Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

NEW: Use your Avios for The O2 concert tickets, rugby tickets, football tickets and more!

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Here’s an exciting development to start 2024. You can now use your Avios to get VIP tickets for concerts at The O2 in London, rugby matches, European football games and much more. Formula 1 tickets will hopefully follow next year.

We even have a HfP semi-exclusive on the first ever item – two VIP tickets to see Depeche Mode at The O2, including access to new astonishing new The Walkway that hangs over the arena floor.

This is not a British Airways Executive Club promotion. It is being organised by Qatar Airways Privilege Club, and is called ‘Privilege Club Collection’.

Privilege Club Collection

The Privilege Club Collection website is here.

The site is currently in a soft launch before the official roll-out in early January. One auction item – VIP tickets to see Depeche Mode at the O2 – is semi-exclusive to HfP because the auction will close before the official launch.

What you can buy via Privilege Club Collection?

Privilege Club Collection is designed to feed off some of the major global Qatar Airways sponsorship deals, such as Formula 1 (Qatar Airways is the official airline of F1) and the Paris Saint-Germain football team.

This is what is available for bidding during the beta phase:

O2, London

  • Depeche Mode, 22nd January
  • Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live, 18th February
  • John Mayer, 18th March

Coming soon: Liam Gallagher, Jonas Brothers

United Rugby Championship

  • Leinster Rugby vs Vodacom Bulls, 29th March in Dublin (Presidents Suite tickets)

Paris Saint-Germain

A mix of signed shirts, general admission and VIP tickets for upcoming games

Privilege Club Collection

FC Internazionale Milano

  • vs Juventus, 4th February (Club l’Orologio VIP tickets)
  • vs SCC Napoli, 17th March (Club l’Orologio VIP tickets)

Brooklyn Nets (image above)

  • vs Golden State Warriors, 5th February (VIP suite tickets)
  • vs New Orleans Pelicans, 19th March (VIP suite tickets)

Barclays Center, New York

Coming soon: Bad Bunny (VIP suite tickets)

The O2 tickets include The Walkway …..

If you get tickets for any of the O2 concerts in London, you are in for a special treat.

The O2 has just unveiled The Walkway. This is a suspended walkway that you can access before the show, literally standing above the other guests in the arena!

Tickets bought for Avios via Privilege Club Collection come with a three course meal with drinks, VIP fast-track entry, use of The Walkway AND “pre-bookable VIP drop off and collection by car” (whatever that means!).

Even if you’re not a Depeche Mode, John Mayer or Hot Wheels Monster Trucks fan, it is still a unique experience.

Privilege Club Collection

How can you bid for Privilege Club Collection experiences?

Privilege Club Collection will eventually have a mix of ‘buy it now’ and auction experiences. During this launch period, everything is being auctioned.

Here are two very important points to note:

You must have Avios in a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account before you can bid. It is NOT good enough to have Avios in a British Airways Executive Club account which is linked to your Qatar Airways Privilege Club account. You must have physically moved Avios across to Qatar Airways.

(One snag here is that you can’t use the entire balance of a British Airways Executive Club household account to bid. The only Avios you can move into a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account are those in your own personal account. If you have 100,000 Avios and your partner has 50,000 Avios to give you a household balance of 150,000 Avios, the most you could use to bid for a single Privilege Club Collection auction is 100,000 – ie your own balance.)

Your must have enough Avios in your Qatar Airways Privilege Club account to match your maximum bid. You cannot bid more than your current Avios balance, and you cannot set a future auto-bid which is higher than your balance.

This Head for Points article explains how to link your BA and Qatar Airways accounts and transfer Avios between them. Transfers are free, instant and can be reversed at any time.

HfP readers have a clear run at the Depeche Mode tickets

The first auction item to close on Privilege Club Collection is two VIP tickets for the Depeche Mode concert at the O2 on 22nd January.

This includes access to The Walkway, three course meal with drinks etc.

