Can you use points to book a flight for someone else?

The short answer, and the six steps

Booking an award for someone else is an ordinary booking with one field changed: the passenger name. The points never leave your account, no transfer cap or transaction count applies, and no transfer fee is charged. The steps below work for every US program in this guide, and the later sections cover where the foreign programs and British Airways differ.

Booking is not transferring: the distinction that saves the fee

Three different acts get confused with each other, and only one of them is the booking. Booking an award for someone else means the miles stay in your account and the ticket is issued in their name. Transferring miles means the miles move into their account, usually for a fee, so they can book later. Pooling means two or more accounts combine balances into a shared pot. The booking is the cheapest of the three in almost every case, because it carries no transfer fee and no pooling setup, and it is the only one of the three that does not depend on the other person's account being ready.

Delta's program rules draw the line in plain language: miles may be redeemed for Award Tickets in the name of passengers other than the SkyMiles Member, but those tickets are nontransferable once issued and name changes are not allowed. That is the whole rule. The miles are yours, the ticket is theirs, and the ticket cannot be handed to a third person afterwards. American's customer service plan says the same thing in its own words: all awards can be issued in any name you designate, subject to the rules against selling them. The pooling and sharing guide covers the cases where pooling or transferring earns its keep, which are the cases where no single balance is big enough or the booking has to come out of a specific account.

The fee gap is the reason the distinction matters. United charges $7.50 per 500 miles transferred plus a $30 processing fee per transaction, so moving 25,000 miles costs $405 before the award is booked. Delta charges $0.01 per mile plus a $30 processing fee, so moving 25,000 miles costs $280. Southwest charges 1 cent per point to transfer, which all but wipes out the value of the points being moved. Booking directly from your own account costs none of that in every one of those programs. The transfer exists for the case where the traveler has to finish the booking themselves, or where they have to control changes to it. If you already know the flight, book it.

The US programs, one by one

Every major US program allows you to book an award for anyone, with no registration and no relationship requirement. American, Delta, United, Southwest, JetBlue and Alaska all let the account holder name any traveler at booking, and the traveler does not need to hold an account in that program. The differences between them are not about whether you can book, but about what happens after the ticket is issued and what the program offers for households that travel together.

At United, the miles can also be pooled: up to five people, friends or family, can join a MileagePlus pool, and pooled miles can be used for anyone in the pool or not. United also gives its elite members and certain cobranded cardholders access to extra award inventory, and that access follows the account that pays, so booking a parent's flight from an elite member's account can show seats the parent's own account would not see. At Southwest, the account holder controls the reservation: if the traveler wants to change the flight, the change goes through the member whose points paid for it. Southwest points never expire, and a cancelled points booking returns the points to the account that paid, as long as the cancellation happens at least 10 minutes before the original scheduled departure.

At Delta, the issued award is nontransferable, and Delta prohibits selling or bartering miles outright: a ticket given to a friend is allowed, and a ticket booked in return for money is what the rules prohibit. At American, the same two lines hold: the award can be issued in any name you designate, and the name cannot be changed after ticketing, so a wrong name means cancelling and booking again at whatever the price is that day. JetBlue lets up to seven friends and family members combine points through TrueBlue points pooling. Alaska's Atmos Rewards lets Summit cardholders create a sharing network with up to ten other members, including friends and family.

Aeroplan and Flying Blue: book for anyone, pool for families

Air Canada Aeroplan lets you redeem points for someone else even when you are not traveling, and there is usually no need to pay to move points into the traveler's account just to book their ticket. The reservation has to be made in the traveler's full legal name as it appears on their passport, and once booked the ticket cannot be transferred to a different passenger, so the name check matters here exactly as it does at the US programs. Aeroplan also runs Family Sharing, which joins up to eight verified family members in a shared balance: the family lead must be at least 18 and must have held an Aeroplan account for at least six months, every point each member earns goes into the shared balance, and any member with redemption privileges can book a reward for anyone, including someone outside the pool.

