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Which 30 airlines can you book with Avios points?

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Today I want to look at which airlines you can book with Avios points.

You know about British Airways, of course.  But there are actually 30 airlines which let you use Avios for some or all of their flights.

The list got bigger last year when Qatar Airways adopted Avios as its loyalty currency.  This means that you can now redeem via a number of Qatar Airways airline partners which were not already partners with British Airways, Iberia or Aer Lingus, such as Virgin Australia.

You won’t find the information in this article in one place on any of the Avios websites – iberia.com, ba.com, aerlingus.com, qatarairways.com etc – but we have pulled it all together for you.

What flights can you book with Avios?

I have listed all of the airlines below which accept Avios redemptions.

The ones marked ‘(BA)’ can be booked on ba.com.  This means that the process is the same as booking British Airways redemptions.

An airline marked ‘(AC)’ can be booked via the avios.com platform.  You can open an avios.com account via the Aer Lingus AerClub or Vueling Club websites and then use ‘Combine My Avios’ on ba.com or avios.com to move your points across.

An airline marked ‘(IB)’ means that you can only book it from an Iberia Plus account. 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.

An airline marked ‘(QR)’ means that you can only book it from a Qatar Privilege Club account.  You can use your British Airways Avios balance on the Qatar Airways website by following the instructions here.

Which airlines can you book with Avios points?

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
  • AC for avios.com / AerClub / Vueling Club
  • QR for Qatar Privilege 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, BA)

Air Nostrum / Iberia Regional (IB, BA)

Alaska Airlines (BA, IB, QR)

American Airlines (BA, IB, QR)

Avianca (IB)

Bangkok Airways (QR)

Binter Canarias (IB)

British Airways (AC, BA, IB, QR)

Cathay Pacific (BA, IB, QR)

Fiji Airways (BA)

Finnair (BA, IB, QR)

Iberia (AC, BA, IB, QR)

Iberia Express (AC, BA, IB)

Japan Airlines (BA, IB, QR)

JetBlue (QR)

LATAM (BA, IB, QR)

LEVEL (IB)

Malaysia Airlines (BA, IB, QR)

Middle East Airlines (QR)

Oman Air (QR, Doha to Muscat route only)

Qantas (BA, IB, QR)

QantasLink (BA – telephone only, read here)

Qatar Airways (BA, IB, QR)

Royal Air Maroc (BA, IB, QR)

Royal Jordanian (BA, IB, QR)

RwandAir (QR)

S7 Airlines (BA, IB, QR but currently suspended)

SriLankan Airlines (BA, IB, QR)

SUN-AIR of Scandinavia (BA)

Virgin Australia (QR)

Vueling (AC, IB)

Oman Air has announced plans to join the oneworld alliance, so you will be able to redeem Avios for all of their flights – and not the existing one route via Qatar Privilege Club – from some point in 2024.

Details on British Airways Executive Club partners can be found on ba.com here.

Details of Iberia Plus partners can be found on iberia.com here.

Details of Qatar Privilege Club partners can be found on qatarairways.com here.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.5 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories and click here to join the mailing list for our weekly or daily email newsletters.)

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

Category

195 BA Executive Club questions answered, British Airways and Avios

Comments (38)

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

  • aseftel says:
    15 Jul15 July 06:05

    Fiji is finally bookable now, isn’t it?

    • Perkypat says:
      15 Jul15 July 07:45

      I booked a couple of Fiji flights last December via BA.com

  • JAXBA says:
    15 Jul15 July 06:09

    SunAir should, theoretically, be bookable by all channels, as it’s booked as BA. I wonder if for the other programmes it’s a kind of QantasLink situation though?

  • Matthew says:
    15 Jul15 July 06:24

    Australia domestic Qantas link flights can now be booked through the BA website

    • Rob says:
      15 Jul15 July 08:54

      Sure? Just tried a handful of routes and all I get showing are the mainline flights on those routes, not a single Qantaslink option.

      • Mikeact says:
        15 Jul15 July 09:42

        Best way…set up a Qantas account and then you can see all routes, availability, Avios required etc.

        • Robert Loblaw says:
          15 Jul15 July 09:52

          You can’t see the number of Avios required to book a QantasLink flight on Qantas’ website LOL.

