As we haven’t looked at this for a couple of years, I thought it was worth updating my list of all Avios airlines, ie airlines which let you redeem Avios points for their flights.
You won’t find this information in one place on any of the Avios websites – iberia.com, ba.com, aerlingus.com etc.
There are 27 airlines which let you use Avios for some or all of their flights.
Remember that you can transfer Avios points between the main Avios schemes using the ‘Combine My Avios’ function in whichever programme you are using.
This article will help you move your Avios between BA and Iberia now that Avios Travel Rewards Programme accounts have been closed.
To transfer to or from an Iberia Plus account, the Iberia account must have been open for 90 days and have ‘earned’ at least 1 Avios. The easiest way to ‘earn’ an Avios in Iberia Plus is to transfer 1,000 Amex Membership Rewards points.
Full list of airlines where you can redeem Avios:
This list is alphabetical. In brackets, I have added the programmes which let you redeem Avios for that airline – BA for British Airways Executive Club, IB for Iberia Plus and AC for avios.com / AerClub / Vueling Club.
Some partners can only be booked by telephone via the service centre of the relevant programme, eg Avianca. You cannot necessarily book all routes operated by a particular airline.
Aer Lingus (AC – online and BA – telephone)
Air Nostrum / Iberia Regional (IB, BA)
Alaska Airlines (BA – telephone)
American Airlines (BA, IB)
Avianca (IB)
Binter Canarias (IB)
British Airways (AC, BA, IB)
Cathay Dragon (BA, IB)
Cathay Pacific (BA, IB)
Comair (BA, Southern Africa franchise)
Finnair (BA, IB)
Iberia (AC, BA, IB)
Iberia Express (AC, BA, IB)
Interjet (IB, only valid when linked to an Iberia flight to/from Mexico)
Japan Airlines (BA, IB)
LATAM (BA, IB)
LEVEL (IB)
Malaysia Airlines (BA, IB)
Qantas (BA, IB)
QantasLink (BA – telephone only, read here)
Qatar Airways (BA, IB)
Royal Air Maroc (BA, IB)
Royal Jordanian (BA, IB)
S7 Airlines (BA, IB)
SriLankan Airlines (BA, IB)
SUN-AIR of Scandinavia (BA)
Vueling (AC, IB)
Please post below if I have forgotten anyone! I have purposely excluded partners which do not allow redemption but which do let you earn Avios, such as the Bangkok Airways codeshare.
Fiji Airways will be added to this list at some point when they resume flying and formalise their associate membership of oneworld.
(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
Always good to remember that redeeming Avios doesn’t mean having to fly the bus in the air that is BA. You’ll also often save hundreds of pounds on surcharges, and if you’re travelling at peak times you won’t be disadvantaged by the peak only Avios rates. So if you want to save money and get a far superior product on the ground and in the air, then use Avios for a partner airline.
Exactly what I do
+1
Never use them on BA!
Domestic JAL flights in Japan are unfortunately not as great a deal as they once were, since the majority of flights were raised from a minimum 4500 to 6000 Avios. Still a good deal most of the time though.
Also important to consider JAL Japan explorer fares for foreigners.
They gave me FREE domestic flights in September, but I don’t know what to do with these
Taxes and charges are still very low, literally a few pounds, so paying 6000 instead of 4500 avios is not a big deal
Is LATAM definitely still available for redemptions? I’m not seeing any availability on any of the routes I’ve checked today. EZE-GRU usually has lots of flights per day but there’s nothing showing on LATAM on any of the dates I’ve tested.
In theory, yes (we had confirmation from BA this week).
That’s good news. Hopefully it’s just a glitch.
It’s probably correct, LATAM are stingy as with releasing space for partner awards!
Previous searches, before LATAM left OW, for EZE-GRU always came up with multiple flights on any day I’ve searched. Now there’s nothing which seems odd. Granted, certain routes like SCL-IPC were always very hard to get with Avios.
I imagine there is a change in the way BA can access reward availability, as I assume oneworld has some sort of global system that LATAM no longer has access to.
Worst case scenario is you may have to find the availability on LATAM’s site and then call up BA to book.
