British Airways Family and Friends List Explained

The Family & Friends List lets the head of a British Airways Household Account book award flights for up to 5 named people who don’t live with them and aren’t part of the household — using the household’s own Avios, without adding those people to the pool itself. One detail trips people up constantly: you can’t create a Family & Friends List on its own. It only exists as a feature of an existing Household Account. Here’s exactly how it works.

What the Family & Friends List Actually Does

Once a Household Account exists, its head can nominate up to 5 people — by full name, date of birth, and email address — who can then have award flights booked for them using the household’s Avios. They don’t need to be British Airways Club members: non-members can be added and simply won’t receive a membership number or be enrolled in the Club just for being on the list.

This solves a real problem. Without it, a Household Account can only book award travel — including on Oneworld partner flights — for its own members — so if you want to redeem Avios for, say, a parent, a cousin, or a close friend who doesn’t live with you and isn’t going to join your household pool, the Family & Friends List is the only sanctioned way to do it.

The official page for this feature is here.

Why It Requires a Household Account First

This is the single most misunderstood part of the feature. You cannot set up a Family & Friends List as a standalone thing — British Airways is explicit that it’s created and controlled from inside a Household Account, and only by the head of household. If you’re not already running a Household Account, setting one up is the first step, even if you have no intention of pooling Avios with anyone else. (A one-person “household” still works — you’re the head, there’s just nobody else in the pool.)

See our full guide to Household Accounts for how the account itself works, including the pro-rata redemption mechanic that also governs Family & Friends bookings.

Whose Avios Actually Pay for the Ticket

When the head of household books an award flight for someone on the Family & Friends List, the cost comes out of the household’s own pooled Avios — deducted proportionally across household members the same way as any other award booking, not from some separate new pot created for the list. Nothing is pooled with the Family & Friends List member themselves: if that person happens to have their own, entirely separate British Airways Club account, it’s untouched by any of this. You’re simply spending your household’s Avios on their behalf, the way you might buy someone a plane ticket with cash.

Who You Can Add

• Up to 5 people at a time.
• They do not need to be British Airways Club members — non-members can be nominated and simply won’t get a membership number or be enrolled in the Club just from being on the list.
• No address requirement — same as the Household Account itself, this has no residency restriction.
• You need their full name, date of birth, and email address to add them.
• People under 18 can be nominated, though a minor generally needs their own Household Account membership (not just a Family & Friends List entry) to hold Avios or Tier Points of their own.

How to Add Someone to the List

• Log in to your British Airways Executive Club account online (only the head of household can do this step).
• Go to your Household Account settings and find the Family & Friends List option.
• Enter the person’s full name, date of birth, and email address.
• Once added, you can book an award flight for them the same way you would for a household member — just select them as the passenger during booking.

Step-by-Step: Booking a Reward Flight for a Family & Friends List Member

Once someone is on your list, actually booking their ticket works almost exactly like booking one for yourself — there’s no separate “Family & Friends” booking flow to learn.

1. Log in to The British Airways Club at ba.com (as the head of household) and search for reward flights the normal way — select “Use Avios” and enter your dates and route.
2. Choose your seats from whatever reward availability comes up, the same as any other Avios booking.
3. Enter the passenger’s details — at this stage, all you need is their full name exactly as it appears on their passport. Passport number and date of birth can be added later.
4. Pay the Avios plus any taxes and carrier charges. The Avios come out of the pooled household balance automatically; the cash portion (taxes/fees) can be paid with any credit card — it doesn’t have to belong to the account holder.
5. Confirm the booking. The booking confirmation email always goes to the account holder (you), and you can choose to send a copy to the passenger’s own email address too.
6. Add remaining passport details before departure via “Manage My Booking” — you don’t need the passenger’s passport number or date of birth at the time of booking, just before check-in opens.

One practical note: the person you’re booking for doesn’t need to be logged into anything or even have a British Airways account — you’re doing the entire booking from your own account, on their behalf, the same way you might book a cash ticket as a gift.

The Six-Month Rule

Once someone is added to your Family & Friends List, they have to stay there for a minimum of 6 months before the head of household can remove them and add someone else in their place. This mirrors the same minimum-tenure rule that applies to removing people from the Household Account itself — British Airways designed both features to discourage constantly swapping names in and out to route Avios to whoever needs a ticket that month.

Practically, this means the list is worth planning ahead for rather than treating as a same-week fix. If you know you’ll want to book award travel for a parent or friend at some point this year, adding them now costs nothing and starts the 6-month clock immediately — even if you don’t use it right away.

Can You Swap People — Remove One, Add Another?

Yes, and you can log in and view or manage the list at any time. The restriction isn’t on how often you visit the page — it’s on how soon a specific person can be removed. Once someone has completed their 6 months on the list, the head of household can delete them and add a new name in that freed-up slot, keeping you at the 5-person maximum.

A few things worth knowing before you plan a swap:

• The person you add to replace them starts their own fresh 6-month clock — the rule applies per person, not once per list. You can’t remove them again (or swap them out) until they’ve hit that same 6-month minimum.
• British Airways hasn’t published any cap on how many total swaps you can make in a year — the 6-month minimum per person is the only documented constraint, which in practice limits you to roughly 2 rotations per slot per year at most.
• There’s no indication of a cooling-off period between removing someone and adding their replacement — once a slot is freed, it appears you can fill it immediately.

If you’re not sure yet who you’ll want on the list long-term, it’s worth naming your 5 people conservatively from the start — a rarely-used slot that’s been sitting there for a year is more flexible than one you just added and now have to wait out.

Companion Vouchers and the Family & Friends List

If you hold a UK American Express Preferred Rewards card with a 2-4-1 companion voucher, the second traveler on that booking must be either a Household Account member or someone on your Family & Friends List — you can’t apply a companion voucher to just anyone. This is a UK-specific card benefit and doesn’t apply to US-issued Avios credit cards.

Frequently Asked Questions

Bottom Line

The Family & Friends List fills a specific gap: it lets you spend your household’s Avios on someone who isn’t going to join your Household Account — a parent, a friend, an extended family member — without needing them to pool their own points with yours. The catch is that it only exists inside a Household Account, so if you haven’t set one up yet, that’s step one. After that, adding someone takes minutes; just plan for the 6-month minimum before you can swap names around.