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Let’s be clear …. avios.com is NOT closing. Your questions answered.

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A disproportionate percentage of my inbox in the last 6-8 weeks has been on the topic of the closure of the avios.com website.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the correspondence from British Airways and Avios on this subject, there is substantial confusion over what is going on.  I thought it was worth taking a bit more time today to clarify certain issues.

BELIEF:  The avios.com website is closing down

TRUTH:  The avios.com website is not closing down, and will actually become far more important than it is at the moment

The thing that is being closed down is the Avios Travel Rewards Programme.  This was set up to be the ‘Avios scheme for people who don’t fly’ and there was a hope that it would compete with Clubcard or Nectar.  It has failed to do this – not helped by the fact that BA doesn’t fly from the regions – and is closing.

Your 3081xxxxxxxx account will be closed very shortly, if it has not already closed, and the balance moved to a British Airways Executive Club account.

Going forward, avios.com is where members of Vueling Club, Flybe, Aer Lingus AerClub and other Avios-earning schemes – except for British Airways and Iberia – will go to manage their accounts and book redemptions.

BELIEF:  I have no way of accessing avios.com once my Avios Travel Rewards Programme account is closed

TRUTH:  Not true.  You can continue to log in at avios.com – and book flights and make other redemptions – using an Aer Lingus AerClub or Vueling Club account

AerClub and Vueling Club accounts use the same 3081xxxxxxxxxx numbering system as Avios Travel Rewards Programme accounts and you can log-in at avios.com using AerClub or Vueling Club details.  Set up a free account at aerlingus.com or vueling.com and test it out.

BELIEF:  I can’t transfer Avios to AerClub or Vueling Club (or vice versa) because they don’t appear on the ‘Combine My Avios’ dropdown menu

TRUTH:  This is not the case

When you use ‘Combine My Avios’, the menu option for avios.com actually refers to ANY Avios account which starts 3081.  As well as Avios Travel Rewards Programme, this includes AerClub, Vueling Club and indeed Avios South Africa.

To move Avios into AerClub, for example, simply use ‘Combine My Avios’, select avios.com as destination and give your AerClub number.

If you want to move between two schemes which use the Avios platform, ie from AerClub to Vueling Club, you will need to move them via BA or Iberia as an intermediary – you cannot move Avios directly between two different schemes on the Avios platform.

Flybe Avios collection

BELIEF:  I can no longer earn Avios from Flybe because my Avios Travel Rewards Programme account has been closed and migrated to BA

TRUTH:  This is not the case

You can give Flybe ANY Avios account which starts with 3081.  If you are flying with Flybe, open an AerClub or Vueling Club account, credit the Avios to that and then use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move them using the route above.

Flybe will launching its own Avios scheme in the near future which will work in the same way as AerClub and Vueling Club.

BELIEF:  I can no longer use avios.com to move Avios between Iberia Plus and British Airways Executive Club, which is often the only functioning route, because my Avios Travel Rewards Programme account has been closed

TRUTH:  This is not the case

Simply open an AerClub or Vueling Club account, which operates off avios.com as I described above, and use that as a ‘middle man’ when you use ‘Combine My Avios’

avios.com closure questions answers

BELIEF:  Avios sent to my old avios.com account will be lost now my account is closed

TRUTH:  This is not the case

Once you Avios Travel Rewards Programme account is closed, any Avios sent to it will be automatically sent to your BA Executive Club account.

Hopefully this clarifies most of the questions you may still have about the closure of the Avios Travel Rewards Programme.  Ask in the comments below if you have any other queries.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

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.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

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.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

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.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Category

British Airways and Avios, Iberia and Iberia Plus

Comments (165)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Phil says:
    20 Aug20 August 20:56

    OT – How do I book a Qatar flight with Avios?

  • Wally1976 says:
    20 Aug20 August 22:08

    OT – now showing as Marriott Platinum Elite despite only getting status through Amex Platinum (like lots of others on here) but wife is only showing as Gold. I am staying at the Gatwick Courtyard hotel tomorrow night with wife and our two children on a redemption – anyone want to take a punt on whether we’ll be offered complimentary breakfast and for how many of us?

    • Bonglim says:
      20 Aug20 August 22:12

      I am now as a platinum elite too…..

    • Tom1 says:
      20 Aug20 August 22:38

      Wally is your SPG still linked to your Marriott?

      I now have two Marriott accounts.. one linked to spg at gold, and one not linked to spg at Platinum elite.
      I got an email a few weeks ago saying my accounts were no longer linked but I didn’t link them again as I didn’t think I had anything to lose.

