Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The two easy ways to use Avios points to fly to Australia and New Zealand

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I get a steady stream of emails asking about how to book Avios tickets to Australia or New Zealand.  Before the pandemic, my honest answer was ‘don’t bother – use cash’.

There were three reasons for this:

  • Avios availability to Sydney, if using a 2-4-1 voucher, is exceptionally hard to get.  You need to route via Singapore which means you are competing with people who just want an Avios ticket to go there. Capacity on the route has shrunk massively since Virgin Atlantic withdrew and British Airways downsized to a Boeing 777 or even a 787 at times.  This means that it is rare to see more than the four guaranteed Club World seats. 
use avios australia new zealand
  • The Avios required is disproportionately high.  Using British Airways, a Club World redemption costs 340,000 Avios (peak) or 290,000 Avios (off-peak) plus £775 in Reward Flight Saver fees. If you value an Avios at 1p as we usually do, a ticket for one person costs the equivalent of £4,175 (peak) or £3,675 (off-peak). It obviously looks better with the remote chance of using a BA American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher.
  • Cash tickets to Australasia are disproportionately low.  Even post covid, Australia is PROPORTIONATELY cheaper than other long haul routes on a ‘pound per mile flown’ basis.  Pre-pandemic we saw (and wrote about) business class cash fares from the UK as low as £1,500 on Malaysia Airlines and as low as £1,400 to Auckland with Qatar Airways.  Those deals are unlikely to return, I admit, but pre-covid you could always find cash tickets ex-Europe for under £2,000.  When you factor in the charges on an Avios ticket, plus the huge amount of miles earned back for paying cash, plus the ability to pick and choose when you go, it is no surprise that redemptions look second best.

To be fair, there is currently a LOT of Avios availability between Singapore and Sydney. Here, via SeatSpy, are dates with two seats in Club World between now and June (outbound on the left, return on the right):

The problem is travelling between the UK and Singapore, especially on the return. Yesterday there was just ONE day in the next YEAR (12th May) with two Club World seats from Singapore to London.

Here’s the good news:

There are two easier ways to use Avios to Australia and New Zealand.

Option 1: Use Qatar Airways

Since Qatar Airways adopted Avios, the undoubted sweet spot in the redemption chart is 180,000 Avios for a return Business Class ticket between UK / Europe and Australia / New Zealand.

Not only is it massively cheaper than redeeming Avios on British Airways, but availability is better. Qatar Airways doesn’t just fly to Sydney either, it flies to:

  • Adelaide
  • Auckland
  • Brisbane
  • Canberra
  • Melbourne
  • Perth
  • Sydney

Not only can you fly from London, but you can also fly from Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin and many other European cities, via a plane change in Doha.

Frankly, even if you have a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, you should forget it and pay full price (180,000 Avios) per seat for a Qatar Airways redemption instead. It’s only marginally more expensive on Qatar Airways but the vastly superior product – and of course far better availability – easily compensates.

We wrote a detailed article on redeeming Avios on Qatar Airways flights to Australia and New Zealand which is here.

I need to flag one thing. If you search for business class seats from the UK to Australia or New Zealand on the Qatar Airways website, you will see a lot of seats at 360,000 Avios return, not 180,000. This is ‘extra’ availability which Qatar Airways chooses to offer on busier flights. The 180,000 Avios return seats are definitely there but require more hunting. If you book via ba.com these ‘extra’ seats do not appear.

Availability has further improved recently with partner Virgin Australia launching flights from Doha to four cities in Australia. Virgin Australia is leasing Qatar Airways aircraft and crew so, to all intents and purposes, you are on a Qatar Airways flight.

This article looks at how to book the new Virgin Australia flights between Doha and Australia with Avios.

Avios on Qatar Airways to Austrlia New Zealand

Option 2: Using the multi-partner Avios reward chart via British Airways

There is a way to get an Avios reward flight to Australasia with far fewer availability issues and using far fewer Avios, whilst also seeing other destinations on the way.  The only snag is that you can’t use a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher or a Barclays upgrade voucher.

95% of British Airways Avios collectors do not know that BA has a second redemption chart.

Some of you will never have seen this chart before (click to enlarge) or at least not before you started reading HfP:

Avios multi partner redemption chart

You can see the original by clicking here to ba.com and scrolling down to click on ‘Partner Airlines’ and then ‘Avios costs for booking with two or more oneworld partner airlines’.

What is the Avios ‘multi-carrier reward chart’?

This is the reward chart that British Airways uses to price redemptions which include two or more oneworld partner airlines, excluding British Airways.