    • Robert Loblaw says:
      15 Jul15 July 09:53

      Incorrect. Search MEL-CBR for example. No flights appear because only QantasLink operates that route.

  • Martin says:
    15 Jul15 July 08:32

    I would like to be able to transfer Amex Membership Rewards to my Iberia account, as described in the article. However, the relevant page on Amex website states ‘If you are a new Iberia Plus member with a 9 digit account number, points transfers to Iberia are currently unavailable.’
    This has been in place for several months to my knowledge. Any information, please, on whether this restriction will be lifted or can be circumvented?

    • Rob says:
      15 Jul15 July 08:51

      Weird. Not heard of this.

      • The Original Nick says:
        15 Jul15 July 09:22

        It is correct Rob. I was looking into it a few weeks ago for a friend of mine. I have found details about it on Flyertalk who mention calling Amex about it but my friend hasn’t called yet.

      • zapato1060 says:
        15 Jul15 July 19:45

        Same boat. 9 digit IB number wouldn’t allow me to transfer MRs to IB.

    • dshunter says:
      15 Jul15 July 10:40

      Correct. It’s a blame game between Iberia and amex which is going nowhere. I raised a formal complaint with Amex about this as it has been broken since the beginning of last year. Never got a response and missed out on a redemption because of this. Have since found that you can transfer to BA, then Avios, then to Iberia but too late for the redemption I wanted!

    • Bervios says:
      15 Jul15 July 22:41

      Martin, you can circumvent it by transferring via Amex to Aer Lingus to Iberia .

      • Martin says:
        17 Jul17 July 14:24

        Thanks for the suggestions of transferring from Amex via intermediary to Iberia

  • Mikeact says:
    15 Jul15 July 08:47

    What is the expiration date of Avios nowadays if transferring to other platforms and not used etc. ie Avios.com, Iberia, Qatar etc.

    • The Original Nick says:
      15 Jul15 July 09:23

      IB is the same as BA AFAIK. Not sure about QR though.

  • twoclicks says:
    15 Jul15 July 09:04

    @Rob Thank you for putting together this list! I wonder if I could ask for a bit more… could you include where it is best to look for a availability? Eg for LATAM I don’t think this can be seen on BA.com. it would be amazing to have a reference pointing to all the best places to search and book (if separate!). Maybe someone knows of a good resource already out there? And then there’s the fact that some are priced differently through different programmes… Sorry for being lazy…

    • Rob says:
      15 Jul15 July 09:12

      Some LATAM seats are now back on ba.com but I can’t work out the logic.

    • Mikeact says:
      15 Jul15 July 09:29

      It certainly would be amazing to have a global Avios chart. One or two airlines have reasonable cross reference charts, but I have found the only way is to reference each airline for particular routes and then call the appropriate service centre..which can be an absolute pain. I also use GCM when trying to build a mileage based reward for two or more carriers, but it’s not necessarily easy for any odd ball routes/connections. If you are prepared to pay, I know of a couple of sites that will do the donkey work for you, but you still need to be flexible, whether dates or class of travel.

  • FatherOfFour says:
    15 Jul15 July 09:17

    No luck with VA via QR.com. For SYD-BNE it tried to send me to DOH and back!
    VA.com shows plenty of availability booking with “points”. (Not sure what their own regular points currency is)

    • marcolau says:
      15 Jul15 July 09:27

      You need to call QR and check with them over the phone on the availability. Online booking is not available beyond QR/BA/AA flights.
      Tell the agent you want to redeem flights using Avios and they will transfer you to the right team.

      Alternatively, leave a partner redemption request online and wait for weeks before anyone get back to you via email…

      • FatherOfFour says:
        15 Jul15 July 10:57

        Thanks. Any idea if I can get a rough cost estimate of this before wasting my time calling? Any idea if VA reward flights carry the same flexibility as BA Avios flights?

    • Mikeact says:
      15 Jul15 July 09:38

      In theory, you should be able to move Avios over to Qatar as VA are one of their partners, BUT, VA is still not shown in the drop down list of partners if trying to make a partner booking. I was told recently, it was ‘being looked at.’ I guess it’s bit of internal one…Virgin partner viz Avios. Bit like the United loophole to earn Avios.

  • Peter says:
    15 Jul15 July 09:22

    Rob, thanks for putting this list together – really helpful

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

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