      • Wally1976 says:
        21 Aug21 August 09:26

        I have two accounts too – an ‘SPG’ one as Gold and a ‘Marriott’ one as Platinum.

        Rob – I think we could do with an article on what’s happening here and merging accounts etc?

  • Travelling Inspector says:
    20 Aug20 August 23:06

    I was surprised to be able to use my Lloyds AMEX upgrade voucher on Avios.com for a booking just the other day – for a BA flight obviously. I’d assumed that had all finished some time ago. My account remains active as I have AerClub membership linked to it, no sign of Avios having sent my modest stash over to my BAEC account.

    • Anna says:
      20 Aug20 August 23:54

      Did you book online or call them?

    • Matt says:
      21 Aug21 August 09:25

      I also successfully made a Lloyds upgrade voucher booking online last week.

      My question is that is it worth trying to earn another one (in 2018/19) with the upcoming closure of this card? My “year” began in May and I’ve barely used the card since.

      Alternatively, can I claim a refund on my annual fee?

  • Alex Sm says:
    21 Aug21 August 08:31

    Not OT – sticking to the subject.

    I tried to transfer Iberia Avios to BA via Avios as lately as Sunday and it worked! I genuinely thought that Avios.com would be closing and we even discussed with my partner what we are gonna do and didn’t know.

    But why on Earth they opened for me a new BAEC account with 0 Avios in it??? This I can’t understand. The problem is that I can’t close it easily – need to telephone BA which I hate. Does anyone know how to do it online? I am annoyed and don’t want to keep an empty account unless someone tells me what use I can make of it.

    • Rob says:
      21 Aug21 August 08:50

      They didn’t spot your existing account – which is weird as most people who have had this happen did have the same email on both.

      • Alex Sm says:
        22 Aug22 August 19:31

        I decided to keep the account in case if I need in the future to conduct some activity outside my normal BA account of 10 years. Perhaps, you are right, and the different emails could be the issue but I changed the email for Avios.com to the same as I use for BA.com a long time ago. Anyway, anything related to BA stopped surprising me as they are firmly in LCC mentality now with their cost-cutting (and their common sense went through the window long ago).

        But again, so happy that Avios.com is still working, otherwise it would be a disaster…

  • Roger1* says:
    21 Aug21 August 10:20

    ‘Once you Avios Travel Rewards Programme account is closed, any Avios sent to it will be automatically sent to your BA Executive Club account. Except that, for me at least, that’s not the case.

    My Avios TRP balance is 0, as it should be as I combined them with BAEC Avios a while ago,

    However, my Aer Lingus Avios account has 10 pages of former avios.com transactions. 😀 The only genuine Aer Lingus Avios transactions are the opening bonus and an Avios purchase.

    I don’t seem to be able to combine ‘Avios’ with BAEC Avios. On my 2nd attempt (count them: 1, 2) I got ‘Combine my Avios was unsuccessful – You’ve tried to log in too many times, so your account has now been locked. Please try again later.’
    😀

    I did have a ‘Welcome to BA Blue’ e-mail with a new PIN a while ago, presumably the transition from avios.com to BAEC.. Clicking on the link to view the account produced my normal Silver page with up-to-date Avios and TP balances. Given that I didn’t need to use the new PIN with a zero balance account, I didn’t take it any further. Perhaps I should have done, if I could only work out what and how.

  • Tony Odams says:
    21 Aug21 August 22:19

    The handling of this “closure” by avios has been pretty poor. I have a Lloyds “duo” Amex account and in May I transferred all my avios earned from that (as instructed by Avios) to my BAEC account to forestall avios opening a new (duplicate) BAEC account for me and in the expectation that all new points would automatically be sent to my existing BAEC account. Not at all (!!) my points have continued to accrue to my avios account and Ive just transferred the last three months earnings to my BAEC. Couldn’t organise a proverbial (insert your own epithet!) in a proverbial (insert ditto!!) I won’t go on to comment on the complete silence from Lloyds on the upcoming closure of the Duo Amex/MasterCard account……

  • Chris says:
    23 Aug23 August 18:27

    I can no longer access my Avios account (login attempts fail), and the new BA account issued to me is still showing 0 points. I rang BA but they currently just say “points will move over in August”. Anyone else having the same problem?

  • Richard M says:
    27 Aug27 August 22:50

    Has anybody else been sent a paper closing statement through the post? I got one last week dating back to 2011. No covering letter or anything..

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