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British Airways Avios transfers from Amex Membership Rewards are now instant

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American Express has quietly rolled out an improvement to Membership Rewards transfers to The British Airways Club.

Transfers are now instantaneous.

As long as your Membership Rewards and British Airways Club accounts are already linked, the points will jump across immediately. If they are not linked, security checks may add a short delay.

Historically, transfers to The British Airways Club were advertised as taking three days.

As per our article earlier this month on Membership Rewards transfer times, in the vast majority of cases they actually completed overnight.

Instantaneous is still better than overnight, of course!

This change could be a response to Qatar Airways Privilege Club offering instant Avios transfers via Membership Rewards.

I suspect that if you transferred Avios from Membership Rewards to Qatar Airways and then on to British Airways, British Airways was losing money.

If we assume Amex pays 1p per Avios, it would have been paying 1p to Qatar Airways who were probably paying British Airways around 0.8p when you moved your Avios across. This way, BA gets the full 1p!

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (June 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 Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express Credit Card

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 Credit Card

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 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 points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 on the FREE standard card and 1 Avios per £1 on the Pro card. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 0.8 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 Card

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.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

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.

Category

American Express Membership Rewards, British Airways and Avios

Comments (18)

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

  • JDB says:
    17 May17 May 06:02

    Yes, this worked instantly for me last week vs three days around a month ago. Very useful when that gold card is the best points accumulator around.

  • AJA says:
    17 May17 May 06:24

    Do the airlines pay each other when you transfer Avios from one FF scheme to the other?

    If they do then transfers from one scheme to the other should count for extending expiry of your pot of Avios in the receiving scheme? I thought transfers didn’t count towards that?

    • BBbetter says:
      17 May17 May 08:20

      They do pay each other on transfers.
      No, they don’t count as activity for members. Thems the rules!

    • Rob says:
      17 May17 May 09:40

      Finnair etc basically licence the Avios name. That’s it.

      IAG gets no money if you take a Finnair flight, earn Avios in Finnair Plus and redeem via Finnair Plus.

      Money only changes hands when Avios move between schemes.

      • david says:
        18 May18 May 09:58

        So transferring 500k points between BA and AY twice a day, for example only, will cost BA and AY a packet each day?

        • Rob says:
          18 May18 May 10:07

          The transfer payment is equal in both directions so if send 500k across and then send it back no payment is due to anyone.

  • Andrew J says:
    17 May17 May 07:32

    Presumably connected to this, I noticed that the Amex app now displays my total Avios balance with BA, not just this month’s Amex Avios to be transferred.

    • inman says:
      17 May17 May 07:58

      Yup… same here on my BAPP. Was shocked to see a sudden increase in Avios on my Amex app, only to get disappointed within moments 😀

    • Lumma says:
      17 May17 May 08:01

      Ah, so it does. I thought I was getting some bonus avios for some reason…

    • Gustavo says:
      17 May17 May 13:21

      I preferred it the old way because I knew how many points were going to be transferred in the next cycle. Now that’s one click away… First World problems of course

  • Michael C says:
    17 May17 May 07:40

    I wish MR to Singapore Airlines were like this…

    • BBbetter says:
      17 May17 May 08:22

      The issue with transferring to SQ is less about the time taken…

  • JohnTh says:
    17 May17 May 10:43

    To feed into you timings research – Gold to Marriott – under 10 mins. Marriott a to Marriott b for a redemption, the same. Exec room Room booked points+cash upgrade (Mena House Cairo).

  • Chris says:
    17 May17 May 12:26

    Is there an article about the comparitive value of Reward Points when transferring them to other schemes? Based on average values you normally quote is, say, Hilton more vauable than Avios?
    I am asking as I am going to close my Platinum card soon and don;t want to downgrade to keep my points, and will be transferring them to whatever is seen as the best value.

  • Gerry says:
    17 May17 May 17:24

    I’m now waiting for SAS transfers to become instantaneous… With their TATL pricing of 1.5 million points one-way in J sprinkled with an occasional 50k, I don’t want to be keeping any points in that program. Makes Delta pricing look generous…

  • RC says:
    18 May18 May 11:51

    So BA can make this work but STILL no news on the Amex tier points earnings.
    How incompetent can BA be to announce something Amex had not agreed to it seems?

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

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