How to transfer 54,000 Avios per year to someone

We ran a long article yesterday on the discovery that British Airways has slashed the cost of transferring Avios from one person to another to just £15.

Given that you previously had to pay a crazy £175 to transfer the annual cap of 27,000 Avios to another person – even though no new Avios were being created – this is a genuine improvement.

There was one snag though …. what happens if you want to transfer more than 27,000 Avios to the same person in this calendar year? As it is only 11th January you have a long time to wait until the annual cap resets.

Good news! As Inside Flyer pointed out yesterday, Iberia Plus has adopted the same fees for transferring Avios. For just £15 you can move up to 27,000 Avios from one Iberia Plus account to another.

Let’s assume that you have maxed out on sending 27,000 Avios in 2023 to a certain person. This is how you send another 27,000:

• open an account with Iberia Plus – ensure that ALL details match your BA account (name, address, email, date of birth) or you won’t be able to make transfers

• activate the account by earning 1 Avios in it, or wait 90 days – your choice (the easiest option is to transfer 1,000 American Express Membership Rewards points into your new Iberia Plus account). The account is blocked from making transfers until there is some activity on it.

• use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move up to 27,000 Avios from your British Airways Executive Club account into your new Iberia Plus account

• use ‘Share Avios’ at Iberia Plus to send up to 27,000 Avios to whoever you want to share with, for a flat £15 fee

• the recipient – who obviously needs their own, activated, Iberia Plus account – can then use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move them from Iberia Plus to their British Airways Executive Club account

This is obviously a bit of a faff if one of the two parties doesn’t already have an activated Iberia Plus account,. For those of you who do – and I have long advocated having an activated Iberia Plus account just in case any good Avios redemption offers come along – it’s an easy process.

Plan B would be use a third party with a British Airways account. You transfer 27,000 Avios to Person A and 27,000 Avios to Person B, all from your BA account. You then give Person B £15 to cover their fee to move their 27,000 Avios to Person A, giving Person A a total of 54,000 transferred Avios for a total outlay of £45.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2023)

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:

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

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 21st February 2023, the sign-up bonus on the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card is increased to 35,000 Avios from 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points.

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: Capital On Tap has increased its sign-up bonus to points worth 30,000 Avios if you apply by 4th February. This is exclusive to Head for Points readers. Click here to apply.

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.

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.

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