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How do British Airways Executive Club Household Accounts work?

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Household Accounts are a very useful feature of British Airways Executive Club. You may not know that very few frequent flyer schemes globally offer them, and most of those that do are heavily restricted – it is a genuinely positive aspect of the BA scheme.

Today I want to run through how they work and some factors to bear in mind.

How do British Airways Executive Club Household Accounts work?

Why would you want a British Airways Household Account?

The key benefit of a household account is that it lets you pool together points from a number of people. The main reason to do this is if you need to make a redemption which requires more miles than any one person has in their account.

There is a secondary reason too – using a household account is the only way to earn Avios when your children under 18 fly.

There are alternatives to a Household Account

Before we got into the details, remember that there are other ways of achieving the same goal:

  • You can transfer miles between accounts by paying a fee (a flat £50 for a transfer of up to 60,000 Avios, with an annual cap of 200,000 Avios). This may be easier than getting a Household Account and being tied by its restrictions.
  • If you are a British Airways Executive Club Gold member, you can transfer 60,000 Avios to anyone else for free in one go.  The cap is 200,000 Avios transferred out per year.
  • You can book a flight for someone else directly from your Executive Club account.  You don’t need to pool your miles with someone else to be able to redeem for them.
  • If one person only has a small balance, remember that Avios allows one-way redemptions.  One person could use their small balance to book a one-way flight and the other person book the other leg from their account.

How does a British Airways Household Account work?

You are NOT fully merging your accounts when you create a household account at ba.com.

Each member retains their individual Avios balance. When you log in, you see both your own balance and the household balance.

When you redeem ….. the points are taken PRO-RATA from the balance of each person

When you earn ….. the points go ONLY onto your personal balance

For example, if you have 9,000 Avios and your partner has 4,500, a redemption for 4,500 Avios will see 3,000 taken from you and 1,500 from your partner.  It is a pro-rata split.

However, if you earn 4,500 Avios from a flight, your balance goes up to 13,500 and your partner remains at 4,500.

How do British Airways Executive Club Household Accounts work?

How to open, close and add members to a family account

You can form a British Airways Household Account here. Each member will receive an email which includes a link to click to confirm their membership. Once the account is formed, you can also create accounts for children. The account can have a maximum of seven people in it.

It is not longer necessary for all members to have their BA account registered at the same address.

A person cannot be removed from your Household Account until they have been there for six months.

How does the ‘Friends & Family’ list relate to Household Accounts?

With a ba.com household account, the ‘Head of the Household’ can also add a further five people as ‘Family & Friends’. These names can be deleted and replaced once they have been on your list for six months.

The Household Account can redeem Avios for flights for these five people too but their Avios are not merged with the Household Account. (You can learn more about British Airways Executive Club ‘Family & Friends’ lists in this article.)

Redeeming Avios whilst in a family account

A British Airways Household Account lets you redeem for anyone in the Household Account OR one of the five ‘Family & Friends’ members. You cannot redeem for anyone else.

This could potentially be an issue if your ‘Family & Friends’ list is full and no-one on it has been there for six months and so is eligible for removal.

How do British Airways Executive Club Household Accounts work?

Household Accounts and children

One reason to get a British Airways Household Account is that it allows children to earn Avios points and tier points when they fly.

An under-18 cannot have their own standalone British Airways Executive Club account but they CAN be invited to join a Household Account.

If you want to earn Avios for your children but do NOT want to be restricted by a Household Account, consider opening a BA account for, say, a grandparent and putting the children into a Household Account with them.  You could add yourself to the ‘Friends & Family’ list for that Household Account in order to redeem tickets for yourself.

Can you use a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher if you are in a Household Account?

Yes.  The Avios you need are taken pro-rata from each member of the Household Account.

However, there is one restriction.  The second traveller MUST be either in the Household Account or on the ‘Friends & Family’ list of the ‘head’ of the Household Account.

You can only change your ‘Friends & Family’ list once every six months.  In certain niche scenarios this could be a problem.

Do Households Accounts stop the expiry of your Avios points?

A Household Account CAN help stop Avios expiry but not automatically.

Avios points will expire if there has been three years of no activity – ‘activity’ means either earning or spending – on the account.  This is very unlikely to happen for most HfP readers.

Being in a Household Account does not automatically stop your points expiring, unless one member of the account has British Airways Executive Club elite status.  In this case, all members of the account are protected.

However, because redemptions from a Household Account result in Avios being taken pro-rata from every member, this creates ‘activity’ for everyone and resets the three year clock. This means that, in reality, expiry is unlikely.

How do British Airways Executive Club Household Accounts work?

What happens if you close a Household Account?

Nothing happens to the adult members of a Household Account.  Each member retains the Avios balance that it had, individually, inside the Household Account.

