It’s actually easy to create a child’s British Airways Executive Club account. There are some rules to abide by and I show you the steps to follow.
Consolidation does wonders
The British Airways Executive Club (BAEC) program allows families to create a household account in order to better manage its members information for future trips, but also to consolidate total Avios balance. As a result, family members can enjoy reward flights much faster.
I wrote about the loyalty scheme’s: 3 reasons why British Airways Executive Club is the best loyalty program for traveling Canadian households.
However, there is a perception that won’t die. It has to do with kids not being entitled to earn miles on paid airfare.
Can kids earn Avios miles?
Many think that an individual can only start earning frequent flyer miles from the age of 18. This is a mis-perception that sticks in the public opinion.
Let’s see all 4 passenger categories in the ba.com site:
- Adults (16+ years);
- Young adults (12-15 years);
- Children (2-11 years);
- Infants (under 2 years).
An infant does not get a seat. It sits on the parent’s lap in most cases and pays 10% of the airfare’s value. Therefore, it cannot earn Avios miles.
Adults and young adults do earn miles as they get a seat.
How about children between the ages of 2 and 11? Two things you need to know about this group:
- They are old enough to get a British Airways Executive Club number (they can get a membership at birth);
- They will earn Avios miles as they have to have a seat and will pay 90% of an adult airfare.
Finally here’s your answer: YES they can earn miles! The Head of the Household account can create the child’s account. Let’s see how this can be done.
How do I create my kid’s BA Executive Club account?
Here’s the step by step process to creating your child’s Executive Club account.
Step 1: Go to your Household account
Once you log into your account, click on the My Household Account link. Then click on Manage my Household account.
Step 2: Add new member
The link will allow you to add or erase Household members. Click on Add new member.
You will land in the Add member to Household Account page as shows below.
Since your child does not have an account number, check No to the question Is the person you are nominating a member of the Executive Club.
Then type your personal email and fill in the other sections: title, first name, last name, date of birth and gender.
Finally, you are all set. You’ll receive two confirmation emails from British Airways . One is for your child’s new BAEC account, the other one is to confirm your child has joined your Household account.
Conclusion
As a traveling family, you don’t want to miss opportunities to earn miles. The British Airways Executive Club program is one of the few that allow its members to have a Household account. For Canadians, the RBC British Airways Visa card will give a 10% discount on BA-operated flights.
As soon as your child reaches the age of 2, it’s eligible for an BAEC number. Therefore do it and help grow your Household account balance faster.
Did you know that? Does your child have a loyalty number? Share with us your experience on Facebook at Amin On Miles Club.
I’ve tried to do this process and it’s not allowing me to add my kids to household account as it’s requesting me first to join the executive club and there’s is age restriction on it only over 18. so far it’s shoes on my account as a pending member. i called twice to BA and they said that it’s seems to be an error and they will have to come back to me. so far in waiting 10 days and no one came back to me.
If you follow the steps in the article then you should not have any issues. Kids can start earning points from the age of 2. That’s the age where they have to get a seat. Creating an account the normal way under the age of 18 won’t work. Therefore, follow the steps and let me know how it goes.
I am having the same issue as David. Following the steps on this page doesn’t work as no confirmation email ever turns up from BA.
Could be a temporary BA glitch. Did you check your Household Account to see if the member you added shows?
David,
It really seems a BA glitch. Creating a child’s BA account is only doable via Household account. it’s the only unless BA does it manually with you on the phone.
Please let me know what comes out of this.
I’ll test it myself and will get back to you.
I think it’s only possible if the child has a separate email address to the adult, that’s the only way I could get it to work anyway.
Yes. Each account needs to have a unique email.
I have been struggling for almost a year, the BA executive club support team being absolutely USELESS to help with this issue but today it worked. I’m not what caused the issue to resolve but this is what I’ve done:
– Remove my kids from Friends and Family list ( I tried shortly after doing it and it was not still working but maybe some updates in the backend that take time needed to execute first. It worked after approximtely 15-20 min).
– Set my preferred language to English from French (Really weird if that would be root cause of the issue but we never know).
Please let me know if any of these 2 workarounds worked !
Glad you figured it out. BA IT does have lots of bugs. It’s better to have your family members under your HOUSEHOLD group and any other travel companion in FAMILY & FRIENDS. You’ll need to set it up in order to redeem reward tickets for that person in your FAMILY & FRIENDS group.
I’ve been trying to do this for ages, hopeless, BA system just returns an error, I’ve tried deleting the kids from the household account and tried it again, still nothing, utterly hopeless
Yup, not working for me either, despite following the steps in the article. For the love of G**, what an absolute pain. I’ve managed to add my husband, but not the kids (who both have their own email addresses). I’ve tried removing them and re-adding them and resending links and now I’m getting all sorts of error messages and invalid links and whatnot….
