My dad earns a lot of velocity points from travelling to and from work. He is currently at silver with approx. 108000 points, I’m on red with approx. 4900pts.
Dad is currently paying approx $300 for lounge membership annually, and doesn’t travel much to use his points. He just wants access to lounge when he flies for work.
So, from what I have read so far, I am thinking it is better that we POOL so I can have access to his points AND his Silver status, and also contribute to then OUR status and points. But if I TRANSFER, all I will get is his points? - Is this all correct? If her transfers his points to me, will he get to keep his Silver status?
Who is, or should be, the beneficiary if POOLing?
What happens if I pull out of the pool later on? Can I transfer his points to my account?
(we’re both at the same address)
Sorry about all the questions in the one post. I just wanted to clarify before I made my move.
When pooling, you pool points and status credits to one person, and only one person can access both the points and the status. Pooling might help the household head reach status more quickly, but that status can’t be shared (unless travelling with the status holder).
Pooling can only happen from those at the same address too.
Transfers allow you to earn status across multiple accounts and transfer only on demand when you need. That’s the primary difference. The other is that you can do transfers from extended family, there’s no address requirement.
So it’s down to how important those factors are on whether you go for pooling or transfers.
If breaking a pool in future, you can transfer some points back from the household head to you as you wish, but that doesn’t happen automatically.
If your dad is already on Silver and has a paid Lounge Membership then I suggest you pool his status and points into your account.
That way you can reach Silver quicker, this is assuming he isn’t trying to reach Gold.
One thing to keep in mind is that you may want to stop the pooling so your dad can re-qualify for Silver when it expires, otherwise the cost of his paid Lounge Membership will go from $300 to $420.