What is a British Airways ‘Family & Friends’ list?

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

How does a British Airways ‘Family and Friends’ list work? And how do you create a BA ‘Family and Friends’ list? Today I thought I’d take a look.

I wrote a Head for Points article recently on how to set up a British Airways household account.

Household Accounts have obvious benefits, allowing the Avios points from your entire family to be used for a single redemption. However, a BA household account used to come with a massive caveat – if you had one, you could never redeem for anyone outside your Household Account.

For many people, this was not a problem. For me, it was a massive deal breaker. I regularly redeem tickets for my parents in law in Germany or other extended family members. A few years ago I booked a seat at a few hours notice for a relative in Canada whose daughter had become seriously ill whilst travelling in Venice. I want that flexibility.

The ‘Family and Friends’ list is BA’s attempt to solve this problem.

A ‘Family & Friends’ list allows members of a British Airways Executive Club household account to book tickets for people who are not in the household account, as long as they are on the ‘Family & Friends’ list.

How do British Airways ‘Family & Friends’ lists work?

This is how it is described by BA. Go to ba.com, click on Executive Club and then Household Accounts. You will come to this page. Scroll down and you will see a reference to ‘Family & Friends’.

This is how BA describes it:

Once you have a Household Account, you can create a list of family and friends, so you can spend your Household Avios on more people who are important to you, and who don’t live at the same address as you.

There is then a link which allow you to create a ‘Family & Friends’ list.

There is a long T&C’s on ba.com, but I have distilled it for you:

You can have five people on your Family & Friends list

A person cannot be removed from your Family & Friends list until they have been on it for six months

Only the head of the Household Account can add or remove people from the Family & Friends list. This means that you can only have one Family & Friends list per household account, rather than per person.

You need the full name, date of birth and an email address to add someone to your Family & Friends list

Overall, this is a massive improvement to how Household Accounts work with British Airways and they deserve credit for implementing it. Household Accounts now look a lot more attractive for most people than they did.

What is the British Airways ‘Travel Companions’ list?

At the same time as they launched ‘Family & Friends’, British Airways also brought in an online ‘Travel Companions’ list.

If you regularly book revenue or award tickets for someone, you can now store their details online. This will make it substantially quicker to make repeated bookings. This has no impact on your Household Account or ‘Friends & Family’ list.

Again, this is a simple improvement to ba.com but one which should save some people a lot of time.

(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 1.8 million monthly page views. Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios? Click here to read our latest news stories, click here to join our email list and click here to read our ‘Avios Redemption University’ series.)

How to get 20,000 Avios from Amex Gold or 30,000 Avios from Amex Platinum (December 2021 offer)

The sign-up bonus on American Express Preferred Rewards Gold converts to 20,000 Avios and the card is free for the first year. You can apply here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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

You don’t qualify for the Amex Gold bonus if you have a British Airways American Express card. You DO qualify for the bonus on The Platinum Card, which converts into 30,000 Avios. You can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

If you have your own small business, the best way of earning Avios is via the Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa. It has a sign-up bonus which converts to 10,000 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also look at the British Airways Accelerating Business card, because it currently has a limited time offer of 60,000 Avios when you sign up by 14th November. You can apply here.