Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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’

Iberia tailfins

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 (October 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

Get 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

30,000 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

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

10,000 points bonus – plus an extra 500 points for our readers Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer 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.

Comments (163)

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

  • Carl says:

    OT. Posting here, as there’s no bits today. I flew from London to Hong Kong in business with Cathay in June. Tier points and Avios didn’t post for my flight, so I contacted BA to send a claim through and gave the flight details and ticket number. They just replied and said that they had rejected the claim as I had already been awarded tier points and Avios for the flight which is incorrect. What is the best way to proceed with this?

    • John says:

      Call and Twitter

      Perhaps they posted but to the wrong account?

      • Sam G says:

        There is a user BAMissingAvios on Flyertalk you can PM – I was struggling with a Malaysian claim and they got it sorted in a few days

  • Cuchlainn says:

    OT : (Kaligo /BAPP 20,000 bonus miles offer)
    Just completed my 2nd trip and Kaligo have posted my accrued Avios very punctually – 2 days and in my BAEC a/c !!
    Did I misread the offer on my BAPP card online, or am I still expecting another 20,000 Avios from Amex for an accumulated £1,000+ spend during the recent offer period ?

    • Rob says:

      If you met all the conditions they should arrive, yes, but probably in a few days. Kaligo is very responsive if you need to chase them.

      • Cuchlainn says:

        Thanks Rob but maybe I phrased this wrong, so here goes again :
        I booked 2 trips which totalled in excess of £1,000 and earned 6,700 normal and 21,000 bonus Avios respectively-all have credited to my account expeditiously.
        Q. Am I expecting a further 20,000 Avios from Amex ( as per BAPP offer and HFP article ), or am I fully credited with the 21,000 bonus Avios ?

        • Rob says:

          You didn’t say how many base Avios were promised when you booked. If it was 6700 then the 21000 is the ’20k’ bonus. If you were promised 27700 when you booked the hotels then they still owe you.

  • Jack says:

    I have a reasonably on-topic question: do we know for sure what’s happening with Lloyds vouchers? I have two, one expiring end of Dec 18 and the other part way through next year.

    I want to book redemptions for early Dec 19 using both vouchers so waiting for flights to open up which will be this Dec. Do we think the dust will have settled from all the moving about and that it will be easy enough to redeem my vouchers in December of this year? I seem to recall that they will move to BA along with the avios. Any thoughts on this topic gratefully received!

    • Alan says:

      I’d say by then it should be all settled and they should have safely migrated to your BAEC account, hopefully their call centre will be able to book them fine, in fairness the Avios.com team were actually fairly efficient at the process.

      • Anna says:

        The upgrade vouchers are staying in the relevant avios.com accounts. Avios CS staff say they can take avios from your BA account to book flights, i’m still not sure exactly how they are going to do that!

        • Andrew-A says:

          I called to make a booking using the voucher after I had moved all my Avios across to BA. They transferred enough Avios back from my BA account to my Avios account during a telephone booking,so it did work. They also changed an email address for me as they didn’t match on both systems. I thought the service I received was excellent.

        • Alan says:

          Interesting, that wasn’t how they worded it in their FAQs previously! Known how bad BA IT is though it might be a safer method…

    • Walty says:

      I am in the exact same position although my first one expires in Nov 18. I’m hoping i can use my BAEC household balance with the vouchers!

  • Caro says:

    Do I need to link my Avios and BA accounts? Or should I combine my avios in anticipation of this change to ensure they move to my BA account.

    • Rob says:

      If you’ve ever done a transfer in either direction BA may still have a record of that. If not, just make sure the email addresses match and it should be automatic.

    • MarkZ says:

      No, and yes. Log into your Avios.com account (preferably not from a mobile phone or tablet), fill in any missing account information that is requested in a pop-up window that might be presented, then use the Combine My Avios function to move all of the Avios points to your BA Exec Club account. If everything is in sync, then your BA details will be accepted, and the transfer will be processed. If you receive a message to the effect that the account details cannot be verified, then wait 24 hours and try again.

      • MarkZ says:

        In the case of the Avios.com accounts for my wife and myself, the missing piece of information was Date of Birth, because the accounts were originally opened as Airmiles accounts.

      • Caro says:

        Thanks

  • Julie A says:

    At the minute the Avios from my Lloyds cards are still crediting to Avios.com. They have told me that at some point, these will somehow automatically start going to my BA account even though I have never given Lloyds the number.
    Does anyone have any experience of this yet?

    • Mark2 says:

      Personally I will be amazed if this happens reliably. Despite my having transferred between Avios and BAEC many, many times they still opened a new BAEC account for me (remember that you have to enter the details every time).
      My Avios from Lloyds and Rewards for Thoughts are marooned in two Avios accounts and cannot be moved by me or Customer Services.

    • Claire says:

      I never gave Lloyds my Avios account details, I asked an advisor and they said they do it by email address (presumably the one linked to your LLoyds account) or they set up an Avios account for you if they don’t find one. Possibly they will try and find your BA exec club account the same way?

  • Big dave says:

    I have (had?) an avios.co.uk account which was the same number as my aerlingus account.
    I have a vueling avios account which due not being able to change my personal details properly on the vueling website at the time – could not use to combine my avios from iberia/ba.

    I have a few avios in the vueling account but noting in the aerlingus/avios one but hoping vueling have sorted their IT out I will try and synchronise the email, address, phones to try to get it to work with iberia to combine them over to the BA family account.

    • Alan says:

      Yeah I’m in a similar situation – I signed up for Aer Lingus but don’t remember receiving another number and my normal Avios.com login shows ‘member of Aer Club’ and is still working so I’m guessing it may stay open…

  • EvilDoctorK says:

    So my Avios.com account seems to be linked to my AerClub account that I didn’t know I had … all well and good for transferring the Avios I guess ( or can manually move them now to my BAEC account ) … However what happens to the Upgrade voucher … I get that would move automatically to the BA account … but could it move automatically to the AerClub account .. I’m guessing not

  • Zoe says:

    We had an Avios Travel Rewards household account. They wrote to us to say they would be closing and we needed to fill a form in advising how we wished the points to be distributed between our BA Exec accounts. 3 moths later we cannot access our Avios accounts and our points have not been transferred to BA. I’ve tried contacting Avios but our accounts don’t exist and BA haven’t replied ????

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

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