Do you often find that you have a lot of stray points and miles spread amongst several family members and its not really enough to book something?
Did you know that you can pool points as a family? A good example is Etihad. An Etihad Guest family membership enables families to pool miles and make redemptions using the accumulated family balance via the head of the family membership. Etihad Guest Bronze Miles will be pooled in the Head of Families account which will allow the family to earn rewards faster, while at the same time allowing each Family member to use their own miles. Tier Miles/Tier Segments will continue to remain with the member which in turn determines their upgrade to different tier levels.
A member who is 21 years old can create a Family membership. You have to log in online and add other members (who are already enrolled in to the programme). Once added online, the added members above 13 years will receive an auto triggered email for them to accept the request. Members below 13 years will be included to household without email acceptance.
There are some restrictions ofcourse. Up to 8 members can be part of your family membership. Family members who are eligible to become family guests are: brothers, sisters, father, mother, spouse(s), children, grandchildren, grandparents, parents-in-law, step parents, step children, step siblings, step grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and house hold help (one only). Also note, you cannot add a random friend who is not related to you as per previous definitions to the pool.
Additionally, look for agreements that allow you to pool miles together as a family. A good way to select who and where is by looking at wheretocredit.com. It shows you where you can credit one airlines miles to another. So, for e.g. if you take a flight on American Airlines, you can credit it to Etihad.
So in summary, this is a good way to combine all miles from your family members into one pot. You can also top up my transferring Amex MR points to Etihad at the ratio of 1000 Membership Rewards points = 750 Etihad Guest miles. Also note that this transfer is not instant and can take upto 3 business days.
Written by Dominic Fernandes aka CanadaPointsGuy
Photo courtesy by Natalya Zaritskaya on Unsplash
