How to use Avios for ‘The NinetyThird’ club at The O2 (£400 tab included!)
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18 months ago, The O2 arena in London launched ‘The NinetyThird by Qatar Airways’, a new VIP venue.
It includes ‘The Walkway’, the ultimate Instagram spot at The O2, which allows you to head down a perspex walkway which stretches over the heads of the people below you!
Qatar Airways auctions off a pair of tickets for The NinetyThird for Avios for most concerts, and with a huge carrot – each pair comes with a £400 credit for the bars and restaurants in The NinetyThird.
(You can also hand over £16,000 + VAT per person for annual membership, but redeeming Avios is a cheaper option!)
Let me explain what The O2 did. 12 hospitality suites on Level 3 – the middle 12 suites, with the most direct view of the stage – were ripped out.
In their place, you will find The NinetyThird, a new private club covering 1,150 square metres. It contains a fine dining restaurant – image below, multiple bars and ‘The Walkway’, a platform that hangs out over the arena floor. It’s very cool.
Whilst these are PR photos, they are accurate. I have been to The Ninety Third but the low lighting and the number of people around made it difficult to take anything that was better.
The name has an obscure origin. At the time of its launch, there were 92 artists who had played five nights or more at The O2 since it opened, giving them pseudo-residency status.
By purchasing membership of this new space for £16,000 + VAT, you become part of The NinetyThird group to get pseuo-resident access. Personally I would have called it ‘The Walkway Club’ and been done with it, but no-one asked me ….
Qatar Airways is the headline sponsor of The NinetyThird as you can see from the image above.
Below is an image of The Walkway. What you can’t tell from the images is that it is fully retractable.
Because it blocks the view from certain parts of the arena, it folds in on itself and then retracts before the start of the show. It’s a rather clever thing to watch.
Amusingly, to protect the heads of people below you, you have to put your phone into a clear pouch which is hung around your neck. It doesn’t really impact the quality of your photos!
Your tickets come with other perks, including access to the VIP drop-off area and use of the fast track entry lanes. You also get automatic access after the show to the American Express Lounge, subject to capacity.
How do you redeem Avios for The NinetyThird?
Unless you know someone who handed over £16,000 + VAT per person for annual membership – which gets you your own reserved seat in The NinetyThird for every show – you will need to use Avios for a ticket via Privilege Club Collection.
All tickets are auctioned via the Privilege Club Collection website here.
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 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 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.
How much do tickets go for?
The fact that each set of tickets comes with a £400 food and drink tab should set a floor under the bidding but some still go cheaply.
When these auctions started, and before word got around, some people were winning with ludicrously low bids for certain events and simply turning up for a £400 blow-out!
Here are a sample of winning bids from 2025, helpfully collated by R2 in our forum:
- Disney On Ice – 21,000 Avios
- Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live – 20,600 Avios
- Peter Kay – 56,009 Avios
- Strictly Come Dancing – 51,000 Avios
- Snow Patrol – 67,666 Avios
- F1® 75 Live – 101,000 Avios
- Sabrina Carpenter – 100,000 Avios
- Usher – 105,000 Avios (but sub-60k for other dates)
- Sugababes – 42,000 Avios
- Micheal Ball & Alfie Boe – 40,000 Avios
- Andrea Bocelli – 62,000 Avios
- Bryan Adams – 54,000 Avios
- Olly Murs – 38,482 Avios
- Tyler, The Creator – 20,000 Avios
- Kylie – 46,001 to 67,000 Avios
- Lionel Richie – 51,000 Avios
As you can see, given the £400 of F&B included there were some real deals here.
Qatar Airways could get more for these tickets but they handicap themselves by closing the auctions in the early morning, UK time. The majority of people set a maxmium bid and go to bed rather than fighting it out at the death and pushing up the cost.
As of yesterday, the concerts open for bidding were:
- VYBZ KARTEL
- Tom Grennan
- One Republic
- Katy Perry
VYBZ KARTEL is looking very unloved at the moment (3,800 Avios highest bid for one of the two shows). It could be a good opportunity for someone who simply fancies a £400 night of eating and drinking.
You can bid, and find out more, on the Privilege Club Collection website here.
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