The migration from Avios Travel Rewards Programme to British Airways Executive Club is underway. The first batch of avios.com accounts have already been closed and the rest will be done over the next couple of months.
One common question that comes up is this:
“When my Avios Travel Rewards Programme account is closed, how will I be able to move Avios from British Airways Executive Club to Iberia Plus? ‘Combine My Avios’ appears to be permanently broken when you try to go directly from BA to Iberia or vice versa.”
The good news is that you are not doomed to pay the price for Avios’s IT failure.
If you want to move Avios between BA and Iberia in the future, you will need to open an Aer Lingus Aer Club or Vueling Club account. The reason this works is that both of these schemes use the avios.com IT platform and you can use it as a conduit between British Airways Executive Club and Iberia Plus.
Here is a worked example using Aer Lingus Aer Club, although Vueling Club works the same way:
Visit the Aer Lingus website here and click on ‘Join Aer Club’ under the Aer Club dropdown menu
Fill in your name and email, using the same email address you use for BA Executive Club and Iberia Plus
You will be asked if you have an Avios account. Say ‘No’.
Fill in your address – again, this needs to match your BA and Iberia details
Create a username and password to use on avios.com – use a non-alphanumeric character even though it is not required
(Aer Club and avios.com do not have the same requirements for what must be included in your password. This is despite the fact that you will be logging into both websites using the same details. Your Aer Club password will be rejected by avios.com unless you include a non-alphanumeric character.)
You need to use matching details from your Iberia and BA accounts because that it is the only way to pass the ‘Combine My Avios’ security checks.
So …. my Aer Club account is now happily open:
Off I go to the avios.com website and I log-in by using my new Aer Club details. Under ‘My Account’ it confirms that this is an Aer Club balance:
And I can now do a test transfer. I pull in 1000 Avios from my British Airways Executive Club account using ‘Transfer Avios to / from British Airways or Iberia’ under ‘Your Account’:
…. and then I send them off to Iberia Plus, where they arrived immediately:
I then reversed the process and was able to get the Avios back into my British Airways account without any trouble.
So, good news. Despite the closure of the Avios Travel Rewards Programme, you can still move Avios from British Airways to Iberia by opening an Aer Club or Vueling Club account and logging in to avios.com with those details.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
Slightly OT and this may have been mentioned but why is there a difference when booking flights with avios on the avios website compared with booking on BA website?
I just looked at a return flight from EDI-LON which is 8,000 avios + £35 on avios. website and 8,000 avios and £54.24 on BA website – exact same flights and times. Almost £20 more in taxes, fees and carrier charges.
You have not earned 1 Avios in BAEC in the last 12 months and so do not qualify for Reward Flight Saver pricing.
That’s weird. Were you booking BA flight as a redemption or part-paying with Avios? I thought BA reward saver payment was £35 if it’s economy?
Sorry, Rob just beat me to a reply. As always, it’s much more insightful.
Bit confused… created the Aerclub account and don’t seem to have a username, just a membership number starting 3081… but this doesn’t seem to work for the login to Avios.com. Should it?
You had to create a username during the Aer Club sign-up process – or at least you do now, not sure if you joined earlier. Your 3081 number should work on avios.com – I assume it works on Aer Club?
Ah so I did, sorry it was my failing memory. Now that I’m logged in to my Aer Club account on Avios.com, whenever I try to combine my Avios it tells me my session has expired. Pretty sure it’s just a bit of a temporary IT issue because I managed to do a transfer from my old, non-Aer-Club Avios.com account to BAEC this morning. I’ll keep trying. Thanks a lot for the help.
I’m terribly confused!
My aerclub is linked to my avios account.
I have a household BAEC account.
I have an Iberia account too.
At the moment, I can transfer via avios.com from IB to BA in two stages.
There doesn’t appear to be a CMA functionality via AerClub.
Is the avios.com website (platform?) going to continue? I.e. the only thing that will change is I will not have a stand-alone avios account, but if I want to transfer from IB to BA I will be able to log in through avios and do a two-stage shuffle?
Sorry if this is answered elsewhere!
i’m exactly in the same boat and have no idea (and called Dave too)
answers on a postcard – I guess I will try once all this has passed a couple of months worth of
customer service overload and see what happens….
Hi,
1) is still mandatory to register in BA executive club and Aer Club with a UK address in order to create an account?
1.1) avíos.com may have a different address than Aer Club and BA Executive Club?
2) have to use the same (non alphanumeric) password to the Aer Club and avíos.com account?
Thanks for your post and help.
Only avios.com has a UK requirement. AerClub and BA have no requirements.
1.1 – your Aer Club and BA accounts must match addresses in order to do transfers (avios.com doesn’t matter as that is being closed)
2 – seems so, yes (only 1 character must be non-alphanumeric)
I previously created an Aer Club acct (after the uk avios closure announcement) and selected yes to having an avios acct and used my avios number to link accts.
I log into my Aer acct and it shows my avios total etc but if I log in to avios it doesnt show any indication of it being linked to Aer. Trying to login to the /ie/en_ie avios page just redirects to the uk page with the standard this is closing etc msg.
For an Aer avios acct to be linked properly, does it need to have the youre a member of aer club graphic on it and does it work through the gb url or does it normally go to the ie site?
Just wait til your IB+ account gets locked as they think you’ve entered the wrong (saved on my browser) security answers too many times. The hoops you have to jump through are beyond bonkers.
Slightly OT but I’ve been using avios.com to redeem seasonal flights in Flybe. Any idea how I will be able to do that in the future?
Will be ok via ba.com and if availability is different (which they swear not) open an Aer Club account and redeem from there.
Thanks. Will definitely try though Aer Lingus. Never seen those Flybe flights on ba.com