Air France-KLM Flying Blue states the same open rule in its own terms: a member with enough miles can request a reward online or by telephone, for themselves or for a person they name at the time of the request, and only the member may request it. The passenger does not need a Flying Blue account. Flying Blue also runs a Family pool of up to eight accounts, two adults and six children, where the family leader moves miles into their own account and then books for the family. Children aged 2 to 11 get a 25 percent discount on award tickets on Air France and KLM when they travel with an adult. The family pool is the tool for a household that flies together; the open booking rule is the tool for a one-off ticket for a friend.

Both programs are worth reaching for through a bank transfer only after the booking rule is checked, because a transfer into Aeroplan or Flying Blue is final and the miles then live under that program's rules. The guide to Aeroplan partner awards and the Flying Blue best-use guide cover the award pricing that decides whether the transfer is worth it at all.

British Airways: the household account changes the answer

British Airways is the program where the answer depends on a setting you may already have switched on. Without a Household Account, there are no restrictions on booking travel for others: you can use your Avios to book a reward flight for another person, even if they are not travelling with you, by making the booking yourself and giving the traveler's full name as it appears on their passport. With a Household Account, the pooled Avios can only be spent on members of the household or on up to five people on the Family and Friends list, so a cousin outside both lists cannot fly on the pooled balance until they are added to the list.

A Household Account combines the Avios of up to seven people into one shared pot, free to set up, and since a 2021 rule change the members no longer need to live at the same address. Each person keeps their own account and balance, and when someone redeems, British Airways deducts the cost proportionally from every member's balance based on their share of the household total, not just from the account of whoever is booking. Any member can redeem the entire pot regardless of who earned it, and only the head of household gets an email when the balance changes. Members cannot be added or removed more than once every six months, and the account cannot be dissolved or re-created more than once every six months either.

The household account is also the only route to a Club number for a child: under-18s cannot hold an individual British Airways Club membership, and they can only earn and hold Avios inside a household account. Bookings for them must be made by a member aged 18 or over. If your household account already exists, check the Family and Friends list before you promise a ticket to someone outside the household, and read the frequent flyer accounts for kids guide for how the under-18 rules work across programs.

The programs that say family only, or a named list

The restrictive programs are mostly in Asia, and they are the ones that catch people who assume the US rule is universal. Korean Air SKYPASS and Asiana Club allow you to redeem miles only for immediate family members, limit you to five linked members per account, and require documentation to prove the family or spousal relationship. ANA Mileage Club limits award bookings to members of its ANA Family Account, who must be within two degrees of kinship, and charges a registration fee of 1,000 miles per member. Japan Airlines Mileage Bank limits award tickets to family members within the second degree of kinship. EVA Air goes further: you can only use miles to book a flight for someone else if you are traveling with them.

The second group does not limit you to family, but it does limit you to a list you file in advance. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer lets you add up to five redemption nominees, who must stay on the account for a minimum of six months, and charges between $0 and $30 to remove one depending on elite status. Cathay Pacific lets you redeem for members of your nominated redemption group, with the first five nominees free and $50 each time a nominee is replaced. Qatar Airways lets you add up to four people to My List, and they must stay on the list for at least six months. TAP Miles and Go lets you select up to ten beneficiaries each calendar year. Turkish Airlines requires you to add someone as a travel companion before you can redeem miles for their ticket.

The practical rule for this whole group is time. A nominee list with a six-month minimum stay cannot be set up the week of the trip, and a family registration that needs documents cannot be filed at the airport. If the miles are in one of these programs and the trip is for someone outside the family, check the list rule months before you transfer, because the transfer is final and the booking rule is the thing that decides whether the miles can be spent at all.

