Frequent Flyer Programs where Family Members Can Share Their Miles (2019)
Airfare Booking Strategies, Award Ticket Strategies
Some frequent flyer programs allow multiple family members to share the miles they earn from flying. This is sometimes called “pooling” your miles.
If you do much of your traveling as a family or couple, it is almost always advantageous to earn miles with a program that allows them to be shared. It will take much less time to accumulate enough miles for at least one free flight.
In most cases, each family member will still have their own frequent flyer account, but miles can be freely transferred between them. In a few cases, family members will share a single account, which will receive the combined miles for all their flights.
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Almost all programs allow purchasing tickets for other family members
Almost every frequent flyer program will let you use your points to book an award ticket for a family member, and sometimes for any other person. For example, you could use your miles to book an award ticket for your spouse.
But you normally can’t combine points from multiple family member to purchase a single ticket. For example, you can’t use some points from your account, and some points from your spouse’s account, to buy a ticket for yourself. The exceptions are for the programs list below.
But only some programs allow combining points from different accounts to purchase a single ticket
Star Alliance
- Egypt Air. Up to 5 relatives. Unlike any of the other programs, all miles are credited towards the primary account holder’s account, and count towards elite status. This makes it much easier for one person to earn Star Alliance status. But remember, elite status only provides lounge access for a maximum of one guest, so you may need to try to earn status with more than one account. Official Webpage.
- Lufthansa. 1 other adult and 5 children.
- Asiana. Up to 5 relatives. Official Webpage.
- ANA. Up to 8 relatives. Upfront cost of 1,000 miles per person to create a family group, and only available for people who live outside of Japan. Official Webpage.
- Turkish Miles & Smiles. Spouse and kids under 25. But only available once you’ve accumulated 25,000 status miles over a 12-month period.
- Aegean. Up to 5 members—they don’t have to be related. But only available if the core account member has at least Silver Status. They also allow any member to transfer miles to any other member, with a flat 15 Euro transaction fee. Official Webpage.
Sky Team
- Korean. Up to 5 relatives. Official Webpage.
- Alitalia. Children under 14 earn miles in one of their parent's accounts.
- AeroMexico. Spouse and kids, 21 and under. Official Webpage.
Oneworld
- British Airways. Up to 7 people living at same address. Official Webpage.
- Qantas. Not technically a pooling program, but can freely transfer up to 600,000 points between family member accounts each year. Official Webpage.
- JAL. Up to 9 relatives. It costs 1,000 miles or $30 to join, plus 1,000 points every 5 years to renew. Only available to people who live outside of Japan. Official Webpage.
- Qatar. Up to 9 relatives. Official Webpage.
- Royal Jordanian. 8 family members. 1,000 mile cost per transfer. Official Webpage.
Unaffiliated
- JetBlue. Up to 2 adults, and 5 children under 21. Official Webpage.
- Hawaiian. No family program, but anyone can freely transfer Hawaiian Airlines miles to the primary card holder of a Hawaiian Airlines credit card. This allows everyone’s miles to be gathered together in a single account. Official Webpage.
- Sun Country. Up to 9 other people, they don’t have to be family members. Official Webpage.
- Frontier. Up to 8 people, they don't need to be family members. But the "head of the pool" needs Frontier elite status or the Frontier credit card. Official Webpage.
- Etihad. Up to 8 relatives, plus a “household helper”. Nice of them to think of the nanny. Official Webpage.
- Virgin Australia. Up to 6 people at the same address, only 2 of which are over 18. Official Webpage.
- Emirates. Emirates doesn’t allow family members to pool miles. But, they do have a family bonus plan, where the primary account holder can earn 20% of the normal number of miles, when one of their family member flies. However, the family member won’t earn anything themselves. We don’t think it is worthwhile to share miles, if you are only getting 20% credit. Official Webpage.
- Gulf Air. Like Emirates, a primary account holder can receive the miles when one of their family members flies. But, with Gulf Air, they receive a more reasonable 70% of the normal number of miles. Still probably not worth it—but better to get 70% of the miles and actually use them, then to get 100% of the miles and have them spread across multiple family member accounts. Official Webpage.