If, for example, you flew from London to Amman on Royal Jordanian and then caught a Qatar Airways flight to Doha, it would be priced using the chart above.

The chart above is for Economy travel.  Multiply by two for Business Class and by three for First Class.

Take a moment to note what I just wrote.

Whilst a standard Avios redemption in Business Class on British Airways costs 3x an Economy redemption, using the multi-partner chart only costs 2x.  This makes the multi-partner chart very good value for Business or First Class Avios tickets.

How to use this chart to get to Australasia

If you use oneworld partner airlines to get to Australasia, you have a lot of options.

You have Finnair which flies to many key cities in Asia.  Cathay Pacific can get you to Hong Kong and then down to Australasia.  Japan Airlines can do the same via Tokyo.  Qatar Airways can do the same via Doha.  Malaysia Airlines can do the same via Kuala Lumpur.  And, of course, there is Qantas too.

Avios multi partner redemption chart

Here is a real example booked by a Head for Points reader pre-covid:

Heathrow to Tokyo (Japan Airlines)  5,957 miles

3 day stopover

Tokyo to Brisbane (Qantas)  4,426 miles

Holiday

Cairns to Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific)  3,451 miles

3 day stopover

Hong Kong to Manchester (Cathay Pacific)  5,988 miles

Because this involves three non-BA oneworld airlines it prices off the multi-partner chart above.  As the reader travelled 19,822 miles, the total cost in Business Class was 200,000 Avios plus, at the time he booked, under £600 of taxes.

This is a far better deal than 340,000 Avios (peak day) plus £775 of taxes if you booked London to Sydney on British Airways in Club World – and you won’t be doing that anyway, because availability is virtually non-existent.

The itinerary above is actually a very simplistic way of using the multi-partner chart.  If it wasn’t for the fact that this itinerary is so close to the 20,000 mile threshold, you could have added in a number of domestic flights on Qantas or Japan Airlines.

What else can you do with the multi-partner reward chart?

Here is an example of a round-the-world routing using the multi-partner chart.

London – Delhi – Hong Kong – Tokyo – Los Angeles – New York – London is just under 20,000 miles.  This would be 200,000 Avios in Business Class for the whole trip.

It is worth noting that I have never seen a firm list of the rules for booking multi-partner reward tickets.  Most BA call centre agents will never have booked one.

  • In theory you are limited to eight sectors with just one overland sector – although I have seen examples where multiple overland sectors were ticketed
  • In theory you need to have every segment in the same class as just one in a higher class will reprice the entire itinerary.  However, some people have reportedly had agents charge based on the longest class flown, ie if 60% is economy and 40% First then they were charged economy!
  • In theory you can book a segment in economy – and the rest of the itinerary in business – and upgrade that segment later for free if availability in business appears
  • In theory there are no rules on backtracking although this may be down to badly trained agents.  One example I have seen was basically multiple holidays from London to somewhere, back to back, to get to eight sectors.  If the agent allows it you could book, say, London to Qatar and home, London to Hong Kong and home, London to Tokyo and home, London to Kuala Lumpur and home as one booking – as long as you are using at least two oneworld carriers – and save a huge number of Avios on booking four holidays separately.

In truth, no-one seems clear.  The ‘eight flights maximum’ rule does seem to be firm – but that still gives you a huge amount of flexibility to put together a great trip.

To book, you first need to find each flight individually on ba.com as a reward seat. Make a list of the date, flight number etc for each leg and then call British Airways to book.

Unfortunately there is no way of knowing what the taxes and charges will be until the booking is complete. Remember that starting outside the UK will save a lot in Air Passenger Duty, although you will of course have to get yourself to Dublin, Amsterdam etc.

Conclusion

Unless you are lucky, you are being optimistic if you think that you can easily snag Avios availability on the British Airways flights between London Heathrow and Sydney.

Even if you can, you will be paying a lot for it.

I hope this article has shown that using either Qatar Airways or the British Airways multi-partner redemption chart offers far better value for your Avios and much improved availability.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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

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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

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios, oneworld alliance partners, Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (119)

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

  • Martin says:
    17 Feb17 February 07:50

    Hello all
    Can these partners reward seats only be booked by calling the agents or can they be done online, if so is that just by using the BA reward seat booking/search and they will come up if available?
    Thank you
    Martin

    • Rob says:
      17 Feb17 February 08:19

      You can search each individual flight online but you must call to make the booking.

      • Aman says:
        17 Feb17 February 11:06

        Hi Rob, I have a question about availability. Are all flight seats of one-world partners available for redemption under multi-reward, or do they have similar limitations as BA? How to know which seats are available? Many thanks.