Did you succeed in creating the kid accounts and have their BAEC numbers?
its showing pending for our 2 children ?
If that’s the case, call BA so they can finalize manually.
I tried all of the above as well and then tried to ring BA to no avail.
Have you been able to create your child’s account from your account (as head of the household)?
This worked for me today. I was on the phone with BA for 2 hours plus hours of online Chat and nobody could figure it out. I already had a BA account and just wanted to make one for my child. The language on the website is confusing as it implies you are nominating your child to be the head of household. You have to do exactly that and use a different email address. Once I clicked on that address on behalf of my child’s theoretical role as head of household, it took me to a page to sign them up for their own account. It pre-populated the email section with MY email and I had to change it to me child’s email (the one that received the invite). Good luck!
Good job going thru BA’s IT Odessey 🙂
Hi Jay,
Can you do a step by step guide to how you did this. I don’t see where you would nominate your child to be head of household. Would appreciate the guide
Thanks
Thanks for this post. It didn’t work for me when I had my son’s email as my email. However, when I changed his email from my email to his email, the BA site sent his email a link that let me sign him up for an EC membership. I was only able to create his account through this link that was sent as it gave me the age restriction error when I tried to sign him up through the site. Pretty straightforward, hopes this helps some people.
Glad it worked out!
Hi,
I hit exactly the same issue, this is how I got around it
Step 1: I use Google Chrome – its not essential but helps if you are going to follow my steps.
Step 2: Your child (children) must each have their own email account, they cannot use yours and they cannot share an email address. I simply setup Google Mail accounts for them each.
Step 3: Go To Your Household Account
Once you log into your account, click on the My Household Account link. Then click on Manage my Household account.
Step 4: Add New Member
The link will allow you to add or erase Household members. Click on Add new member.
You will land in the Add member to Household Account page as shows below.
Since your child does not have an account number, check No to the question Is the person you are nominating a member of the Executive Club.
Then type THEIR personal email and fill in the other sections: title, first name, last name and date of birth. Skip the button that says “Add another member”, its a bit misleading as you think its about adding this child but underneath is a checkbox to tick to accept the T&Cs, tick it and click “Submit details”
On next page, confirm details, click “Add to household account”.
Step 5. Log onto your child’s email account, i.e. webmail to see their email inbox, NOT yours.
Step 6. You should see a new email from BA titled “Your invitation to join an Executive Club Household Account”, open it and there’s a link to “Accept your Household Account invitation”. IMPORTANT PART: Don’t click it, instead right click it and “copy link address”.
Step 7. In Google Chrome, top right is the three little dots, click it and click “New incognito Window”. In the new window, in the address bar, right click and paste. This will paste the invitation link from your child’s mailbox and press enter.
Step 8. You’ll be asked to enter the Head of the household date of birth. Obviously this is your DOB and not the child’s DOB. Tick the box to agree to the T&Cs and click “Accept invitation”
Step 9. Next you will see “Join the Executive Club for free”, ignore the fact the minimum age is 18 to join this normally, but this web page allows you to sign your child up to it – I know, crazy. So basically go through, fill in your child’s details, their own email address you created for them at the start of my step by step and a password (unique to them), scroll down, skip the mobile phone stuff and then keep scrolling to “Tell us more”, add their details, their real DOB (ignore “age restrictions apply”) and gender on the passport. Tick the box to the T&Cs right at the bottom and click “Join now”
Step 10. Note their membership number shown.
Step 11. Go onto the child’s email account. You should see a new email “Your executive club membership”, open it and click the “Activate your account”. You’ll be taken to a BA page that says your Executive club membership is now active.
Step 12. Go back to your child’s email account. Look for the first email from BA “Your invitation to join an Executive Club Household Account”, open it and click “Accept your Household Account invitation”. This will finally accept your child into your household account and thats it!
Thank you so so so much for this. Especially the step about incognito mode as i thought that was probably an overkill but turns out it is a crucial step. This worked perfectly for me after 2 months of trying different workaround
Thank you – this worked! It’s odd that BA don’t publish these instructions!
These instructions work perfectly. thankfully i have not wasted months and found this within 5 mins of searching. great post!
Thank you very much. I just registered both of my kids following your steps and no problem at all. I’ve also just added their new membership numbers to our flight details for tomorrow and they were recognised straight away. Thank you!
Thank you so much for this. Your instructions were very understandable and enabled me to add the child. Customer Service for British airways executive club were completely useless.
**The trick was the incognito option 👍👌
This was so helpful and worked. Thanks!
Thanks to RD – this worked for me perfectly (and the step by step guide was very appreciated)
Thanks RD for detailed steps. It worked for me.. Appreciate your effort in explaining clearly.