What is the cheapest way to buy Avios points?

What is the cheapest way of buying Avios points?

It is likely that, at some point, you will need to buy Avios in order to make a redemption booking.  It is rarely great value but if you are just a few thousand short of your target then it probably makes sense.

Over the last few weeks we’ve looked at a few options – Avios Balance Boost, Avios Subscription and ‘buy Avios’ deals from Qatar Airways and Finnair. I’d thought I’d pull all the options together in one place, together with some other ideas.

The obvious thing to do is to go to ba.com and buy Avios on the website here. However, you may be missing out on some tricks which can reduce the cost of buying Avios points sharply.

There are six methods of purchasing Avios covered below. This article does not reflect any special offers which are currently running, so do take a look at ba.com first and then the Finnair, Qatar Airways and Iberia websites second.

Do you really need to buy Avios at all?

First, think about whether you really need to buy Avios.

We show the points cost of Avios flights on British Airways in this article (the only place online you’ll find this data, as BA no longer publishes it). However, you don’t need to use that many Avios.

British Airways will, for BA and most partner airlines, show you a number of cash and Avios options. To be honest, for a long-haul flight the ‘most Avios, least cash’ option in our table is the best value, but if you don’t have enough Avios you can take one of the others.

I use ‘the 1p formula’ to work out which ‘Avios plus cash’ combination is best. Click through to read that article – I won’t repeat the maths here.

What are the options if you do need to purchase Avios?

Let’s take a look at the options:

1. Use Avios Balance Boost

For most people, in the absence of special offers elsewhere, the cheapest way of buying Avios is with Avios Balance Boost.

We wrote a detailed article on Avios Balance Boost here.

Put simply, you can buy a lump sum of Avios equivalent to 100%, 200% or 300% of the Avios you have earned in the last 30 days.

You can find Avios Balance Boost on the usual ‘buy Avios’ page here. The price list seems to have been removed from the website but this is it:

Unless you are trying to buy over 300,000 Avios via Balance Boost, which is unlikely unless you are trying to boost a chunky credit card sign-up bonus or made a large transfer from American Express Membership Rewards, you will pay between 0.92p and 0.96p per Avios.

The 300,000 Avios cap is based on your Boost purchases over a calendar year and not per transaction.

2. Use Avios Subscription

Avios Subscription is a sister service to Avios Balance Boost.

Again, we have a full article on Avios Subscription here.

You can pay as little as 0.99p per Avios.

There are four different plans to pick from. For each, you can select monthly or annual payments. However, even if you select the annual up-front payment option, the Avios will still be posted to your account monthly.

The annual payment options are:

• Voyager: 20,000 Avios (1,667 Avios per month)
• Traveller: 50,000 Avios (4,167 Avios per month)
• Explorer: 100,000 Avios (8,334 Avios per month)
• Adventurer: 200,000 Avios (16,667 Avios per month)

The monthly subscriptions are available in the same increments. The annual plans are discounted to the extent that you effectively get two months free.

You can buy a maximum of 200,000 Avios per year with Avios Subscription.

The biggest problem with Avios Subscription is that the Avios are posted in monthly instalments, so it isn’t much use if you need a large chunk of points immediately.

3. Buy Avios via ba.com

The official link for buying Avios directly from British Airways is here. The standard price is a shocking £49 for 2,000 through to £3,539 for the maximum 200,000.

At standard rates, the price is 2.45p when buying 2,000 through to 1.77p when buying 200,000. To be honest, 1.77p is still too expensive.

4. Buy Avios via Iberia Plus

As Iberia is a sister airline to British Airways, you can also buy Avios from them.

However, it is messy and NOT RECOMMENDED. This main reason is that ‘Combine My Avios’ – the online feature used to move Avios between BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus accounts – is VERY buggy. You simply cannot rely on it.

It would be a disaster if you bought Avios in an Iberia Plus account and then couldn’t move them because ‘Combine My Avios’ was having one of its regular breakdowns.

You also need an ‘active’ Iberia Plus account to transfer Avios to BA, which means that the account must be over 90 days old and you must have earned 1 Avios in it directly, perhaps by crediting a British Airways flight or Amex Membership Rewards point.

Here is the Iberia page for buying Avios. The link is under the ‘Iberia Plus’ menu option.

5. Buy Avios via Finnair Plus or Qatar Airways Privilege Club

This is, oddly, a far more reliable way of buying Avios than using Iberia Plus.

Both Finnair and Qatar Airways use Avios for their frequent flyer schemes. To buy Avios, you need to open an account with Finnair Plus and/or Qatar Airways Privilege Club and link it to your British Airways Executive Club account.

Once linked, it is very simple – and virtually error- and bug-proof – to move Avios and back and forth for free. This article shows you how to move Avios between BA and Finnair or Qatar Airways accounts.

Both Finnair and Qatar Airways run regular promotions for buying Avios, so you should avoid paying the headline price if you can.

The Finnair ‘buy Avios’ page is here. The standard price, with no promotion running, is never lower than 2.1 Eurocents (1.74p).

The Qatar Airways ‘buy Avios’ page is here. The standard price, with no promotion running, is never lower than 1.75p (UK members are charged in £).

6. Buy hotel points in a promotion and transfer them

Many hotel schemes let you buy points and convert them to Avios.  However, at full price, neither World of Hyatt, Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy or IHG One Rewards points are cheap enough to be worth considering.

There are often regular bonuses for buying hotel points which can improve the maths. To save you the trouble of doing the sums, only Marriott Bonvoy points are likely to prove attractive.

Marriott Bonvoy points convert to Avios at 3:1 with a 5,000 Avios bonus for converting 60,000 Bonvoy points.

At present, with a 45% bonus running (to 30th March 2025), you can buy 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points for $525 (£415). These convert to 25,000 Avios so you’re paying 1.66p.

It’s not cheap, but cheaper than buying a similar amount directly from British Airways.

You can buy Marriott Bonvoy points here.

Conclusion

We generally do not recommend buying Avios speculatively unless an exceptionally good promotion is running. I’d personally want to see a price of 0.8p to 0.9p before I would consider it.

(For comparison, you are ‘buying’ Avios at 0.8p if you convert Nectar points to Avios, since 1.6 Nectar points = 1 Avios and 1 Nectar point is worth 0.5p to spend in Sainsbury’s or Argos.)

If you do need to buy, Avios Balance Boost is likely to be your cheapest option unless a special ‘buy Avios’ offer is running via Finnair Plus or Qatar Airways Privilege Club. It is highly unlikely that any special offer run by British Airways Executive Club or Iberia Plus would beat the Avios Balance Boost price.

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.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (March 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:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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.

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.

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

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 8th April 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to 120,000 points. You receive 80,000 points when you spend £12,000 within three months and a further 40,000 points if you spend on the card between Month 14 and Month 17. Points convert 1:1 into Avios and many other programmes. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 8th April 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 60,000 points. You receive 40,000 points when you spend £6,000 within three months and a further 20,000 points if you spend on the card between Month 14 and Month 17. Points convert 1:1 into Avios and many other programmes. Click here to apply.

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