      • Oxonboy says:
        17 Feb17 February 11:41

        Very useful piece of ‘how to’ info missing from the otherwise very informative article.

  • Paul T says:
    17 Feb17 February 08:21

    Just booked a multi reward for next winter after the advice from HFP, 240000 avios but shed loads of taxes, most of which are ‘carrier imposed surcharges’. (LHR-HKG, HKG-CHC, AKL-KUL, KUL-DOH-LHR – the outbound in economy to HKG as the longest for pricing of avios, all the rest in business).

    Does anyone have any idea how I see/get a breakdown of these carrier imposed surcharges?

    • JDB says:
      17 Feb17 February 09:46

      Those charges will be clearly set out in your e-ticket. Not necessarily in the most intelligible form (albeit standardised IATA format) but airlines break them down for accounting purposes.

    • A350 says:
      17 Feb17 February 11:16

      You can click on “Print/email e-Ticket” through Manage my Booking on BA’s website and this should give you a breakdown at the bottom. If this doesn’t work you can go onto Finnair’s website – https://www.finnair.com/gb-en/customer-care-and-contact-information/contact-and-request-forms/order-your-e-ticket-receipt

      Type in the booking details and it’ll email you an e-Ticket back to the registered email on the booking. You will be able to see the breakdown. Yes depending on the carriers involved and the departure point, there will be a potential for hefty YQ/Carrier Surcharges. Given you’re departing from LHR, that doesn’t surprise. They might have been significantly less departing from say a Scandinavian departure point.

  • Novice says:
    17 Feb17 February 08:25

    Rob, I have a question. Do you book the multiple partners online? And how do you search the flight as in would you search Man – Syd and then the results you get, you pick a flight with 2 or more airlines?

  • Paul says:
    17 Feb17 February 08:50

    Tried to use the multi chattier booking process last year, 13 phone calls and a total of 4 hours on the phone back and forth, and it never got ticketed.
    You can only speak to a phone agent who have to send through the flights to ticketing, then I have to call back 2-3 days for an update, and the update was ‘ticketing refusing a certain segment’.

    I gave up in the end

    • duncan says:
      17 Feb17 February 09:31

      By coincidence, I was looking at the multi partner approach for a 1 month break in Aus & Japan for Jan/Feb 2026. Couldn’t find any way of making it work as I had to have all flights there and back available now, whilst there were flights back, the flights out (departing early Jan to either HND, Aus or HKG) did not have any avios availability left. Either I’m doing something wrong or this is near on impossible to do for a 1 month trip?

      • A350 says:
        17 Feb17 February 11:20

        It’s not impossible, it just requires a LOT of patience individually trying to find the sectors, ensuring you’re flying in a reasonably logical way without backtracking. Australia & Japan are some of the hardest places to get award seat availability, that too you’re looking in January. You might just need to be more flexible with your dates or simplify your itinerary to just be Australia or Japan rather than both. I have had successful partner redemptions on 2 occasions for travel in January to Australia/NZ, most recently having done it just a fortnight ago.

  • Kraut says:
    17 Feb17 February 09:06

    So for Option 2, do you have to go on the various partner airline sites to see if reward seats are available or is there no restriction on the amount of seats per flight?

  • James says:
    17 Feb17 February 09:27

    Having did a booking with CX over the holiday period via HKG using avios. Its very hard to get J/F availability all the way.

  • Mike Asplin says:
    17 Feb17 February 09:53

    I’m baffled how this works. If i search on BA.com for these legs I see absolutely nothing despite searching 10 different legs via different hubs for just ecconomy out to Australia.

    Even weirder if I login to Finnair and search London Singapore on 15/7 one way I see a business class redemption on a BA flight 110,000 + £549. On BA.com no such flight. How can this be.

    Rob told me that there isa bit of a war going on between airlines within oneworld so not showing each others flights. Doesnt make sense Finnair showing a BA flight that BA doesnt!!!!

    • Rob says:
      17 Feb17 February 13:01

      Finnair probably isn’t bookable though.

      That said, 2 years ago I booked my wife in Qatar A380 F via BA.com when the Qatar site had nothing!

  • Throwawayname says:
    17 Feb17 February 09:59

    I am always surprised by the enormous popularity of Australia and New Zealand as tourist destinations. I do appreciate that a lot of UK residents have friends and family in Oceania (I also do!), but Melbourne and Auckland are easily in the top 5 dullest major cities that I have ever visited, Sydney [may have been better but] wasn’t super exciting either, and the AKL customs and immigration officers were the most hostile and unpleasant I have ever encountered anywhere (and I have been to some ‘difficult’ destinations where I had limited/no local language skills). Even without the substantial cost in both time and money, I wouldn’t be rushing to go back.

