Winter break in 2022, four ANA and EVA business class seats were in my sights on Aeroplan program.
Even though I had a transfer bonus of Air Canada Aeroplan from Chase running and I was sitting there staring at my Chase account not wanting to click. It wasn’t that the redemption was bad. I just didn’t want to dump that many Chase points into one airline program. It was because I wanted to leave them for Hyatt hotels. Those points are flexible right up until the second you transfer them, and then they’re not. Anyone who’s done this knows the feeling.
So I went looking for another way. My husband had his own points sitting there. Could we book from his side and keep more of mine intact? That’s when I found out Aeroplan had family sharing. We signed up, and every ticket got booked under my account. It didn’t get us a cheaper award or unlock anything we couldn’t have had otherwise.
What it did was make the whole thing easier to run. One account, one booking, one place to look when something changed.
That’s really what pooling is. It doesn’t make you more points. It makes the points you already have easier to actually use. After all, family travel is a different story than doing points on your own, and you already know this if you’ve ever gone looking.
Some airlines call it family sharing, some call it points pooling. Either way, you put everyone’s miles in one pile and use them together.
There are five key programs offering “family pooling”.
- Aeroplan (Air Canada)
- ANA Mileage Club (All Nippon Airways)
- Japan Airlines Mileage Bank (Japan Airlines)
- TrueBlue Points (JetBlue Airways)
- United MileagePlus (United Airlines)
They’re not all equally good at it, so I tiered them in this post.
How I Ranked These
One rule, and I want to say it out loud so you can argue with me if you disagree.
I ranked these on how well the pooling rules serve a family. Not on how valuable the miles are. Those are two different questions and mixing them is how most comparisons go wrong.
That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. Nobody actually chooses between Aeroplan and JAL Family Club. You’re mostly stuck with whichever program your family already has miles in.The useful question isn’t which program is best in the abstract. The useful question is whether the pooling setup on the miles you already have is worth the effort of getting everyone signed up.
The tiers below answer that.
Before Any of This, Ask These Six Questions
Every airline handles pooling a little differently, and that’s where people get tripped up. Some move the points into one shared account. Some leave everything where it is and only combine at the moment you book. Some put one person in charge of who’s allowed to spend.
So before you set anything up, get answers to these six:
- How many people can be in it?
- Do they have to be actual family?
- Does everything go in, or do you pick how much?
- Who’s allowed to book?
- Can you use it on partner airlines, or only that airline’s own flights?
- Is there a waiting period to join or to leave?
Those six answers are the whole ballgame. They’re what makes a pool useful to your family or a waste of your afternoon. They’re also what I used to build the tiers below.
S Tier
Air Canada Aeroplan Family Sharing
Aeroplan Family Sharing is up here alone, and it isn’t close. This is the one I’ve actually used, more than twice now.
You can have up to eight people including the family lead. Your family’s points go into a genuine shared balance, so everyone keeps their own account but you all pull from the same pile when it’s time to book. Those few thousand points sitting in your kid’s account, or your spouse’s, or your mom’s, finally get used instead of quietly expiring.
The part I really like is the control. The family lead decides who can book and who can only earn. If you’ve got teenagers with account logins, you’ll appreciate that.
And if someone in your pool has the main Aeroplan credit card, everyone else gets preferred pricing when they book. It’s free to set up and there are no transfer fees between members. No other program on this list has all four of those things.
Go in knowing: it’s all or nothing. When someone joins, every point they’ve got goes into the shared balance, and so does everything they earn from then on. You can’t put in half and keep half. Worth a family conversation before anyone clicks join. The family lead also needs an account that’s been open at least six months.
This is for you if: you’re already earning Aeroplan and you travel with kids.
A Tier
United MileagePlus Miles Pooling
United MileagePlus Miles Pooling is the one that just changed, and it’s the reason I wrote this post.
United lets you put your miles into a shared pool and combine everyone’s leftover balances without paying those brutal transfer fees. But when it first launched, there was a catch that made the whole thing kind of pointless for a lot of us. Pooled miles could only be used on United and United Express flights. Fine if you’re flying around the States. Not fine if the reason you’re holding United miles in the first place is Air Canada, ANA, Lufthansa, or EVA Air.
