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British Airways changes the Household Account rules – you can now redeem for ANYONE

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I wrote a piece earlier in the year about setting up and using Household Accounts at British Airways Executive Club and avios.com.

Household Accounts have obvious benefits, allowing the Avios points from your entire family to be used for a single redemption.

However, a BA household account came with a massive caveat – if you had one, you could never redeem for anyone outside your Household Account.

For many people, this was not a problem.  For me, it was a massive deal breaker.  I regularly redeem tickets for my parents in law in Germany or other extended family members.  Last year I booked a seat at a few hours notice for an Aunt in Canada whose daughter had become seriously ill whilst travelling in Venice.  I want that flexibility.

Quietly, British Airways has sneaked out a change in policy.

Go to ba.com, click on Executive Club and then Household Accounts.  You will come to this page.  Scroll down and you will see a reference to ‘Family & Friends’.

Family & Friends

This is how BA describes it:

Once you have a Household Account, you can create a list of family and friends, so you can spend your Household Avios on more people who are important to you, and who don’t live at the same address as you.

There is then a link which allow you to create a Family & Friends list.

There is a long T&C’s on ba.com, but I have distilled it for you:

You can have five people on your Family & Friends list

A person cannot be removed from your Family & Friends list until they have been on it for six months

Only the head of the Household Account can add or remove people from the Friends & Family list.  De facto, it is one Family & Friends list per household account, rather than per person.

You need the full name, date of birth and an email address to add someone to your Family & Friends list

Overall, this is a massive improvement to Household Accounts with British Airways and they deserve credit for implementing it.  Household Accounts should now look a lot more attractive for most people than they once did.

Travel Companions list

Alongside this innovation, BA has also brought in an online ‘travel companions’ list.

If you regularly book revenue or award tickets for someone, you can now store their details online.  This will make it substantially quicker to make repeated bookings.

Again, this is a simple improvement to ba.com but one which should save some people a lot of time.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (70)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • erico1875 says:
    12 Dec12 December 07:32

    Is this family and friends list in ADDITION to the “household account” members Raffles?

    • Will says:
      12 Dec12 December 07:37

      I would expect so. I have my core family in my HHA. I now could add up to 5 friends or extended family. Assume no point adding them till you need to buy them seats?!

    • Rob says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:21

      Yes

  • Diane says:
    12 Dec12 December 07:49

    I don’t suppose the family and friends can add avios into the HH account can they ?

  • Ralph says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:17

    Useful information Raffles so thanks as ever for that but I presume it unlikely that your Aunt in Canada would have been one of your 5 nominees and so still unhelpful in this regard? Still, I only have five in my entire family so it will work for me so thanks again for the info.

    • Rob says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:22

      I could have added her and then immediately booked, though. It would be a bit silly, in my view, to add anyone to the list until they need a ticket.

  • courtster says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:17

    Fantastic news, it was a real drag to keep exporting Avios to avios.com to book for someone else. Well, unless avios.com had better award availability of course!

  • JOhn says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:35

    So basically you can have 7 people pooling their earning, and an additional 5 people who you can redeem for?

  • M says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:48

    If only they’d to change the stupid rule where the account holder must be one of the passengers booked where 241 voucher was used.

  • jhk says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:49

    nice but you can nearly never use these points. 900k points and upgrades and companion tickets and you can use nothing so better that ba starts to change this that we can book tickets than make these extra things and still you can not use it. a drama airline. compleet no service to the customer. and if you see how many profit they make and do not give the right service.

    • Hingeless says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:56

      Too much sherry ?

    • courtster says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:09

      Please be nice, I enjoy it here due to the happy together feeling of Raffles and the regular posters. If I wanted to read about peoples moans I’d spend more time on the BAEC board on FT!

      I don’t know how people have such trouble redeeming Avios. I have no such issues. Flexibility is key.

      • jhk says:
        12 Dec12 December 09:17

        i fly myself about 60 times a year and on trip about 140 days a year so with my job not easy for the make time and the holiday and holiday season you can forget. gold diamond life time member senator etc.etc but special with ba you can forget it. keep in mind they offer it to us. better lower ticket prices and stop this. but when they offer you can not use. than you look in the flight and you see many seats still free. and what we not can see the seats they block to make the prices higher for selling their normal tickets. it is the most tricky business. so stop the points make tickets cheaper than all the people are happy. keep also in mind that you have paid already for the points because nothing is free!!! and i think (my own company also) will be more happy with cheaper tickets than all the points!! and for that money what you save you can buy normal tickets and that is Always possible. the airlines need to go back to basic and make the customer happy

        • Rob says:
          12 Dec12 December 09:26

          If you are Gold, you can have any seat, any plane, if you pay double Avios.

          I am about to do this for half term next May. £500 to get a ticket on the Saturday after half term starts, so double Avios (this is a European redemption) is still a bargain.

          • andy l says:
            12 Dec12 December 09:37

            Thanks for yet another nugget Raffles, i never knew this. HFP is just a wealth of information !

          • jhk says:
            12 Dec12 December 09:52

            than they need also to give double points for the flights than i have no problem. as we call this it is taking extra points from the loyal customers!!! also nice check it out. take the differences in level and than try to book on avios no difference!!! no forget it. make the tickets cheaper and than we do not have to loose all that energy!! also check Always your statement at ba. my trip to bali with 4 people with malasian all the people nearly did not get their points. at ba no people and my children only halve of the points at klm. also nice than you send the info. get email back from ba and confirmed all and still not on my account. what do you call this ?? st……….

          • jhk says:
            12 Dec12 December 09:47

            thanks but never ever use them for europian flights. for that money Always cheaper to pay i need them for long flights..
            and why pay double because they need to give the service and now thet get extra money from the loyal customers. would be nice you buy a big mac but when you like to wait you pay normal and direct service you pay extra. forget.
            i am not a fan with klm but i need to say to book points is getting better. only they start also with to pay extra you get easier place but this is only making more money for them

          • Calchas says:
            12 Dec12 December 10:22

            You already earn double points as a gold (or silver) member. And it isn’t always cheaper to pay for European flights with the RFS.
            There are a lot of other airlines if you don’t like BA and their redeeming policies.

  • Will says:
    12 Dec12 December 09:54

    Did not know the gold double up thing. Have you written about it before?!

    • Will says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:57

      Found it “If there is no availability in your chosen cabin or on the flight, with the Gold Priority Reward you have the option of using double the regular Avios to secure a seat of your choice on the flight, providing you book 30 days or more in advance. All you have to do is call us to make the arrangements.”

      • jhk says:
        12 Dec12 December 10:06

        why you make a system for this?? need to call ?? you offer all this and than we need to make a call. forget we take another one better and i hope more service and loyal to the customers

        • Calchas says:
          12 Dec12 December 10:25

          So which airline do you think offers “more service and loyal to the customers”?

    • Rob says:
      12 Dec12 December 11:23

      No, because I have never used it and it is one of those features that people tend to forget about. However, if I get these half-term seats booked then I will do a post on how easy / hard it was.

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