The frequent flyer accounts most parents never get around to opening
Reading Time: 4 minIf your child has their own paid airline seat, they should have their own frequent flyer account.
Don’t leave miles on the table. Yes, it’s an annoying administrative project, because every airline has its own rules for minors. But once you get the accounts created and save the numbers somewhere sensible, you can mostly stop thinking about it.
Create the accounts before you need them
I’d do this proactively for every airline your family flies with any regularity.
For a lot of U.S. families, that means American, Delta, United, Southwest, JetBlue, and Alaska.
Then save everything somewhere centralized.
I keep the kids’ frequent flyer numbers with the rest of our travel information. A password manager is ideal. A spreadsheet works too. I’d include each person’s airline account number, login email, and Known Traveler Number if they have one.
Once you have multiple kids multiplied by six airlines, this gets a little ridiculous, but push through!
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Start stacking with UpsideEvery airline approaches this differently
There’s no universal “create a child account” process.
JetBlue is the easiest. If your child is under 13, log into your own TrueBlue account and use the “Enroll a Child” option. You can create the child’s account and add them to your Points Pool from your own account.
Alaska is annoying. Alaska doesn’t allow anyone under 16 to complete online enrollment. The website literally stops you and tells you to contact support by phone or 24/7 chat. That said, Alaska phone service has generally been painless in my experience.
Delta also makes you work for it. For a child under 13, you complete a SkyMiles enrollment form plus a parent/legal-guardian consent form and send them to Delta. Delta says to allow up to seven business days for processing. All the more reason to do it in advance!
The email address problem
Another annoyance is that most airline accounts want each member to have their own email address.
Where the airline allows the parent’s email, use it. Delta’s under-13 form, for example, specifically asks for the parent’s email address.
If a website insists that every account have a unique email, Gmail can sometimes make this easier.
For personal Gmail addresses, Google ignores periods. So mail sent to johnsmith@gmail.com and john.smith@gmail.com reaches the same inbox. If the airline’s login system treats those strings as separate addresses, that can give you distinct logins without maintaining another inbox.
Pool the kids’ points where you can
A four-year-old having 3,700 miles sitting in an account by themselves is not terribly useful.
But if you can pool the points with yours, it’s great!
JetBlue is particularly good for families. Its Points Pooling feature lets you combine TrueBlue points, including children’s points, into a shared pool.
Not every airline does this. Some programs keep everyone’s balances completely separate, so check the rules before assuming you can sweep your kids’ miles into your own account.
Kids’ miles may be protected from expiration
This varies by airline, but there are some very kid-friendly rules.
For example: American. Normally AAdvantage miles require qualifying activity every 24 months to keep them active. But that requirement does not apply to members under age 21, as long as the child’s birth date is correctly listed in the account.
JetBlue is even simpler: TrueBlue points don’t expire at all.
So don’t assume that a small balance your six-year-old earns today is going to disappear before they can use it.
You can sometimes recover miles you already missed
If you’re reading this after taking three family trips without accounts for the kids, all may not be lost.
Delta is unusually generous. A newly enrolled child can request credit for qualifying flights taken up to nine months before the child enrolled.
American also allows retroactive requests, although the rules depend on when the flight occurred relative to enrollment. Existing members can generally request missing flight credit within 12 months; for travel before enrollment, American imposes shorter limits.
Do this once and then mostly forget about it
Your preschooler’s 2,600 airline miles are not going to revolutionize your travel strategy.
But your kids will have paid airline tickets for 15 or 20 years before they’re routinely booking their own travel. A couple of family trips will add up! Whether you redeem them or they do as adults, it’ll be worth it.
Spend an hour or two creating the accounts, save all the numbers, add them to future reservations, and periodically make sure the miles posted.
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