What happens to your British Airways Avios points when you die?

Yes, a cheery subject for the first day back at work after a Bank Holiday but ….

More seriously, this is a topic that rarely comes up but does impact quite a few people, especially those who were hoarding Avios during their career to spend during retirement.

I focused on this a few years years ago.  I had been contacted by a reader whose father had passed away.  Both father and son had been in the same British Airways Household Account.  The son had assumed that his late fathers Avios points would pass to him as head of the Household Account.  He was surprised to discover that this is not the case.

To be fair to British Airways, the rules of the Executive Club have always been clear on this point.   Clause 3.12.2 states:

upon the death of a Member, Avios Points, Tier Points and Lifetime Tier Points accumulated but unused at the time of death shall be cancelled.

The obvious way around this is the slightly dubious one of logging into the account of the deceased person and redeeming their Avios points for a flight for yourself.  British Airways does not insist that the credit card used to pay for a redemption is in the same name as the account holder – and American Express cards do not have name verification anyway – so that would not be an issue.

Whilst this is technically against the rules, I would not personally chastise anyone who acted this way.

British Airways will, unofficially, transfer Avios on death

After my original piece a few years ago, I was contacted by a solicitor who is also a ‘miles and points’ enthusiast.  He had dealt with a number of estates where the deceased had an Avios balance as one of their ‘assets’.

In each case, he had written to British Airways Executive Club with a copy of the Grant of Probate.  He advised BAEC that one of the residiuary beneficiaries had their own BA account and included the details.  Without fail, British Airways has agreed to transfer the Avios and tier points.

It appears that, when approached formally by a solicitor with the correct documentation, BA is willing to bend their published rules.

A Nectar transfer is another option

Since Avios and Nectar launched their partnership, there is another option.

If you look at the Nectar rules here, you will see in Clause 12 that:

points can only be transferred from a Nectar Account to another Nectar Account on death or divorce if adequate evidence of the legal division of points is given to us

Avios can be transferred to a linked Nectar card at the rate of 50,000 Avios per month.  You may want to move the Avios of the deceased into a Nectar account and then contact Nectar to move the points across to the beneficiary of the will.

The Nectar points could then be moved back into Avios by the recipient, albeit with a loss due to the different transfer rates (300 Avios = 400 Nectar, 400 Nectar = 250 Avios) or spent at Sainsbury’s, Argos or at eBay.co.uk.

You could also pay to transfer Avios from the account of the deceased

Since earlier this year, British Airways will allow you to transfer 27,000 Avios per calendar year from one account to another for a flat fee of £15.

If you had access to the account of the deceased this would be another option of moving points out without having to involve a solicitor.

Make sure other people can access your BA account – or you can access the account of other family members

On a similar note …… you may want to consider making sure that other people can access your mileage account should anything happen to you.  On the BA website you can up someone else to have access to your account as a ‘third party nominee’ and to give instructions to the call centre – I have this set up for my wife’s account so I can call up to make bookings from her account.

If you have 1 million Avios in your account then, at a 1p valuation, you are looking at over £10,000 of value.  Not peanuts by any means and certainly not something you would want British Airways to wipe out on a whim.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (June 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:

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

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 13th June, the sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card is doubled to 60,000 Membership Rewards points – and you get £200 to spend at Amex Travel too! Apply here.

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.

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.

EDIT: Applications for this card are temporarily suspended due to IT issues with the British Airways On Business SME loyalty scheme.

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.