What you need from the traveler before you book

The booking needs four things from the traveler, and three of them cannot be guessed. The first is their exact legal name as it appears on their government-issued ID or passport, including middle names and hyphens exactly as printed. The second is their date of birth, which several programs ask for at booking and which the airline uses to match the ticket to the traveler at check-in. The third is their contact information, so the airline can reach them about schedule changes. The fourth is their frequent flyer number in the operating program, if they hold one and want the flight credited to their own account, though an award ticket usually earns no miles or status credit: the guide to whether award tickets earn miles covers the exceptions.

For an international trip, ask for the passport details as well, because the airline collects them before departure and a mismatch can block check-in. For a child, the rules change again: some programs need a guardian's consent, some need the booking by phone, and some bar online bookings for children under 12 altogether. The frequent flyer accounts for kids guide and the lap infants and kids on award tickets guide cover those cases program by program. Get the details in writing, in a message you can copy from, rather than over the phone, because a name spelled from memory is the most common reason an award booking has to be cancelled and rebooked.

Who controls the booking after it is ticketed

Once the ticket is issued, control stays with the account that paid for it. The traveler cannot change the itinerary themselves, and the airline will direct them back to the member whose miles paid. At United, a traveler on a ticket booked with someone else's miles is not allowed to make changes to the itinerary themselves. At Southwest, the reservation is tied to the account holder for management, including changes and cancellations, though the traveler holds their own boarding pass. The same split applies at the other US programs: the payer manages, the traveler flies.

The name cannot be changed after ticketing at American or Delta, and the same holds in practice everywhere else: an issued award ticket names its passenger, and reassigning it means cancelling it and booking a new one at the price on the day. That is why the name check belongs in step two of this guide, before the search, rather than at the payment screen. If the trip itself might change, say so before you book: the account holder is the one who will have to make the change, pay any change fee the program charges, and rebook at the new price, and the traveler cannot do any of it alone.

If they cancel or do not fly

When an award booked for someone else is cancelled, the miles go back to the account that paid for it, under that program's award cancellation rules. The traveler does not receive the miles, because they never held them. The fees and deadlines differ by program, and the guide to cancelling an award flight covers them. At Southwest, cancelling at least 10 minutes before the original scheduled departure returns the points to the account used to book. At United, there is no change or cancel fee, but getting miles back after a no-show costs $125. Check the rule for your program before you book, because the cancellation terms are part of the price of the booking, and a ticket for someone else is cancelled by you, not by them.

A no-show is the expensive case. The miles are spent, the seat goes empty, and the program's no-show rule decides whether anything comes back. Tell the traveler the cancellation deadline in the same message as the confirmation, and tell them to tell you, not the airline, if their plans change, because only you can cancel the booking in time. If the airline changes the schedule, the guide to refunds after a schedule change covers what comes back and where it goes.

The line you must not cross: selling miles and tickets

Booking a flight for a friend is allowed. Selling the ticket, or selling the miles that bought it, is not. Delta's rules prohibit selling or bartering miles, vouchers, award tickets, upgrade certificates and status, and Delta can terminate or deduct miles from the account of a member who attempts it. American's terms carry the same ban on selling and bartering, and an award issued in any name you designate is still an award, not a product for sale. The guide to selling or buying miles sets out the consequences program by program, which run from cancelled tickets to closed accounts.

The line is about payment, not about generosity. A ticket you give to a friend is allowed. A ticket booked in return for money is what the rules prohibit, and that is the rule a sale of miles runs into. Never buy an award ticket from a broker, and never let a stranger book one for you with their miles: the airline can cancel the ticket, make the holder buy a new one at the going fare, and bill the member the fair market value. If someone offers you miles or an award at a price, that price is the sign that the booking is not legitimate.

Run this before you book for someone else

• Program checked: your program allows awards for anyone, or the traveler is on its family or nominee list.
• Traveler's exact legal name as it appears on their ID or passport, plus date of birth, written down and double-checked.
• Award found and priced, with its taxes and fees, and the booking clears your target in the calculator.
• You are logged in to the account that holds the miles, and the passenger field carries the traveler's name, not yours.
• Confirmation saved, ticket number checked, and the traveler told that changes go through you, not through them.