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How to link your Qatar Privilege Club and British Airways Executive Club Avios accounts

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We are running three articles today covering the launch of the Qatar Privilege Club and Avios partnership.

Our introductory piece on the benefits of linking our your British Airways Executive Club account to your Qatar Privilege Club account is here.

We have produced this standalone article on how to link your British Airways and Qatar Airways accounts to give us an easy reference point for future articles.

How to link your Qatar Privilege Club and BA Executive Club accounts

How to link your Qatar Privilege Club and BA Executive Club accounts

Linking your Privilege Club and Executive Club accounts is the first step in transferring your Avios from one account to another, and being able to take advantage of the discounted redemptions and new partners that Qatar Airways offers.

The conversion rate is 1:1 and you can move your Avios back and forth, instantly, as many times as you want, for free.

The process is very easy and can be completed in three short steps:

Step 1: sign in to your Privilege Club account

If you don’t already have a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account you need to sign up for one first.

Sign up at this page.

Note that children under 18 cannot join Privilege Club. There is no point altering their date of birth because you cannot link your account to British Airways without a date of birth match.

Once you have an account, head to the Qatar Airways Avios page. Click the ‘link my accounts’ button:

Qatar Avios link account

You are then redirected to another page which lets you link your British Airways Executive Club account. You cannot link an Iberia Plus or Aer Lingus AerClub account.

Make sure your personal details match on both accounts so you can link them smoothly. I am told by Qatar Airways that there must be a match of first name, surname and date of birth.

If you have issues and have a middle name, try putting it in the same field as your first name rather than the ‘middle name’ field. This fixes the issue for some people.

Qatar link your avios accounts

Step 2: log in to your BA Executive Club account

Clicking the button will redirect you to a login page on britishairways.com. You may have to verify your login with two factor authentication.

link your Qatar Privilege Club and BA Executive Club accounts

You are also given a special code that you are told to keep safe in case “you ever need to log in without your device” again. I believe this is a special code you can use if your two-factor authentication device is unavailable.

Step 3: Confirm and check your balance on Privilege Club

Once you’ve done that the process is completed and you return to the Qatar Airways site. You should see your full Avios balance. You can see both my Qatar Airways Avios balance as well as my British Airways Executive Account Avios balance:

Qatar link avios account balance

Linking your accounts does not automatically mean that Privilege Club has access to any Avios in Executive Club. You still need to use the ‘Combine Avios’ tool to shift Avios between the two. This is a free and instantaneous process.

You can move your Avios in either direction, at 1:1, as many times as you like.

Further reading:

Comments (217)

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  • Matthew Wearmouth says:

    I’m having the same issue where Qatar website says details don’t match. We don’t have any hyphens and I’ve used the same names as BA accounts. My wife has a middle name on her BA so I included on Qatar but still doesn’t work!

  • Matthew Wearmouth says:

    Follow up to my previous message above. Looks like my wife’s BA account says ‘first name(s): Rebecca Jane’ all in one box/field. Does this mean Qatar first name field should be the two as well rather than her middle name in the middle name box when signing up?

  • trient says:

    I wrote them and explained I had a double barrelled first name which they could only record incorrectly, and included a scan of my passport for evidence. They replied apologising profusely for the situation and asked again for my name details, along with a second piece of ID “for authentication purposes”.

    After I sent them everything they asked, they marked the case as resolved with the following note:

    “In reference to your email, we regret to inform you that due to system limitations, we are unable to update any special characters i.e. tick , quote , forward/backward slash (/), full stop (.), underscore (_) and roman numbers etc. in your membership profile name.
    However, you can check with British Airways to update your profile name as per your Privilege Club account.
    We appreciate your understanding and co-operation.
    Do let us know if we can assist you further.”

    You can’t make this up.

  • Anthony says:

    The Qatar Airways page appears to have been removed?

  • CarolineF says:

    Stuck like everybody else. If it is the middle name issue I can’t find a way in Qatar to change the name – seems you are stuck with what you put. If it is more than that, then I need to change stuff in BA and they are asking me to send extra ID to do that. Thinking life is too short right now.

  • DeanK says:

    Seems like this has stopped working now. I have registered and linked two accounts and neither of them are showing the sign-up bonus. I made a mess of the first sign-up and deleted that account and started over. Now I cannot link that BA account as it states there are too many links. The other half’s account has linked OK, but there are no Avios showing for the sign-up. Any idea how I sort out the ‘too many links’ issue, assuming I can get the sign-up?

    • Rob says:

      You can’t. The small print says that there is a 50 years (not a typo) time period required before you can link your BA account to another account. Just pop it on the list for 2072.

  • Louie says:

    Is FLYQR3 no longer working? I’ve just signed up using the linked page with the code embedded and no bonus Avios for me or hubby. Does it take a while or have the scumbags ended the offer before they said they would?

    Fortunately didn’t try to link to our BAEC accounts….

    • IanG says:

      It would seem not – I signed up this morning and found the same. No points…

      • Louie says:

        Have to say I am rather miffed about this. If the offer is advertised to end on 31 March, that is when it should end.

        Rob, you need to update the text so people leaving it late don’t get caught out like us.

        If anyone finds a new code applicable from 1 April in due course, please could you publish it here.

        • Louie says:

          Actually I see that the article has been updated (at the top of the page rather than in the relevant text). Thank you.

          • Rob says:

            I don’t Qatar expected around 20,000 people to take up the offer (costing them £20 or so each) which is my best guess of numbers ….

            I’m sure there are some people who opened hundreds of accounts. As BA allows six in a HHA, you could essentially get 15,000 free Avios into one pot and then redeem them for £120 of Nectar or Nectar Hotels credit or a flight.

          • Louie says:

            If that’s supposed to be justification for pulling an advertised offer, it’s a pretty poor one in my view.

            Now we know, we can’t trust Qatar.

          • Rob says:

            Once it was all over HotUKDeals the writing was on the wall. After all it is a free £20 to spend at Sainsbury’s for anyone, even if they’ve never been near an aircraft, yet alone a Qatar one. Why go to your £10 per hour job if you can sit at home and make £200 per hour opening multiple Nectar, BA and Qatar accounts and then linking them together? If this was your business costing you money you wouldn’t hesitate to pull an offer that was being abused.

          • Louie says:

            Actually when I ran a business I stuck with my promises, whether it cost me to do so or not. Other than the morality of it, it would have damaged my reputation to do otherwise, just as it has damaged Qatar’s in my eyes and no doubt many others.

            Qatar should have foreseen the potential abuse, it’s hardly new that news travels fast on the internet.

          • Louie says:

            Meant to add – if they had pulled the offer from their website, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it is still there – https://www.qatarairways.com/en/Privilege-Club/join-now-promo.html?promoCode=FLYQR3. Classic bait and switch.

  • Hannah says:

    I signed up a few days ago so did get the bonus Avios but then found I couldn’t link my accounts due to the hyphen in my surname but Qatar did manage to fix that for me! I used the message system in the Privilege club area and had to send a copies of two pieces of government issued ID showing my name with the hyphen (so I sent passport and driving licence) and they have now updated my name and I have successfully linked my accounts. So, may be worth a try for all those who previously had no luck!

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