Maybe it had changed since the merger, but other than between main hubs, such as GIG, GRU, LIM, etc., I found it really difficult to book flights with LA or JJ, but granted BA could do it if you called them (itineraries like LIM-CUZ or IQT, for example). Since the merger, I’ve found it difficult to find availability at all, but maybe that’s a YMMV scenario.
IPC of course is always a tricky one, I’m actually devastated about this one because I finally found and booked SCL-IPC for later in the year in J, and now the virus has likely scuppered my plans! Even had J QF MEL-SCL too – the stars perfectly aligned! But never mind, I’ll get there one day, hopefully!
I checked a random route and date (SCL-GRU 14/01/21).
The Executive Club website result shows “British Airways and its partners do not fly this route. Please consider alternative destinations or contact your executive club service centre”
Searching on, fellow OW member, Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles website for availability shows a LATAM flight departing at 09.30 on that date.
So the solution would seem to be, use another OW member website to search for availability and (hopefully) call BA to book.
@Andrew M that’s probably a solution, though I’ve found BAEC temperamental on various routes lately (MEL-CBR being one) where I can find availability on a partner (QF), and merely persisting (ignoring BA’s error message and simply retrying) shows a positive result. Not sure it works for LA, but this might be useful for someone getting grief booking QF awards.
Just a small correction for LATAM. You must book by telephone. The BA engine shows available seats, but if you try to proceed shows an error for every flight. This is from several months ago, before they exited oneworld. Also worth to note they are currently under Chapter 11.
@guesswho2000 I’ve had my share of Qantas let downs as well. I should be on a RTW trip right now which involved an Asia Miles booking in (rare as hens teeth) QF J LHR-SYD-SFO. That was one of my all time great redemptions at 95,000 Asia Miles. I’ve been trying to find QF J on the same route for next year and have come up with zero availability in Asia Miles so far on any dates.
I think lately BA is not showing all of LATAM redemption availability. Remember you can also redeem Avios on IB Plus, although different conditions apply.
Wow. I was expecting LATAM redemptions to cease once they left oneworld? So, if, and it’s a big if, our planned trip to South America goes ahead in December this year, we can fly about internally using my avios?
Yes, that should be possible although someone else has mentioned they are struggling to find availability.
Depends what countries. As you can’t earn Avios on some domestic flights – as listed in the article – it is possible you won’t be able to redeem on those flights either. But for Brazil etc it should be fine.
Why do you still list AC for Vueling? Best way to redeem on Vueling is via their website/app. Seems to be a throwback to another era!. Thanks for all the other useful info.
Er, no. If you redeem for Vueling via the Vueling website, you only get the cash discount redemptions (ie 1 Avios gets you 0.5 cents off your fare).
Redeem via avios.com or Iberia and you can book Vueling flights using the standard Avios chart (eg 9,000 Avios up to 450 miles) which can be a lot cheaper. I think you also get a free suitcase.
Er, no. You cannot redeem for Vueling operated flights on avios.com. You can use your avios for Iberia or BA operated flights (and hotels etc…) on avios.com but not on Vueling flights.
Your options are the cash discount option via Vueling or standard avios via Iberia. Hence my surprise of you still saying AC.
Spending Avios on Vueling is usually pointless. The redemption fares IbPlus has access to are usually cheap fares, Meaning you usually get a crap value for your Avios, and in this case, you are better off paying the cheap fare and using the equivalent amount of Avios to get a discount. If you need a checked in luggage, its a different story.
Agreed with the that marcw, I mostly use the Vueling avios I collect for redemptions on BA.
Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but I can’t find a good value way of using Avios to get to Colombo/Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan Airlines seem to have only one European departure point (Heathrow), and BA don’t fly to CMB at all.
Is this a place where one is probably better off with a cash purchase?
I’ve flown Sri Lankan from Paris to Colombo. Might have stopped the route.
QR flies to CMB (not sure about post covid). Other option is to fly BA or MH to KUL and then to CMB on MH. If you can get a visa to India, you can fly using BA and connect to a UL flight. BLR and HYD are good airports for connecting, though i wouldnt advise flying to India in the short term.
You need to explain what you are trying to do. Economy? Business? Non-stop? 1 stop on connecting itinerary? multiple stops on multiple carriers, / multi centre holidays… ?