Promoting a Junior to an Adult Account

When a junior turns 16, they can claim a full adult Badminton Clubhouse account in their own name. The junior’s club memberships, match history, and profile follow them across — nothing is lost.

This article covers the guardian-assisted flow: a guardian on the Family page starts the promotion and the junior receives a magic link by email to complete it.

Note: Promotion is currently guardian-assisted only. We’ll add a self-promotion flow (junior 16+ initiating it themselves) in a later update.

Who Can Use This

You can promote a child if:

• You are a guardian of that child on your Family page
• The child is 16 or older
• The child has not already been promoted

Step 1 — Set the Email of Record

Before you can send a promotion link, you need to record the email address the junior controls. This is the email the magic link will be sent to — not yours.

1. Go to /me/family
2. Find the junior’s card
3. Click Set email of record first (or the small mail icon next to an existing one)
4. Enter the email and click Save

The email must be different to any of the junior’s guardians’ emails — otherwise we can’t tell which person owns the account.

Step 2 — Send the Magic Link

Once the email of record is set:

1. Click Promote to adult account on the junior’s card
2. Confirm in the dialog
3. We’ll send a magic link to the email of record
4. The card will show “Promotion link sent”

You can Resend link any time, or Cancel request to stop the link working.

The link is valid for 30 days. After that it expires automatically and you can start a new request.

Step 3 — The Junior Claims Their Account

The junior:

1. Opens the email titled “Claim your adult Badminton Clubhouse account”
2. Clicks Claim my account
3. Is signed in automatically and lands on their new player home

That’s it. Behind the scenes:

• A new adult player profile is created in their name
• Every club where they were a junior member now lists them as the adult member
• Their match history follows them across
• You (and any other guardians) keep read-only access for 30 days as a grace period, then the guardianship link is revoked

What If Something Goes Wrong?

• “This link isn’t valid” — the request was deleted or the link is malformed. Send a fresh one from the Family page.
• “This link has expired” — more than 30 days passed. Send a fresh one.
• “Wrong email address” — the junior is signed in with a different account. Sign out and click the link from the original email again.
• “You already have an account” — the email already has a Badminton Clubhouse account. Contact support to merge.
• “This link has already been used” — the promotion already completed (or was cancelled). Sign in normally.

After Promotion

The junior’s old card disappears from your Family page. They’ll appear as an adult player at every club they were a member of.

If they want to add a guardian back later (e.g. for safeguarding contact), that’s a separate adult-side feature — not covered by this flow.

What Happens at 18 (Mandatory Promotion)

At age 18, promotion stops being optional. UK data protection rules don’t allow us to keep an adult’s personal data behind a guardian indefinitely — once they’re 18, the account needs to be theirs.

You’ll see a banner on each child’s card on /me/family the moment they turn 18, with a 90-day countdown.

Here’s the timeline:

• Day 0 (their 18th birthday): a banner appears on their card and an email goes to the email of record. Click Promote to adult account any time during the next 30 days to complete it.
• Day 23: the banner turns orange — you have 7 days left. Take action now.
• Day 30: guardian access ends. You will see “guardian access has ended” on their card and you can no longer take actions on their behalf. The junior themselves can still complete promotion using the magic link from the original email (we’ll resend it). The card stays on your page so you can see status.
• Day 83: final reminder banner — the account locks in 7 days.
• Day 90: the account is locked. The only way to unlock it is to complete promotion.

The simplest thing is to complete promotion in the first 30 days. Set the email of record before they turn 18 (we’ll prompt you 60 days in advance with a separate banner) and the magic link goes out automatically on Day 0.

Email of Record Required by Default

Even before age 18, every junior needs an email of record on file within 6 months of being added. This is so we can contact them directly when promotion time comes — without it we can’t send them their magic link.

If you haven’t set it within 60 days of the deadline, you’ll see a banner on /me/family. If the deadline passes with no email, the junior’s account is locked until you set one and complete promotion.

What “Locked” Means

A locked junior account:

• Cannot have any actions taken on it (you, the junior, or anyone else)
• Still appears in club member lists with a “Locked” status — clubs can mark them as “Departed” using their normal admin tools
• Is unlocked only by completing promotion

If you genuinely need to recover a locked account (e.g. you got the date of birth wrong), contact support — we can correct the date of birth via the verification flow.