Guide: How to book EVA Air Infinity MileageLands awards for multiple travellers

EVA Air Infinity MileageLands tends to be an overlooked frequent flyer programme in Singapore, but with Business Class awards to Europe and North America costing 40% less than KrisFlyer, it’s one you should be familiar with.

I recently wrote a detailed guide covering Infinity MileageLands’ award charts, sweet spots and other rules, and now I want to drill down into a specific topic: booking awards for multiple travellers.

EVA Air Infinity MileageLands: An underrated programme with great sweet spots

I’m not going to mince my words: booking Infinity MileageLands awards for multiple travellers is a pain.

Unlike other programmes where the process is really no different from booking a single traveller, EVA Air forces members to jump through all kinds of hoops— almost as if they don’t want you to do it!

Here’s my attempt to explain the steps in as organised a manner as I can.

(1) Create an Infinity MileageLands account for your travel companion(s)

The first step is to create an Infinity MileageLands account for each of your travel companions. You will need as many accounts as you have companions, and everyone above the age of 2 needs their own account.

If they’re the miles-illiterate type who need you to manage everything, I’d recommend using Gmail’s alias function for their account’s email address (e.g. if your email is jack@gmail.com, the email for your companion can be jack+jillinfinity@gmail.com). This ensures all their account-related emails will end up in your inbox. 

(2) Enable online service

The next step is to “enable online service”, which unlocks the full features of your Infinity MileageLands account.

This requires downloading the Online Service Form, completing it, signing it, and emailing it to sininfinity@evaair.com.

You can only enable online service if you have accumulated at least 1 mile in your account from any of the following sources:

• Crediting an EVA Air, UNI Air or Star Alliance flight
• Purchasing miles from EVA Air
• Converting miles from credit card partners

The free miles received upon joining do not count.

For most people, the easiest way of achieving this would be to convert miles from a credit card partner. As I only wanted to test the waters, I transferred 250 miles (400 MR points) from my American Express account, which took 24 hours to complete.

Once my miles were credited, I submitted my form at 7.07 a.m on a Friday morning and received an email notification at 8.26 a.m that online service had been activated. 

There is no need to enable online service for your companions’ accounts. 

(3) Register nominee(s)

Once online service has been enabled, you will be able to add redemption nominees to your account.

Simply enter the Infinity MileageLands membership number of your travel companion(s) and click “Nominee Registeration (sic)”.

• Regular, Silver and Gold members can register six nominees 
• Diamond members can register nine nominees

Once added, nominees cannot be removed— ever. Double check the membership number before proceeding!

It will take 24 hours before you can perform any transactions for a nominee, so be sure to factor that in as well.

(4) Transfer miles to nominee

Here’s where it gets confusing.

In order to book award tickets for yourself and a companion, Infinity MileageLands requires you to transfer your own miles to the companion.

To do so, visit this page and pick a registered nominee.

You’ll be prompted to choose between:

• Earned Miles: Miles which you earned from flights, credit card points transfers, or other partners
• Purchased Miles: Miles which you purchased from Infinity MileageLands
• Reinstated Miles: Miles which you purchased back from Infinity MileageLands after they expired

For the vast majority of readers, “Earned Miles” will be the option to select, as they’ll have transferred miles from credit card points. 

You also have the option to choose which miles you wish to transfer first, though I don’t see why you wouldn’t choose the ones expiring the earliest. Enter the number of miles you wish to transfer, and click confirm to finalise.

All inter-member miles transfers are instant and free of charge. If you accidentally transfer more miles than you need, your nominee can also return the miles instantly, and without charge.

A further complication to be aware of: when booking awards, members cannot combine transferred miles with any of the nominee’s earned miles.

What this means is that if an award costs 75,000 miles, and your companion has 10,000 miles, you cannot just transfer him/her 65,000 miles. You will need to transfer the full 75,000 miles in order to make a booking.

By that same token, you cannot take advantage of the 1,000 free miles awarded upon account opening. Those can only be used in conjunction with miles that the nominee earns him/herself.

(5) Search for awards for yourself and nominee

Here’s where it gets even more confusing. 

Even though you’ve transferred miles to your companion, your companion doesn’t make the booking. You do, through your account. 

How this works is that when searching for EVA Air or Star Alliance awards, you need to include the membership number and password of your nominee. Yes, even the password!

You can enter the details of up to three companions, which means a maximum of four passengers can be booked on a single award itinerary.

If you’ve done everything correctly, then the system will allow you to book award tickets for yourself and your nominees. 

Congrats! And all it took was a good chunk of your sanity.

Conclusion

With most frequent flyer programmes, booking awards for multiple travellers is a simple matter. Unfortunately, EVA Air Infinity MileageLands takes a different approach. 

You’ll need to jump through several hoops to perform what should be a straightforward task, but the reward, should you persevere, is an opportunity to book some great value awards. 

Any tips to make booking multiple travellers less painful?