British Airways, Qatar, Aer Lingus, Iberia, and Vueling (a low cost carrier) share a common rewards currency: Avios. Strangely, despite sharing a currency, each program has its own loyalty program with differing fees, award prices, and rules. Since they are partners, it’s often possible to book the same flights with multiple programs, but your cost will sometimes vary (either in number of points required and/or taxes/fees). As a result, it’s a great idea to set up accounts in each program so that you can easily move points to the one that offers you the best award pricing for the flights you want to book.
In March 2024, Finnair also adopted Avios as its award currency. However, it’s not yet possible to transfer between the other four Avios programs and Finnair. Because of this, it isn’t included in this guide. We’ll update accordingly once that changes, which is expected to happen by summer 2024.
What’s new? This guide has been updated to remove Avios.com as a transfer option and we have added screen shots and instructions for the latest navigation flow for each option for combining points.
Why you may want to transfer Avios between programs
Here are some examples of why you may want to move Avios from one program to another before booking awards:
- Aer Lingus flights often have much cheaper award fees when booked from AerLingus.com than with British Airways Avios.
- When using Avios to book short distance Iberia flights, Aer Lingus and Vueling often have lower taxes and fees than British Airways or Iberia.
- Long distance Iberia flights are sometimes the opposite, by a large margin. For example, when looking at a one-way Iberia business class award from Miami to Madrid, I saw that each program offered the same award price in Avios, but with drastically different fees. British Airways and Iberia each charged $121.40 in fees, but Aer Lingus charged $829.80!
Fortunately, it’s easy to move points from one to another so that you can book your award from the program that charges the least. Here’s how…
How to transfer Avios between programs
Create free accounts with each Avios program
Before you can move points around, you’ll need to open an account with each major program. Here are the links for signing up:
Important! Make sure to enter all of your personal information (name, email, birth date, address, phone) exactly the same way with each program.
If you want to move points to/from Iberia, note these additional requirements:
- You cannot move points to/from Iberia within 90 days of joining the Iberia Plus program. This is a good reason to enroll in Iberia Plus now, even if you don’t have any immediate need for it.
- Your Iberia account must have had some activity within the past 36 months (points earned or redeemed). An easy option is to transfer 1,000 points from Amex Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards.
- If moving points from Iberia to British Airways, your British Airways account cannot be a household account (but you may be able to get around this by transferring points first to Aer Lingus and then to British Airways).
Pick your favorite website for the transfer
When moving points between programs, you can use either the website of the program you are transferring from or the program you are transferring to. If you encounter problems with one, try the other! Here are links to each program’s “Combine my Avios” page:
Tip: If you have problems with a specific combination, you can try to chain together transfers in a roundabout way. For instance, if you’re having trouble combining Avios between British Airways and Iberia, you could try first moving points from British Airways to Aer Lingus and then moving points from Aer Lingus to Iberia.
The rest of this post goes into details about moving points using each website…
Avios.com: No longer an option
Avios.com used to offer a way to combine Avios between programs and book award tickets, but they have eliminated this functionality from their website in favor of directing customers to the individual airline websites.
British Airways: Transfer from/to Iberia, Qatar, Aer Lingus, or Vueling
Log into BA.com, then click your name to get to your dashboard. Next, hover over “Executive Club” and select “Combine my Avios”:
Shortcut: Click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page (you’ll have to log in).
Once you find your way to the Combine My Avios page, click “Combine my Avios” under the Iberia Plus and Aer Club heading in order to transfer from/to Iberia or to Aer Lingus (or Vueling Avios, which requires first transferring to Iberia). Click the button under Qatar if you want to transfer from/to Qatar.
To move points from/to Iberia or Aer Lingus, select “Avios Partners” in the dropdown as shown here:
Once you select “Avios Partners” you must log in with your Aer Lingus username and password. Note that while I use my email address to log in to my Aer Lingus account, I had to use my Aer Lingus membership number as the Username in order to combine Avios from British Airways to Aer Lingus (otherwise it gave an error).
Iberia: Transfer from/to British Airways, Aer Lingus, or Vueling
Log into your Iberia Plus account, then click the down arrow next to your name and click “My Iberia Plus.” Then scroll down and click “Combine Avios.”
Shortcut: After logging into Iberia Plus, click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page.
Once you find your way to the Combine My Avios page, click the “Combine my Avios” button, select the program you want to move points from or to, log into that program, then enter the number of points you want to transfer.
Note that you should click “Avios Partners” for Aer Lingus or Vueling. Note that the Login ID for Aer Lingus appears to be your Aer Lingus Aer Club membership number. It should also be possible to transfer to Vueling, though neither my email nor membership number appeared to work for the Login ID for Vueling. YMMV.
Qatar: Transfer from/to British Airways
Log into your Qatar Privilege Club account and go to “My Dashboard,” then click “View my Avios balance.” You should then be prompted to link your Qatar and British Airways accounts if you haven’t already done so. Once the accounts are linked you should see an option to “Combine Avios” on that page where you can simply choose the number of Avios and the direction of the movement (British Airways Executive Club to Qatar Airways Privilege Club or vice versa) and click “My my Avios”.
Shortcut: After logging into Qatar Privilege Club, click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page.
Summary
It’s possible to move points between multiple programs that use Avios as their rewards currency. Points can be moved instantly between British Airways, Iberia, Qatar, Aer Lingus, and Vueling. The British Airways website is probably the best site to use for moving points around since it supports transfers between British Airways Avios and all other options (note that the Avios.com options, Aer Lingus and Vueling, are hidden under the option to combine points with Iberia).
For quick reference, here again are the links to the pages for initiating transfers:
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
