Use Avios for Formula 1® Paddock Club™ tickets (and new deals launched at The O2)

This article is sponsored by Qatar Airways Privilege Club

If you’ve been following Head for Points over the last couple of months, you’ll know that there is an exciting new way to use your Avios.

You can now use your Avios to get VIP tickets for concerts at The O2 in London, rugby matches, European football matches and much more.

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

Qatar Airways has now secured an agreement with Formula 1® (it’s presumably not tricky when you’re the Official Airline Partner of Formula 1!) to offer Paddock Club™ VIP hospitality packages for Avios during the coming season.

The Privilege Club Collection website is here.

How will the Formula 1® deals work?

Packages have been secured for the following races:

• Melbourne Grand Prix, 24th March (now open for bidding)
• Miami Grand Prix, 5th May
• Monaco Grand Prix, 26th May
• British Grand Prix, 7th July
• Las Vegas Grand Prix, 24th November
• Qatar Grand Prix, 1st December

The Privilege Club Collection website is only open for bidding on the Melbourne Grand Prix at the moment, so we don’t know exactly what will be available for each race.

However, each package will include two Paddock Club™ VIP passes and hotel accommodation for the entire race period, usually three days. Paddock Club is the highest level of hospitality available and includes track tours and pit lane walks.

What else can you can buy via Privilege Club Collection?

As we wait for more Formula 1® auctions to open, here is a summary of what else is currently available via Privilege Club Collection.

Remember that The O2 concerts come with access to The NinetyThird, the new private club at The O2. My review of The NinetyThird launch event is here. You also get to take some Instagram pictures from The Walkway, pictured below.

The O2, London

• NEW: Jason Derulo, 6th March
• NEW: MIRROR, 12th March
• NEW: NE-YO, 16th March
• John Mayer, 18th March
• NEW: James Arthur, 22nd 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

• You can bid on various packages for the upcoming Rennes and Real Sociedad games. Tickets for Marseille, Lyon and Nice are coming soon.

FC Internazionale Milano

• vs Atletico Madrid, 20th February (Club l’Orologio VIP tickets)
• vs SCC Napoli, 17th March (Club l’Orologio VIP tickets)

Brooklyn Nets (image below)

• vs New Orleans Pelicans, 19th March (VIP suite tickets)

Barclays Center, New York

• Zach Bryan, 27th March (Suitebox ticket)

• Coming soon: Bad Bunny

Eden Park Stadium, New Zealand

• P!nk Summer Carnival, 9th March (Qatar Airways VIP suite)

How can you bid for Privilege Club Collection experiences?

Privilege Club Collection will eventually have a mix of ‘buy it now’ and auction experiences, although everything currently listed is for auction.

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 your Qatar Airways Privilege Club account.

(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 Privilege Club accounts and transfer Avios between them. Transfers are free, instant and can be reversed at any time.

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.

Some of the upcoming O2 concerts are very good value at the moment, given that your tickets let you watch the show from The NinetyThird private club.

We’ll let you know when bidding for the Silverstone Formula 1® packages open up.

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.

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