Can I enroll a child in the British Airways excutive club? the ultimate guide to the BA group account

Combine points in the family, also allow children to accumulate points and not to leave anything on the street is one of the good practices Every frequent traveler should follow.

Why British Executive Club is a family friendly program

When I am asked "in which program to accumulate points" my answer is always the same: in the one where you are going to use them and especially in the one where you have the possibility of (easily) avoiding the expiration of points. And theBritish Airways Executive Club fully meets this description. And since there are not many FFs that offer this possibility That's why BA is perfect in these situations.

Avios points can be renewed simply by moving the account, this means that you just need to accumulate a point via a survey o moving 100 points from Membership Rewards To renew the deadline.

Can I enroll a minor in the British Airways executive club.

The answer unfortunately is NI. Unlike with Flying Blue, Emirates or ITA Airways, to name a few programs, British Airways' FF does not allow membership for those under the age of 18. However, this does not mean that minors cannot accumulate avios or TP points and obtain status. For this it is necessary to open a group account and from there add the children.

The ploy to accumulate avios points, without being inside a collective account is to create a group account where only the child can be enrolled, that way he or she will not be "forced" to share points with the rest of the family.

What is the British Airways group account

The family account has several advantages, but the main one is to Earning Avios when children under 18 fly, the second advantage in order of importance is that Allows you to connect the dots of multiple people. By doing so, one can use all the points in the group to redeem reward tickets, without losing piles of points in different accounts.

Of course BA allows you to transfer miles between users (not in the same family) by paying a fixed fee of £15 for a transfer of up to 27,000 Avios (if you have the Gold level this fee is zero), but it is an expense that you can avoid incurring between family members precisely because of the group account.

How to create a British Airways group account.

The first thing to be clear when setting up a group account is. Is not fully merging accounts. Each member maintains his or her own Avios balance. When a collective account member logs into his or her member area, he or she sees his or her own balance and the family balance.

Creating a British Airways group account is easy, just go through the member area. Each member receives an e-mail with a link to click to confirm their membership. At this point you can proceed to create the children's account. There is a limit to 7 people in the collective account, but unlike other programs there is no distinction between adults and minors.

In order to avoid scams and misconduct it is possible to make one change every 6 months to the Collective Account, a user can only be a member of one collective account at a time, the "Head of Household" can also add five more people as "Family and Friends." These names can be deleted and replaced once they are on the list for six months.

How the British Airways group account works

Once the group account is created it is good to understand how it works, or perhaps it is better to understand how it works first and then decide whether or not to create it, because the rules are different from all other programs.

1. When you accumulate points, they only go into your account.
2. When you want to redeem an award ticket instead, the points will be subtracted (pro-rata) from the accounts of the different account members.

Award tickets in a collective account, let's get clarity

Members of the collective account are one thing, and fellow travelers are another.

The Collective Account can redeem Avios for flights for 5 fellow travelers as well, But their Avios are not merged with the Collective Account.

So when you create a collective account you need to know that you will be able to redeem a prize ticket for anyone in the Collective Account or for one of the five "Family and Friends" members and no one else.

Do the collective account points expire?

The rule applies to everyone, so Avios points will expire after three years of inactivity. Having a Collective Account does not automatically stop your points from expiring, unless an account member has British Airways Executive Club elite status. In this case, all account members are protected.

Since points are renewed by "moving" the account, only one award ticket needs to be redeemed every 36months to renew all members' points.

Can I move points from a group account to Qatar (or Iberia)

The answer is no, it is not possible to move multiple people's points to the account of one of the members on another program. So each user will be able to link their own accounts (BA, IB, QR and now AY) but only their own, not those of the collective account.

Closing a group account, what happens

Each member (18 years of age or older) retains the Avios balance he or she held, individually, within the Collective Account; if there is a minor in the account, his or her points will be lost forever.

It is always the account holder who manages the account, not the members. So only the head of the family can delete members or invite new ones; one cannot delete oneself from an account independently. In cases of problematic "divorces," it is possible to contact the executive club to have an ex officio separation.

In conclusion

BA's group account is, in some ways, a better tool than traditional family programs.

However, there are obvious limitations that you may not like. The biggest one is the inability to use points to book for people outside the circle of the account and friends/travel companions. However, being the only way to avoid missing children's flights, it is an essential tool for all families.

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