step 1. Create A British Airways Household Account
Creating a British Airways household account is fairly straightforward. To start, you'll first need to log into your BA Club account. If you aren't a member of the British Airways Club frequent flyer program, you can join for free.
Once you've logged in, click on your name in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage and select “Your Profile.”
On the next screen, you'll see “Household Account.” Choose the option to “Manage Household Account.”
If you don't already have a BA household account, this is where you'll be prompted to create one. When you create a household account with British Airways, you automatically become primary member of that account. This simply means that you'll receive any communications about the household account and you're the only person who can add or remove members. Members can only be removed after six months.
Step 2: Invite Members To Join
To start a household account, you need to invite at least one member to join. Household accounts can have up to seven members (including you). There's minimum age required to join a BA household account, although the primary member must be over 18 years of age or older. So if your kids have a BA frequent flyer number, you can add them to your account.
To invite others to join your BA household account, you'll need to provide the member's own BA club account number and email address.
They'll receive an email inviting them to join.
Once they accept, you created a BA household account. You'll be able to see the members of your household account in your British Airways Club profile by following the same steps above. However, you won't be able to see individual members' balances or the balance of your household account here.
If the person you want to invite is not a BA Club member, you can still invite them. British Airways will prompt them to sign up when they get the invitation.
Step 4: Redeeming Avios From Your Britsh Airways Household Account
Once you create a household account, you automatically pool together all members' Avios. Any member of the household account can redeem household Avios. You'll see your household account balance when you go to book an award flight.
For example, this is what I see when booking an award flight. I can see both my individual Avios balance and my household Avios balance. In this case, the other member of my household account does not currently have any Avios.
When you book an award flight, the Avios will be taken from each member's Avios balance in proportion to the size of their Avios balance.
British Airways Avios expire after 36 consecutive months of inactivity. Earning, buying, transferring, or redeeming Avios all counts as activities that would keep your Avios from expiring. Pooling your Avios can make it easier to make redemptions and keep your Avios alive.
What Is A British Airways Family And Friends List?
There's one important thing to be aware of before joining a household account. Ordinarily, you can redeem Avios for anyone. So you can use your Avios to book flights for others, even if you yourself are not taking the trip. But once you join a household account, you'll only be able to redeem Avios yourself and other members of that household account.
However, British Airways offers a workaround for this. Each member can designate a list of five people from outside the household account for whom they can redeem pooled Avios. This “family and friends list” should cover you in the event you need to book award flights for people who are not part of your household account.
How to Combine British Airways Avios: ToP Thoughts
The ability to combine British Airways Avios with other travelers makes it easy to pool together small points balances to make a more expensive redemption. Few airlines have this feature — and fewer are as flexible as BA when it comes to how it works. For those of us operating in two-player mode when it comes to points and miles, or if you're traveling with a family, a household account can really come in handy for booking award flights. If only you could transfer household Avios to other Avios loyalty programs, but alas, that's asking for too much. Let us know in the ToP Facebook group if you use a British Airways household account!
