Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

NEW: Get a bonus of 60% when you buy Avios via Qatar Privilege Club

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Qatar Airways (yes Qatar Airways, not British Airways) has launched a generous ‘buy Avios’ bonus promotion. The link to buy is here.

For today and tomorrow, you will receive a 60% bonus when you buy Avios.

You can buy on this page of the Qatar Privilege Club website.

Can I get my Avios out of Qatar Privilege Club into BA?

The Avios can only be credited to a Qatar Privilege Club account. You can move them into a British Airways Executive Club account by linking your BA and Qatar Airways accounts via the process here.

Qatar Airways tells me that the issues some people had linking their British Airways and Qatar Airways accounts last year have been fixed. This primarily impacted those with punctuation in their surnames. That said, I would still recommend linking your accounts before making a purchase.

Get up to 60% bonus when you buy Avios

Back to the bonus. There is no minimum purchase, although your bonus depends on how many Avios you buy.  The bonus kicks in at 35% with a 5,000 Avios transaction and gradually increases.

You can only buy if there has previously been ‘activity’ of at least 1,000 Avios in your Qatar Privilege Club account. Transferring in 1,000 Avios from British Airways would count, even if the Avios were immediately transferred back.

Here are the bonus levels:

  • 5,000 – 19,000 Avios = 35% bonus
  • 20,000 – 36,000 Avios = 45% bonus
  • 38,000 – 250,000 Avios = 60% bonus

What does it cost?

At the top end, someone with a UK registered Qatar Airways account will pay 1.03p per Avios under this offer.

Pricing varies by the address of the Qatar Airways account, which can be changed, but the UK version appears to be cheapest factoring in FX credit card fees on a non-£ purchase.

The maximum number you can acquire is 250,000 + 60% = 400,000 Avios for £4,125, so 1.03p.

Based on my spreadsheet of the last 8.8 million Avios I redeemed, I got 1.22p of value.  This is using very conservative valuations for the flights booked. If you’re relatively smart about how you redeem then you should make a decent gain, but you need to decide if it is worth locking up your cash.

Is Avios Balance Boost cheaper?

If you missed our article last week, British Airways has launched an interesting new product called ‘Avios Balance Boost’.

We explained Avios Balance Boost in this article.

This lets you buy up to 3x the Avios you earned in the last 30 days for as little as 0.84p until the end of July.

If you only earned a few Avios in the last 30 days then Avios Balance Boost won’t get you far, so this Qatar Airways offer may be a better deal. If you’ve had a decent Avios windfall in the last month, on the other hand, Avios Balance Boost may work better.

The offer ends TOMORROW, Thursday 22nd June. The link to buy is here.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 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

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

25,000 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

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a 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

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

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.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

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

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus 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 (32)

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

  • Peter Cashen says:

    Am I imagining things, or years ago did Amex/BA do a ‘thing’ where you got 100% bonus for doing a transfer of MR to Avios?

    Don’t think that will ever happen again? (Or maybe it never did and I’ve had too much sun)

  • Max says:

    Is this really worth it, given BA long-haul fly mostly to random US cities now, Asian routes have been scrapped, and reward availability is non-existent on many routes?

    • fasul says:

      Yes. It is. Just need to burn Avios somewhere else. I’ve just bought QR OW Dubai-Doha(eco) and Doha-Auckland for 37500Avios. Not bad for 15h flight in Qsuites. Possibly a good segment for RTW next year.

    • Patrick says:

      I’d keep them safe within BAEC but unless using a voucher look at using with partner airlines eg. spending back with Qatar for example. MAD – Maldives in their business, 65k Avios and 188€ one way. That’s about £670 plus £160 = £830. Pretty decent in my book.

  • immi says:

    Its probably pointless (*excuse the pun) to say so but I subscribed for the BA subscription when it was first announced and paid £1,789 for 200,000 avios at 0.8945p each. The new BA sub deal is 11% more expensive than this and the Qatar offer on now is 15% more expensive. The Qatar deal is 3.6% more expensive than the new BA sub deal. So, I think this offer is quite good if you need lots of avios in a rush but I have quite a few avios already and I want to maximise value by using with a companion voucher and that’s one year from now. And, I have the avios now for then. So, I might as well subscribe for the BA deal and pass on this.

    Having previously bought in a BA sale: £3,215 for 280,000 at 1.148p each, and the original BA deal, my bought average is 1.0425p each. But, this doesn’t take into account of the fact that I’ve earned avios from card spending.

    In summary, I’m a bit confused but reckon as long as I only use them with companion voucher in Club World, I probably can’t go wrong. Possibly?

  • Richard M says:

    Unless you are going to use them in the near future, you always run the risk of stealthy or sudden devaluations surely?

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

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