How to link Qatar Airways Privilege Club and British Airways Club Avios accounts

This article shows you how to transfer Avios between British Airways and Qatar Airways, by explaining how to link your Privilege Club and British Airways Club accounts.

Now that Qatar Airways (plus Finnair and Loganair, but those are different stories) have adopted Avios, there are good reasons to link your British Airways Club account. Over 500,000 people have also done so, I am told!

This is because:

• there are airlines which let you earn and spend Avios via Qatar Airways Privilege Club that you can’t book via The British Airways Club (Garuda Indonesia, Airlink, Virgin Australia, Middle East Airlines etc)

• there are partners which let you earn Avios via Qatar Airways Privilege Club which don’t work with The British Airways Club (Hertz, Shangri-La etc)

We produced this standalone article on how to link your British Airways and Qatar Airways accounts to give us an easy reference point for future articles. We are updating it today to reflect the change to British Airways Club.

How to link your Qatar Airways Privilege Club and British Airways Club accounts

Linking your Privilege Club and British Airways Club accounts is the first step in transferring your Avios from one scheme to another, and being able to take advantage of the discounted redemptions and new partners that Qatar Airways offers.

The conversion rate is 1:1 and you can move your Avios back and forth, instantly, as many times as you want, for free.

The process is very easy and can be completed in three short steps:

Step 1: sign in to your Privilege Club account

If you don’t already have a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account you need to sign up for one first.

Sign up at this page.

Once you have an account and are logged in, head to the Qatar Airways ‘Manage My Avios’ page. Click the ‘link your accounts’ button:

(Oddly, the wording has not been changed yet to reflect the move to British Airways Club!)

You are redirected to another page which lets you link your British Airways Club account. You cannot link an Iberia Plus or Aer Lingus AerClub account.

Make sure your personal details match on both accounts. I am told by Qatar Airways that there must be a match of first name, surname and date of birth.

If you have issues and have a middle name, try putting it in the same field as your first name rather than the ‘middle name’ field. This fixes the problem for some people.

Qatar Airways does not have Household Accounts in the style of BA ones, so don’t start looking for that functionality – it doesn’t exist. Whilst you can pool Avios from future flights, you cannot pool historically earned ones.

You can only move your own personal Avios from BA to Qatar Airways. This means that if you have 50,000 Avios in your account and your partner has 50,000 Avios in their account, it is not possible to combine them to book a single flight for 100,000 Avios via Qatar Airways Privilege Club.

(One way around this is to use Finnair Plus to move Avios from one account to another. The fee is only €10 for a transfer of any size.)

Step 2: log in to your British Airways Club account

Clicking the ‘link your accounts’ button will redirect you to a login page on britishairways.com.

You will be given the chance to set up 2FA if you wish but it is not compulsory.

Your two accounts will automatically be linked.

Step 3: Confirm and check your balance at Privilege Club

Once you’ve done that the process is complete and you return to the Qatar Airways site. You should see your full Avios balance. You can see both your Qatar Airways Avios balance and your British Airways Club Avios balance on the same screen:

You will see in the image above that, below the balances, is the box where you can move Avios between British Airways Club and Qatar Airways Privilege Club.

(Yet again, Qatar Airways is still using the old British Airways Executive Club branding.)

You can move your Avios in either direction, at 1:1, for free, as many times as you like.

Whilst it is a bit of a faff to link your British Airways Club and Qatar Airways Privilege Club accounts for the first time, it is a totally seamless process after this.

Every time you log in to your Qatar Airways account or go into the app you will see your combined British Airways and Qatar Airways Avios balances and will be able to move Avios freely between them.