That limit is gone. United confirmed pooled miles now work on more than 40 partner airlines, inside and outside Star Alliance.
What keeps it interesting is that United is the only program here where you choose how much to contribute. There’s no cap on how much you can put in, but there’s no requirement to hand over everything either.
It’s free, and friends and close travel companions count, not just family. The leader has to be 18 or over, but the people they invite can be any age.
Go in knowing: five people total, which is the leader plus four invitees. If you leave a pool, there’s a 90 day wait before you can join another one. And United’s wording is select partner airlines, so check the specific flight you want before you go rearranging everyone’s accounts. One more thing to watch is that you can only pool actual miles, not PQP, PlusPoints, or TravelBank.
This is for you if: your family’s United miles are scattered and you want to keep some control over what you put in.
B Tier
These two really do belong in the same tier. Both work well if you qualify, both charge miles, and both are narrow on who’s eligible. Japan Airlines Family Club edges ahead slightly, but not by enough to separate them.
JAL Family Club
Japan Airlines Family Club is built for JAL Mileage Bank members living outside Japan, which is a lot of us.
It’s got the biggest roster of the five. The primary member plus up to eight family members, so nine total. Eligible members are your spouse, your children and their spouses, your parents, and your spouse’s parents. The primary member needs to be at least 12 and living outside Japan.
Nothing moves between accounts. Everyone’s JAL miles simply combine when you book, which means you stop landing in that spot where every single person is just a little short.
Go in knowing: there’s no annual fee, but there are mileage fees. It’s 1,000 miles to register, another 1,000 every five years to renew, and 1,000 each time you add someone. And this next bit is worth real money. If you add your family members before you relocate, that add on fee gets waived.
This is for you if: you’re outside Japan and genuinely building JAL miles. If you fly JAL once every few years, the fees aren’t going to be worth it.
ANA AMC Family Account Service
ANA calls this ANA Mileage Club Family Account (AFA) Service, and it’s the same shape as JAL’s version. Built for Mileage Club members living outside Japan, accounts stay separate, miles combine when you book.
You can register two to eight people including yourself. Family members have to be your spouse or same-sex partner, or a relative within two degrees. Once you’re set up, you can use it on ANA flights, on partner flight awards, and on ANA international upgrade awards.
Go in knowing: registration costs 1,000 miles, and it costs another 1,000 every time you add someone or change something, so try to get it right the first time. That’s the main thing keeping it a notch below JAL. Also give yourself time. Registration takes about two weeks, and ANA might ask you to prove where you live or how you’re related. Don’t start this the month before a trip.
This is for you if: you’re outside Japan with ANA miles sitting in more than one account.
C Tier
JetBlue TrueBlue Points Pooling
JetBlue’s version has the loosest rules of the bunch, and that’s the whole appeal of their Points Pooling program for family. You don’t have to be related, so this works for couples, for friends, for whoever you always end up on a trip with. If you and your college roommate go somewhere every spring, this is for you.
The setup is simple. Everyone puts their TrueBlue points in one pool and a pool leader manages who can spend. It solves that annoying thing where four people each have a few thousand points and nobody has enough for anything.
So why C tier? Because of what you get at the end of it. TrueBlue points are tied to the cash price of the ticket, which means pooling here won’t unlock anything special. There’s no sweet spot waiting for you. What you get is leftover points that finally get used up instead of sitting there.
This is for you if: you fly JetBlue with the same people all the time and you’ve all got small balances going stale.
One Last Thing Before You Set Anything Up
Look at where your family’s points actually live. That one step answers this for most people.
Pooling is a tool. It’s not the goal.
If everyone in your house has a scattered pile and together it adds up to a real ticket, go look into it. But if most of your points are sitting in one person’s credit card account, you probably don’t need a family pool at all. It’s usually cleaner to wait until you’re ready to book and transfer those points to whichever airline makes sense for that trip.
And let’s be clear about what this does and doesn’t do. Pooling won’t hand you a single extra point. What it does is take miles that were stuck in five separate accounts and turn them into one trip you can actually take.
Go pull up your family’s balances and add them together. I think you’ll be surprised.
Rules change, so check the airline’s own terms before you commit anyone to a pool.
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