Any account opened for a child is closed and the Avios are lost.  A few years ago, British Airways would transfer the Avios of the children to the ‘head’ of the Household Account which clearly had benefits.  This no longer occurs, unless the policy has changed again.

The head of a Household Account can remove individual members without breaking up the entire Household Account.

Individual members cannot remove themselves from a Household Account – only the head can do this. If you are no longer on good terms with the head of your Household Account, the Executive Club terms and conditions specifically allow you to apply to British Airways to be removed.

Conclusion

British Airways Executive Club Household Accounts are not for everyone.  If you don’t like the idea, you can get much of the flexibility of a Household Account by redeeming one leg from one account and the other leg from another account.

If you are keen, though, I hope the summary above has clarified how they work.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.6 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories and click here to join the mailing list for our weekly or daily email newsletters.)

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (October 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

10,000 points bonus – plus an extra 500 points for our readers Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to up to 80,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 80,000 Avios. You will receive 8 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to up to 40,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 40,000 Avios. You will receive 4 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. The card is FREE for your first year. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

American Express Business Platinum

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American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (71)

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

  • ACK says:
    23 Aug23 August 05:58

    I created a household account with wife and infant for the purpose to be able add the infant to her existing redemption booking with my avios balance. Wife was already using a 241 voucher with the older child, and she added the infant to this for the purpose of free seat selection. We did this before, it works. The avios needed for this was 13750 and she had just enough for this. My avios balance was just under 100k so a ratio about 1:6. I was expecting to pay 5/6th from my balance and her to pay 1/6th. This is not what happened. The original booking’s balance was credtited to her avios account and then the full amount (241 redemption + 10%) debited. This is fine. However at the end somehow i had 58k avios disappearing from my balance which appeared on hers. The message says household redemption, contribution sent. She has contribution received. I’m guessing that I ended up contributing for the entire booking and not only for the addition of the infant. At the time of the original booking there was no household account. It’s a bit confusing. No drama and it doesn’t matter who has the avios, but spent quite some time trying to figure out what happened and I’m still not sure i got it right.

    • John says:
      23 Aug23 August 08:36

      For all household bookings it shows as a transfer of points from each member to the booker and then a debit from the booker’s account for the whole thing.

      In the past the booking showed as a debit from each member’s account directly

      It may well be that the entire booking was recalculated when adding the infant

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      23 Aug23 August 08:52

      So the original booking was made before the HHA was created?

      When the infant was added it was a cancel and rebook situation.

      As the original booking was made pre HHA your wife was fully refunded as she had paid the full cost,

      Since the new booking was made post HHA your account would have paid a pro rata amount. Once in a HHA individual bookings from one individuals account aren’t possible.

  • Tom says:
    23 Aug23 August 06:05

    Does breaking up a household account have any effect on bookings that have been made using the points that have been pooled?

    • Rob says:
      23 Aug23 August 06:17

      I’m not sure what happens to a cancelled flight to be honest.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      23 Aug23 August 07:10

      No. Bookings remain as they are unless you change them.

      Cancelled flights get refunded back to the individual accounts that funded them even if the HHA no longer exists.

      • Tom says:
        23 Aug23 August 07:45

        Thank you. I assumed that was probably the case, particularly as there is no mention of any issues in the T&Cs.

  • ukpolak says:
    23 Aug23 August 06:26

    Whilst not 100% related, I found opening up BAEC accounts for my children (both without email addresses) a right nightmare as the forms insisted on an email address to proceed. I just put my email address in the form, consequently “i” received the invite email however upon clicking on the link it would error. The main HHA status page would just show the invite as pending or not yet accepted.

    After a lot of tinkering and reading around, it’s because I must have already been logged in to my own BAEC account which was then conflicting with the invite acceptance.

    Long story short, I now log out after most BA sessions as I have 3 x accounts (mine and two children) all on the one email address albeit thankfully we all have different BAEC numbers.

    Nb from recent BAH bookings, I have had the Avios and double TP credited to my account and my wife’s account, however despite the children BAEC details also being on the original booking, I have had to chat to BA via the help chat under Contact Us to get the kids’ double TP credited.

    Upon authentication to the help desk agent via chat (“speak to agent” gets you to a human) I then pass my DOB as xx/xx/2019 and some how they’re happy to have an online chat with a five year old, grumbling that their double tier points haven’t been posted and asking for help 🙂

    • Richard E says:
      23 Aug23 August 06:50

      Here’s an idea that may be useful to you…

      Some email providers allow you to add a “+xxx” to your email to create new email addresses. For example, I use gmail and (for example) my email address is Richard at gmail dot com. Whenever I sign up for a new service, etc, I can enter my email adddress as Richard+Netflix at gmail dot com. This arrives in my inbox as usual, but allows me to sign up for the same service multiple times because I have a “different” email each time.

      If your email provider allows this, you can have 3 different emails with BA (one for you and one for each child), but each with their own login email (eg ukpolak+child1 at…).

