Can I share my miles with someone else?

If you and your partner both play the miles game, you might run into an awkward situation where one of you is flush with credit card points and the other isn’t (especially now with the ladies raking in the miles on the UOB Lady’s Card!)

In an attempt to diffuse any would-be relationship tension, you might be wondering if it’s possible to transfer your points to their frequent flyer programme instead (or vice versa).

In short: no.

The names on your credit card account and frequent flyer account must match. If there’s any mismatch, your transfer may bounce, and it could result in an audit by the bank or airline. As you can imagine, they have a vested interest in preventing the formation of a secondary market for points resale. 

However, there’s really no reason why you need to do that anyway. In this post, we’ll look at how couples can share the points they earn from spending, either on the bank side, or with the airline.

Sharing points on the bank side

While you cannot transfer credit card points to someone else’s frequent flyer account, two banks in Singapore allow you to transfer credit card points to someone else’s card account.

This could be useful if you want to combine points that would otherwise have been orphaned, although you’ll need to weigh whether it’s worth the fee. 

OCBC Credit Cards

OCBC allows principal cardholders to transfer OCBC$, 90°N Miles or VOYAGE Miles to another principal cardholder (Point 6 of T&Cs).

A flat admin fee of 2,300 units of currency applies, which means the cost is actually lowest with OCBC$ (because 5 OCBC$=2 miles, while 1 90°N/VOYAGE mile= 1 mile)

• 2,300 OCBC$
• 2,300 90°N Miles
• 2,300 VOYAGE Miles

To make a transfer, login to your online banking and click on Rewards > Point transfer

You’ll then be able to specify how many points you want to transfer, and to which card number. 

At the risk of stating the obvious, you can only transfer OCBC rewards currencies to cardmembers with the same rewards currency. For example, you cannot transfer OCBC$ to someone who only has an OCBC VOYAGE Card.

Standard Chartered Credit Cards

Standard Chartered principal cardholders can transfer 360° Rewards Points to other principal cardholders (Point 7 of T&Cs). A maximum of five nominees can be nominated.

A fee of S$10 is charged for every 100,000 360° Rewards Points (or part thereof) transferred to a nominee’s credit card account. This fee is waived for Visa Infinite cardholders. 

To make a transfer, login to the Standard Chartered rewards portal and click on your name at the top right > Points Transfer

You’ll then be able to specify how many points you want to transfer, and to which card number. 

Pooling points into a single account

Other banks do not have similar transfer schemes, but if your concern is pooling credit card points into a single account, one way of doing so is to use a principal/supplementary cardholder arrangement. Any points earned by the supplementary cardholder are considered the property of the principal cardholder.

The principal cardholder cannot transfer points to the supplementary cardholder’s frequent flyer account, but he can transfer them to his own and then redeem award tickets for the supplementary cardholder (see below).

The main disadvantage of this arrangement is that bonus caps on specialised spending cards are per principal cardholder; supplementary cardholders do not enjoy a bonus cap of their own. For example, if you have a DBS Woman’s World Card and add a supplementary cardholder, your 4 mpd cap is still S$2,000 per month.

Therefore, unless you and your partner are relatively modest spenders, it’d make more sense for each of you to get your own principal cards.

Sharing miles on the airline side

Redeeming award tickets for someone else

Assuming you’re not trying to save orphan points, however, there’s really no reason why you’d need to do a transfer on the bank side.

If the concern is that one party has too many miles and the other too few, the individual with more miles can always redeem an award ticket on behalf of the other:

• If you’re using KrisFlyer or Asia Miles, you can add up to five redemption nominees and redeem award tickets on their behalf
• Most other frequent flyer programmes (such as Alaska Mileage Plan, Avianca LifeMiles, British Airways Executive Club, Delta SkyMiles, Emirates Skywards, Etihad Guest and United MileagePlus), will allow you to redeem miles for anyone you wish

Zooming in on KrisFlyer as an example: each member can nominate a maximum of five redemption nominees for whom tickets and upgrades can be redeemed.

(1) Child nominees and adult nominees are treated the same (i.e. they each take up one of your five slots)

(2) There is no fee for adding new redemption nominees

(3) However, there is a fee to replace or delete existing nominees. Note the higher fees for doing it offline (but there’s really no reason to do so)

(4) Once a nominee is added, he/she can only be replaced or deleted after six months

Once a redemption nominee has been added, you can redeem any sort of award ticket for him or her, whether it’s with Singapore Airlines, Star Alliance, or any other partner.

For more information on how the redemption nominee system works, refer to the guide below. 

How does KrisFlyer’s redemption nominee system work?

Conclusion

While it’s not possible to transfer your credit card points to someone else’s frequent flyer account, that’s no real barrier to sharing the joy of miles. It’s possible to share points with certain banks, or else one party can add the other as a redemption nominee. 

In fact, it may be better to do this than having each person redeem their miles separately. By putting both traveller’s names on a single booking, you can ensure your waitlist clears together (or fails together…such as the trials of coupledom), and it could also simplify other logistical matters such as booking stopover packages or claiming travel insurance.