Emirates launches a new style of family household account called ‘My Family’

Most people don’t realise that the British Airways style of family or household account is actually very rare.  Few other airlines let you pool 100% of the miles earned by your wider friends and family.

Until now, Emirates had a family policy that could best be described as a token gesture.  Your family were allowed to credit their miles to your account, but only at a rate of 20%!  All of the other miles were lost.

You had the situation where, for example, you and your three family members could earn 10,000 Skywards miles each from a particular flight, or one person could earn 16,000 miles (10,000 + 2,000 + 2,000 + 2,000).  Hmmm …..

Emirates has now launched a new family programme called My Family.  You can find the details here.  And it is just as weird.

Up to eight family members can come together.  They do need to be family and there is a list of acceptable relationships.  You open a new My Family account and, going forward, you can agree that either 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of your miles earned from flying go into the pooled My Family pot.

You can see the snags here:

You cannot pool your existing miles

You cannot pool future miles earned from non-flying activity

This means that you are likely to continue to have a small balance in your own personal account which is at risk of expiry

It is interesting to see Emirates taking a fresh look at family account structuring, but I’m really not sure this approach is much better than the previous one.  The British Airways model is clean and simple.  You can learn more about My Family here.

PS.  If you want to learn about the BA equivalent, we published this long article on how British Airways household accounts work.