Avios Reward Flights: A Hack for Transferring Your Points Between Airlines
Start by using an Avios Flight Finder
Avios reward flights are seats on airlines, owned by International Airline Group (IAG), that are available to purchase entirely with points, plus taxes & surcharges. IAG owned airlines, participating in the scheme, including British Airways and Iberia. If you are a member of their loyalty programmes you will also earn Avios when you fly with other airlines in the Oneworld alliance, such as American Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways and Cathay Pacific.
These days there are a number of different ways you can spend your hard-earned frequent flier miles. However, using Avios points for flights, typically gives you one of the biggest cash equivalent savings, in the world of loyalty scheme redemptions.
Airlines often make it quite difficult to discover where your points could take you, luckily there are some great Avios flight finder websites out there, such as Rewardflightfinder.com, which do the hard work for you. These sites are a great place to start, showing you what reward flights are available and where your points balance could take you. You can also sign-up to be notified when new seats are released.
Create Multiple Avios Accounts
If you are based in the UK, the likelihood is that the Oneworld airline you will fly most frequently is BA. It is free to join the British Airways Executive Club and when you link your membership number to your bookings, you’ll start earning Avios. However, if you fly regularly within Europe, it can be a smart move to also join Iberia Plus, the Spanish airline’s loyalty scheme. Next, sign up with another IAG airline, Aer Lingus. Whilst Aer Lingus isn’t currently a member of the Oneworld alliance, it does award Avios to members of the Aer Lingus AerClub, that can be redeemed for flights on airlines that are part of the alliance.
You might be wondering why we recommend that you hold multiple memberships?
If so, let us explain. When you use Avios points for flights, although the points can be earnt with all the participating airlines, there are some differences when it comes to earning and spending them.
The different Avios loyalty schemes let you transfer points to each other on a 1:1 basis. However, each airline often runs promotions which mean that you can earn more points on one scheme than you will on another. So it’s always worth checking which airline you will earn the most points with for a particular route.
There can be other differences too. For example, BA offers Reward Flight Saver deals, which enable you to pay a low fixed fee, instead of the full rate of tax, on European flights, however Iberia Plus doesn’t. If you are flying long haul, however, you may well be able to pay lower taxes and fees when you book an Iberia operated flight, using your Iberia Plus account. Sometimes you will earn more Avios using Aer Lingus, but the Irish airline has one other little known benefit.
The Aer Lingus Points Shuffle
In the past, BA and Iberia frequent fliers could manage their points balances at Avios.com. This was also the easiest place to transfer points across different schemes. That changed a few years ago and now they can only login with their respective airline websites. This made that process a whole lot harder.
However, AerClub members can still use their credentials, to login to Avios.com and from there transfer points across their Aer Lingus, BA and Iberia accounts. You may have to transfer them into your AerClub Account, then out again to BA, but it is still the easiest and most reliable option.
There are a few rules you must adhere to, but none of them is too onerous. Your full name, email address and other personal details will need to be the same on each Avios account. Iberia Plus insists that you have an account for 90 days before you can transfer points in and out. Other than that, you’re good to go.
It might be that things change in the future, but for now, Aer Lingus AerClub membership offers a convenient way to move your Avios, from the airline you can earn the most points with, to the loyalty scheme offering the best deal, when you want to spend them.
