How do I open an Avios family account?

How can you open an Avios family account?

As part of the Executive Club, British Airways allows you to create a household account for your family in order to share and pool Avios. In this article we’ll look at how household accounts work.

Creating a household account is free and can be done easily on the British Airways Executive Club site here. The household account creator must already be a member of Executive Club.

Up to seven people are allowed to join a family account.  Following a rule change in November 2021, you do NOT need to share the same address to be in a household account.

Once you are part of a household account, your Avios are pooled for spending. This means that someone else in your family can spend your Avios.

When Avios are redeemed by someone in a household account, the Avios are taken from each person’s balance as a percentage of the total household balance.

For example, if three people are in an Avios family account and Person A has 50% of the total Avios and the remaining two people have 25% each, the amount deducted will correspond to the percentage they own: 50% of the Avios spent will come from Person A whilst 25% will be deducted from the accounts of Person B and C. It is not possible to change this.

Household accounts are the only way for under-18s to hold an Executive Club account. By adding a child to the household account they are automatically enrolled in Executive Club, allowing them to earn Avios on flights and pool them with the household account.  We explained more about how children can collect Avios in this article.

You can also add an additional five people to your ‘Friends and Family’ list.  These people do not need to share your address and your Avios will not be pooled with them. You can only remove them from this list once they have been on it for six months or longer.

There are a few limitations to household accounts. One key fact to remember is that you can only make changes to the household account once every six months.

Importantly, whilst standard Executive Club members can book free Avios flight tickets for anyone, once you are part of a household account you can only purchase Avios tickets for other members of the same account, or for people on your ‘Friends and Family’ list (up to five people).

This article explains how to close a British Airways Household Account if you change your mind later on, and explains what happens to your Avios.

(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 2.4 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.)

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 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:

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

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.

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.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

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

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