Bids close on 8th January. The current plan is that Qatar Airways will not be widely publicising Privilege Club Collection until early January, so very few people will know it exists until the Depeche Mode auction has closed.

If you’re interested, jump in and place a bid. At the time of writing there are no bids, so the minimum bid of 11 Avios will get you the top spot!

Conclusion

Privilege Club Collection looks like it will be an excellent new opportunity for spending Avios, especially for people who want an alternative to flight redemptions. I’m especially keen to see if they can get packages for the British Grand Prix in 2024.

If you don’t have a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account, it may be worth setting one up now and linking it to your British Airways Executive Club account. This will allow you to jump in quickly if any good ‘buy it now’ ticket deals come up. I’m hoping our links to the Qatar Airways Privilege Club team will get us tip-offs about upcoming deals.

You can check out the auctions currently available by clicking here.

You’ve got until 8th January to bid on the two VIP Depeche Mode tickets. Good luck!


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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 – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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 (39)

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

  • BJ says:

    Is this scheme going to be totally auction-based or will there be fixed-priced events?

    • Kowalski says:

      “Privilege Club Collection will eventually have a mix of ‘buy it now’ and auction experiences. During this launch period, everything is being auctioned.”

  • Tariq says:

    I thought The Walkway was only going to be available, pre-show – and not during the shows?

    The whole auction concept of this seems to be for people who are extremely Avios rich and ascribe little to no value to them.

    • Qrfan says:

      Seems unlikely that anyone is going to get a bargain after the official launch, I agree. A round trip fully flexible transatlantic J ticket is now earning me 52,000 avios thanks to the new earning regime, so there will doubtless be people with hundreds of thousands of genuinely free avios to blow on this.

  • pauldb says:

    I’m suspicious that by “VIP car” they actually mean the O2’s valet parking service, badly worded.

  • Ian says:

    I don’t believe that the walkway is during the show.
    Also I believe that it is just access to the VIP drop off area for cars. Not that car transport is included.

    Might want to verify.

  • Paul says:

    Any idea how many pairs of tickets are available in each auction or is it literally a single pair going to only the highest bidder?

    • Rob says:

      Single pair for the O2. I guess they bought 2 memberships for the private club. Other events will vary, especially where the airline is a sponsor.

      • ADS says:

        some of the Paris SG matches already have multiple packages available for bidding

  • babyg_wc says:

    When Emirates were the official f1 sponsor we picked paddock passes very cheap because they didn’t make the blog sites, i was hoping when QR took over we might be able to repeat our under the radar purchase… alas IF QR do auction F1 tickets its seems the cat is out of the bag and there wont be any bargains to be had.

    • Rob says:

      Your biggest problem is the number of people in Western Europe holding a large pile of Avios vs Skymiles, nothing else.

      • babyg_wc says:

        Agree emirates SkyMiles customer base is much smaller than Avios, but the biggest influence IMHO is how many people know about an auction and therefore bidding on it… For example if nobody blogged about the privilege club collection, then very few people would know about it.. and bargains would be there for the taking for those in the know…

        • Rob says:

          But we wouldn’t cover obscure Euro grand prix. We never cover Hilton and Marriott F1 deals outside the UK (except for Monaco).

  • Matt says:

    The auction end dates are a bit of a challenge – I’m quite interested in bidding for the United Rugby Championship tickets, but the auction ends on 15th March for an event on 29th March. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to sort out flights to- and accommodation in Dublin, plus I’d have to leave that weekend free, regardless of whether I win or not.

    That being said, if there aren’t many bidders, it could be great value. A bit like Marriott Bonvoy moments when it first started and no-one really knew about it.

    • Rob says:

      I’ve told the Qatar team to read the comments so this will be noted.

    • ADS says:

      I had similar thoughts … and that’s even with a spare bedroom available at my sister’s place in Dublin !

  • RobH not Rob says:

    Nice idea, not fond of any of the bands so far, guess I’ll Enjoy the Silence.

    • memesweeper says:

      as a genuine fan I’d appreciate it if those in two minds about bidding didn’t. 🙂

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

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