Sitting on a healthy Avios balance but the flight you're planning isn't for you? Good news: your points don't have to fund only your own travel. There are several ways to put them to work for a partner, a parent or a friend — and picking the right one can save you hassle, fees and even a missed business class seat.
The simplest option is to skip the transfer altogether and book the reward flight yourself. On British Airways and Iberia, you can redeem your own Avios for anyone, whether or not they're travelling with you — you just enter their name exactly as it appears on their passport. The big advantage is control: your points stay put until redemption, and if you've spotted scarce Club Suite availability on a popular route, you can lock it in immediately rather than moving thousands of points across and hoping the seat survives. This works best for one-off gifts, couples and anyone booking a premium-cabin ticket on a competitive long-haul route like Tokyo, Singapore or the Maldives.
Families who fly together regularly have a neater tool: the British Airways Household Account (or Iberia Club Family Account). Eligible members pool their balances, so small pots earned by kids or a partner combine into one big redemption without anyone manually shuffling points. One caveat worth knowing — when you redeem from a household, the points come off each member's balance proportionally, which matters if someone is quietly saving for a solo trip or a Companion Voucher. Under-18s must belong to a Household Account to receive or redeem transferred Avios.
Direct point-to-point transfers are the third route, and the one to treat with the most care. Transfers go in multiples of 1,000 Avios, capped at 200,000 sent and 200,000 received per person per calendar year, and they're irreversible — once they're gone, they're gone. The sensible use case is when the recipient genuinely needs the points in their own name: topping up towards a specific reward, or a gift of flexibility rather than a fixed flight. One blogger famously gave Avios as a wedding present towards a honeymoon in South Africa, which is a hard act to follow on the gift registry front.
Don't confuse any of this with consolidating your own balances. If you've earned Avios across British Airways, Iberia, Qatar Airways or Aer Lingus, you can move points between your own accounts to build one usable pot — no other person involved.
The rule of thumb: if the end goal is a flight, book it directly from your own account. If it's shared family planning, set up a Household Account. Only transfer when someone truly needs ownership of the points. And whatever you do, confirm reward availability exists before moving a single point.