    I suppose the good thing is that everyone else seems to be competing for awards to Australia and that means there’s always a new African country or two for me to discover on miles.

    • babyg_wc says:
      17 Feb17 February 10:14

      with those kind of comments/attitude i can see why NZ customs gave you special treatment…

      • Throwawayname says:
        17 Feb17 February 10:19

        That’s the interesting thing – there wasn’t any issue with my paperwork, any questionable biosecurity items etc and I don’t even think I was singled out, they seemed to be equally horrible to my fellow [non-Kiwi] pax.

    • JDB says:
      17 Feb17 February 10:42

      Unbelievable just to write off the whole of ANZ like that! The setting of Sydney is unparalleled and it has an amazing and fairly unique cultural and dining scene. I don’t have family there but my best man lives in Sydney and the Southern Highlands which are very special and nearby Canberra is overly maligned. So many great places to visit all around the country including Tasmania which I visited for the first time last year and will be returning to ASAP.

      Anyway, so which other cities are in the dullest 5? And more importantly, outside Europe, which are in the top 5?

      • Throwawayname says:
        17 Feb17 February 11:19

        I haven’t technically written it off, just decided that there’s a huge list of places that I want to visit before I can be bothered to go back all the way there. I’m sure they have some great nature, but it’s just so much easier to explore nature in places like the Tatras, Corsica, Cappadocia, or even Kenya.

        Great question around the other dull major cities, Dallas and Dongguan would probably be right up there, closely followed by San José- and my experience of Johannesburg also ended up being surprisingly dull as a result of having to be paranoid about security. SCL isn’t quite that boring but probably not worth travelling the huge distance from Europe either.

        Top 5 outside Europe would be CDMX, Busan, Buenos Aires, Taipei, then tie between Seoul and SP. Rio and Tokyo also looked good but I haven’t been able to explore them properly and/or gel with them.

      • Harry T says:
        17 Feb17 February 14:20

        Agree with JDB. Particularly in regards to Tasmania – I’ve been there three times, including this January and I love it more every time I visit. I’ve just lived in Melbourne for a year and, whilst it’s not my favourite Australian city, there is a lot going on there. The food and beverage scene is particularly good and there are some excellent parks and libraries.

    • Scott says:
      17 Feb17 February 11:05

      Para gustos, los colores.

      • Throwawayname says:
        17 Feb17 February 11:29

        @Scott, definitely. I am by no means judging anyone who loves the place, I just find it really surprising that e.g. Auckland has barely two million residents (about half of Greater Manchester and only just bigger than Prague), is located right at the arse end of nowhere, hasn’t got a huge amount of stuff to offer the visitor as a city (or at least it didn’t when I visited, it may have improved since) yet sees enough tourism to sustain multiple intercontinental flights.

        • Nick says:
          17 Feb17 February 11:50

          You’re joking, right?! Auckland as a city might not have much for the tourist, but it’s the gateway to one of the most stunning countries in the world and a bucket list destination for many people. Mountains, hiking, geysers, fjords… not to mention all the film crews heading there. Perhaps you’ll learn from Rhys’s updates when he’s back!

          • Throwawayname says:
            17 Feb17 February 22:19

            Not joking, I don’t doubt there’s great nature in NZ, but I know a lot of people that live in UK/EU and have been there but not to the stunning landscapes of Oman or the fjords in Norway or the amazing mountain/sea combo in the Basque Country etc, and I find it a bit baffling.

    • VerdantBacon says:
      17 Feb17 February 22:30

      It works the other way too, how can so many Australians want to visit the UK when it is the dullest, most boring country in Europe? It’s simply the allure of a far away destination that is very different to where you came from, and they also happen to speak English.

      It becomes a “simple” far away destination to aspire to

      • Occasional Ranter says:
        18 Feb18 February 09:06

        Greatest attraction of NZ is that it offers something similar to a European summer, during the European winter. Second greatest attraction – the people (particularly outside Auckland 😉 ). Third – how easy everything is for us Brits: language, driving on the left, similar humour, etc etc. Have been coming out here for years (am in Coromandel right now) and couldn’t be happier.

        • Throwawayname says:
          18 Feb18 February 10:09

          @OR, makes sense that way, basically you trade a longer/more expensive journey for an easier experience on the ground plus good weather at the right time of the year.

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

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