      Hope that is of some use.

      • ukpolak says:
        23 Aug23 August 10:21

        V helpful – I will do some investigating as in my case it’s Hotmail – thank you.

      • JAXBA says:
        24 Aug24 August 00:04

        I tried the + extension recently but BA.com wouldn’t accept it. I had to use dots in my Gmail address, e.g. if JAXBA@ was me, then my daughter is JAX.BA@ because Gmail ignores dots and still delivers that to me.

        Not that setting up my daughter went as it should; acceptance email had ‘Welcome daughter name’ in, but account got created as ‘Miss dad name’, not her own name… still not fixed 2 weeks later…

    • AllTheGoodNamesAreTaken says:
      23 Aug23 August 07:40

      Similar situation to you in that I also look after the accounts for my wife (who’s not interested in these things) and young child.
      When I was speaking with BA recently while chasing some missing tier points for all of us, I was told about the Third Party Nominee form – which you can find under the “Manage My Account” menu when you are logged in.

      Once set up you can officially just act on their behalf

      • ukpolak says:
        23 Aug23 August 10:25

        Likewise thank you.

        TBF the original offshore chat handling agent proceeded to chat to “me” as my five y/o (I just couldn’t believe it to be honest and they themselves wrote that they’d have to chat to the account holder) but when they handed me over to (onshore) BAH for them to request the double TP, they explicitly asked if I was parent and proceeded to help as expected.

        I’ll get that nominee form sorted, ready for next time. Thanks again.

        • jjoohhnn says:
          23 Aug23 August 15:13

          You should have written on the chat as if you were a 5 year old 😉

  • Iain says:
    23 Aug23 August 07:04

    How quickly can you make a booking once you’ve added someone to HH or a F&F account? Is it instant once you’ve added details?

    • daveinitalia says:
      23 Aug23 August 07:19

      Yes. Once the accout is set up (and those you added approve being added) then you can book immediately subject to having sufficient points.

      There’s not a F&F account though, just a F&F list. The F&F list is of people who are NOT in the HH account but that you want to be able to book for (because when part of a HH account you can’t just book for anyone like a regular account).

      • Iain says:
        23 Aug23 August 07:35

        Thanks. Noted on the F&F list, not account. Glad it’s immediate and there’s no wait for approval once you’ve submitted the details.

  • KG says:
    23 Aug23 August 07:28

    Another advantage of the household account is a household member can redeem the Barclays upgrade voucher of another member, even if that person is not travelling. This does not work with the BA Amex voucher i noticed but happy to be corrected.

    • Rob says:
      23 Aug23 August 07:46

      You don’t need to be in a HHA to do that. In fact, being in a HHA restricts your ability to use the Barclaycard voucher for someone else, since it would need to be someone in the HHA or on your F&F list. A non-HHA member can use it for anyone.

    • jjoohhnn says:
      23 Aug23 August 15:15

      Does this mean the barclays upgrade voucher is visible to book with by other members of the household? So if the person with the voucher dies for example, the other members of the household can still book with it?

  • Jamie says:
    23 Aug23 August 07:55

    I have also had the “household redemption, contribution sent” debit applied to my account, only this was when I had paid to transfer Avios from one member of my household to my account!
    The transfer was applied pro rata which kind of defeated the point- BA assured me this was his it was supposed to work…

    • AJA says:
      23 Aug23 August 08:20

      Why did you bother with paying to transfer Avios? That’s pointless (pun intended) when you’re in a HHA as any redemption would have Avios deducted from others in the HHA?

  • marcolau says:
    23 Aug23 August 08:07

    With points transfer between accounts via Finnair cost only fixed EUR10 per transfer, points consolidation becomes much easier and affordable than in the past.
    Having a household account for many years with only one or two member contributing a huge chunk of points, I see the necessity of holding a household account deminishing, especially when no one under 18 is in my list.

  • AJA says:
    23 Aug23 August 08:24

    What happens if you as a member of a HHA want to transfer Avios to Qatar Privelege Club? Do the points only come out of your personal account or is it treated like a redemption and do other members of the HHA end up contributing? I’ve only ever transferred Avios from Qatar and not done it in the other direction.

    • John says:
      23 Aug23 August 08:40

      Personal account only

      Good way to zero out avios from accounts of infrequent flyers in your household (before making a redemption transfer out excess to Qatar and the redemption uses up every last avios in the household)

      Used to be doable with avios.com and in the early days IB but QR much easier

      • AJA says:
        23 Aug23 August 08:43

        Thanks! That’s an interesting idea on using up small balances of Avios.

      • jjoohhnn says:
        23 Aug23 August 15:18

        IB is still very easy to do. You just login on the Iberia website and do it!

    • Rob says:
      23 Aug23 August 09:50

      Can only move your personal balance which is an issue.

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