A change in how ‘Combine My Avios’ works, and a reminder of its quirks

Whilst you can earn Avios in avios.com, Iberia Plus and British Airways Executive Club, the system is designed so that you can move points from one to the other using ‘Combine My Avios’.

In theory it is foolproof:

There is no limit to how many points you can move

The points move instantly

It seems that the system was, perhaps, a little too foolproof.

The ‘Combine My Avios’ page on ba.com is here.

New security measures

As I found yesterday, when I tried to move some Avios from my wife’s avios.com account to her British Airways account, security has been improved.

Historically you could move points between avios.com and British Airways as long as there was a general match between some account information.  Name and date of birth might be enough, potentially email too.

What you didn’t need was a matching address.  Now you do.

It turns out that, when we moved two years, I never updated the address on her avios.com account.  As they never post anything, it wasn’t a problem.

I have been able to move Avios across over the last two years, until yesterday when I got a vague error message about a data mis-match.  As soon as I updated the postal address on her account, ‘Combine My Avios’ worked again.

This could cause a problem

You must have a UK postal address to join avios.com.

A British Airways Executive Club account can be set to any address globally.

Going forward, it seems that you will need to have a UK address on your British Airways Executive Club account if you want to use ‘Combine My Avios’ from avios.com.

This will cause problems for some people, although those people – if we’re honest – are mainly people who really do not live in the UK and were using avios.com under false pretences in order to take part in certain promotions.

This may actually be the ‘fraud’ that Avios was referring to when it explained why it had changed the ‘Combine My Avios’ system, rather than any sort of hack attack.

PS.  As a reminder, because newcomers may not know this, here is a summary of how ‘Combine My Avios’ works with Household Accounts.

This is the issue which tends to confuse people. Here are the T&C’s:

“Members of a Household Account under the Programmes may not use CMA other than (a) from a British Airways Executive Club Household Account to an individual account under the Avios Programme or the Iberia Plus Programme and (b) from the individual account under the Avios Programme to a Household Account under the British Airways Executive Programme. Any other Household account transaction will not be permitted under CMA.”

What this means in English is:

A member of a BA household account CAN move Avios to or from their Iberia or avios.com account (as long as the avios.com account is not a household one)

A member of an avios.com household account CANNOT move Avios to or from BA or Iberia

Note that you cannot move from Iberia to a BA household account. This is easily circumvented, though, by moving your Avios from Iberia to avios.com and then from avios.com to BA.

PPS.  As a further reminder, you will often encounter an error if you try to move Avios from Iberia Plus to British Airways.

The first thing to remember is that an Iberia Plus account must be 90 days old and must have earned 1 Avios before you can use ‘Combine My Avios’.  The easiest way to do this is to transfer some American Express Membership Rewards points into Iberia Plus, or a credit a BA flight, hotel or car hire.

It still may not work.  This is a long-standing IT issue.  In this case, use avios.com as a conduit.  Using the avios.com website, transfer points from Iberia Plus to avios.com and then do a second transaction to move them avios.com to British Airways Executive Club.  This usually works OK.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.