One of the most frustrating moments of my life as a frequent traveller is breakage of my miles and points balances.

You know you have almost enough miles to redeem a flight or enough hotel points to redeem a hotel night, but you need to still bridge a minor gap.

My options back in the day would be limited to buying miles or asking someone to transfer them to me, both of which cost money.

Luckily, airlines and hotel chains have taken cognisance of this situation.

There are a lot of people who don’t travel as frequently to get free flights of their own, but when they pool miles from various accounts, it may help them to get these miles together.

Many airlines and hotel programs allow for pooling of miles between family members and/or friends, making it convenient to use miles from multiple accounts.

In India, Jet Airways’ JetPrivilege is the only programme currently which allows for miles to be pooled from family accounts.

The MyFamily+ feature requires having a family head into whose account the miles are pooled.

Up to seven family members including your parents, your spouse and your kids can all pool their miles for free in the same account, and then redemptions can be made for anyone from the pooled miles.

This facility costs no money and works seamlessly online.

Air India Flying Returns had the intention to allow family members to pool miles, but hasn’t moved forward on making it available to members yet.

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Internationally too, many airlines are able to offer mileage pooling from family members.

British Airways allows for seven people from the same household to combine their Avios, while Etihad allows nine members.

Lufthansa Miles and More recently introduced mileage pooling where two adults and five kids can pool their miles into the same account.

Emirates Skywards allows eight family members to join a family pool to earn and redeem miles very recently as well.

In terms of hotel programs, Hilton Honors recently added the ability to pool points between family and friends.

Hyatt allows for pooling of World of Hyatt points after you fill up a form, and you can only transfer points once every 30 days. This has a very good use.

For instance, if you are travelling with friends and someone has hotel status with Hilton, if they make the bookings, you could potentially receive the benefits of the status as well. For instance, how about a Suite upgrade while paying just for a room?

If you are a small family and individually you don’t travel much, you definitely should look at pooling miles, because this allows your family to use the power of miles and points to redeem for travel you would usually end up paying cash for.

I’m sure that could be put to a better use for other experiences then.

Ajay Awtaney is a business travel & aviation journalist based in Mumbai, and the founder of the Indian frequent-traveller website Live From A Lounge (www.livefromalounge.com).

First Published:Jul 27, 2018 7:18 AM IST