POOLING MILES & POINTS TOGETHER FOR FAMILIES
Miles Momma
April 12 2012
ANA Airlines, Bank of America, Bank of Hawaii, British Airways, Chase, Club Carlson, Combining Miles & Points, Delta, Etihad, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, Korean Airlines, Qantas, Starwood
Today I was just working on pooling some miles together in our family accounts and I thought I’d detail out which programs (that I’m aware of) allow you to pool together your miles or points in a household (main) account and use for reward travel, upgrades, etc. This can be a very powerful tool for families looking to save up miles or points for trips. If you can earn miles/points in several family account and then pool them together, it makes it much easier to build those balances. This is what I do with my family. I generally speaking have 4 accounts (Momma, hubby, and 2 kiddos) in each program I’m actively working.
So here is a detail run down of each program and what you can do to combine your miles & points. Hope this information will be helpful and enable you to build those “travel banks” up fast.
ANA (All Nippon Airlines):
ANA Card Family Mile and AMC Family Account Service, you can combine earned miles with registered family members only when using the award.
British Airways:Up to 7 members in a household can participate in family account.
This could be a huge advantage with the current Chase British Airways 100,000 offer. If you don’t think you could meet the minimum spend, maybe you and the spouse could together get cards. You both would receive 50,000 Avios with your first purchase and then you could combine those together for 100,000 Avios. This would give you many U.S. short haul flights which start at 9,000 Avios or 4,500 + $75 cash. Or you could redeem for (4) Roundtrip domestic flights like I recently did. My family is flying LAX – BOS for only $20 in taxes. If you are a big spending and can meet the minimum spend for you and your spouse, that’s 200,000 BA Avios which would definitely take you many places for very little cash out of pocket. I would use these Avios within the U.S. to best maximize them as free travel though. The taxes to fly over the pond are just too outrageous.
Starwood:
SPG allows you to transfer miles between accounts as long as the accounts have the same address. This would allow you to combine bonuses received by family members from the Starwood Preferred card which currently offers a 25,000 sign up bonus.
Club Carlson:
You are allow to move points back and forth between accounts as long as you have the same address. They currently have no card. The buzz is they are working on coming out with one. We may even see it this year. I hope!
Delta :
Reports are that if you have a mailing address in Asia, Delta will allow you to create a shared account, where you can transfer miles between up to 4 accounts. The initial fee is $200, which includes one transfer partner, and an additional $100 for every additional account you add.Etihad: You to create a Family Membership account where up to 8 family members can pool their miles together into one account
Hawaiian Airlines:You transfer to another family members account free of charge if one family member is a Hawaiian Airlines Visa card holder. Hawaiian Airlines offers a credit card sign up bonus of $35,000 miles. This is not huge but if you need some Hilton Honors points it is huge. Hawaiian Airlines miles transfer to Hilton Honors points at a 2:1 ratio. So those 35,000 Hawaiian Airline miles could turn into 70,000 Hilton Honors points. If you use the family pooling system you could rake in quite a large amount. Hawaiian Airlines has two card, one that is issued by Bank of Hawaii and the other is issued by Bank of America. You can apply and receive both cards. Your total bonus after a $2,000 min. spend ($1,000 on each card) would be 70,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles or 140,000 Hilton Honors points. There is an annual fee though of $79. Now if you and your spouse did this, you would net 140,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles or 280,000 Hilton Honors. Total out of pocket cost would be $79 x 4 (2 cards each partner) = $318. How about that!
Japan Airlines: You can pool your points into one account with their Family Club program. Family members earn miles on their own, but those miles can be pooled. Members must be in North, Central or South America, and a $30 annual fee is required.
Korean Air: Korean Air allows families to transfer miles between accounts. Family members must be registered to a given account in advance of transferring miles.
Qantas: You can transfer miles between family members 1 time per 12 months, for up to 100,000 miles (with a 5,000 mile minimum).
Just curious how you consolidate your Club Carlson points. Didn't see any way to do this on their website. Did I miss it? Or do you have to do over the phone. Any help would be appreciated!Thanks!
You need to call and talk to Member Services. They don't have a way to do this online. I don't know for sure but you might even be able to transfer points to someone who is not a family member. There wording in the link below seems to indicate this. I have only experience with a family member.LINK: http://www.clubcarlson.com/customerservice/redeem/q13