The complete beginner’s guide to the UK’s most popular travel currency — what Avios are, which airlines use them, how to earn and spend them, and how to avoid the mistakes that quietly throw value away.
If you have ever heard someone say they flew to New York in business class “on points”, the odds are they were talking about Avios. It is the UK’s best-known travel loyalty currency — easy to start collecting, and capable of turning everyday spending into flights worth many times what you paid. This guide explains exactly how Avios work, in plain English, with no jargon.
What you’ll learn:
Avios are a travel loyalty currency — a kind of points system you collect and then spend, mostly on flights. Think of them as a separate wallet that sits alongside your money: you earn Avios from everyday spending, flying and shopping, and later exchange them for reward flights, upgrades, hotel stays and more.
What makes Avios unusual is that they are shared across a whole family of airlines rather than tied to just one. They are the loyalty currency of British Airways and its sister airlines in the International Airlines Group (IAG), plus a growing list of partners. That means the Avios you earn in the UK can be spent on several different airlines around the world.
In one sentence: Avios are points you collect from cards, flights and shopping, and redeem for flights and other travel — worth roughly 1p each as a planning figure, but often far more when used well.
Avios are used by several loyalty programmes, and you can move your points between most of them at a 1:1 ratio — one Avios stays one Avios. This is genuinely powerful: you can pool points from different accounts, or shift them to whichever programme charges the lowest taxes and fees for the flight you want.
| Programme | Airline | Notes for UK collectors |
|---|---|---|
| The British Airways Club | British Airways | The main UK programme; where most collectors earn and spend. |
| Iberia Plus | Iberia | Often much lower surcharges on long-haul reward flights. |
| AerClub | Aer Lingus | Low fees to North America via Dublin; no 90-day transfer wait. |
| Vueling Club | Vueling | Handy for cheap short-haul hops around Europe. |
| Privilege Club | Qatar Airways | Access to the award-winning Qsuite business class. |
| Finnair Plus | Finnair | Uses Avios, but note a stricter 18-month expiry rule. |
Beyond these, Avios are a oneworld alliance currency in practice, so British Airways Club members can also book reward flights on partners such as American Airlines, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas — each with their own availability and fee quirks.
This is the single most common point of confusion for beginners, so it is worth getting straight early. British Airways has two separate currencies, and they do completely different jobs:
Avios = spending money
The currency you spend on reward flights and upgrades. You can collect and burn as many as you like — they are the “cash” of the loyalty world.
Tier Points = your status
A separate score that decides your membership tier (Bronze, Silver, Gold) and its perks — lounge access, extra baggage and priority. You cannot spend them.
Since 1 April 2025, when the programme was renamed from the “Executive Club” to The British Airways Club, Tier Points are earned on a spend-based model: broadly 1 Tier Point for every £1 of eligible spend on fares, carrier charges, seat selection and BA Holidays. The thresholds are 3,500 for Bronze, 7,500 for Silver and 20,000 for Gold. Crucially, your Avios balance is untouched by all of this — earning status does not cost you spending points, and vice versa.
Remember: having millions of Avios does not make you a Gold member, and being Gold does not fill your Avios wallet. They are counted separately. If you want to plan status, our BA Tier Points Calculator does the maths for you.
Flying is the obvious way to earn Avios, but for most UK collectors it is far from the biggest. The real engine is everyday spending on a co-branded credit card, topped up by welcome bonuses, shopping portals and points transfers. Here are the main routes:
| Method | How it works |
|---|---|
| Credit cards | Earn on every purchase, plus large one-off welcome bonuses — the fastest way to build a balance. |
| Flying | Earn on BA and partner flights based on your fare and cabin. |
| Avios eStore | Start online shopping via the portal to earn Avios on top of card points. |
| Nectar link | Convert Nectar points (Sainsbury’s, Argos and more) into Avios. |
| Points transfers | Move Amex Membership Rewards to Avios at 1:1, plus other bank programmes. |
| Hotels, car hire & partners | Collect on hotel stays, Avis/Budget rentals, Uber (UK & Ireland) and more. |
In the UK the two card issuers are American Express (the British Airways Amex range) and Barclaycard (the Barclaycard Avios range, which run on Mastercard and are a useful backup where Amex is not accepted). The headline draw of the Amex Premium Plus card is its 2-4-1 Companion Voucher, which can effectively halve the Avios cost of a trip for two.
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There is no fixed exchange rate — the value of an Avios depends entirely on what you redeem it for. A sensible planning baseline is about 1p per Avios, but real-world value swings from under 0.5p to well over 2p. The trick is to spend Avios where they beat that baseline and pay cash where they do not.
| Redemption | Typical value per Avios | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Long-haul business/first, off-peak | 1.5p – 2.5p+ | Excellent — the classic sweet spot. |
| With a companion voucher | Doubles the above | Outstanding — the best value going. |
| Economy reward flights | ~1p – 1.2p | Fair — fine if you would have paid cash anyway. |
| Nectar conversion | ~0.67p | A useful floor, not a goal. |
| Shopping, merchandise, upgrades | ~0.5p – 0.6p | Poor — avoid unless you have no better use. |
A widely quoted floor value is 0.5p: because you can turn Avios into Nectar points at roughly 0.67p each, any redemption worth less than that is a poor deal. When in doubt, work out the value yourself — take the cash fare, subtract the taxes and fees you would pay on the reward, then divide by the Avios required.
You can spend Avios on a long list of things, but they are not all created equal. The overriding rule is simple: save Avios for flights, especially premium cabins, and pay cash for almost everything else.
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Avios do not have a fixed use-by date, but your account can go stale. In the British Airways Club, Iberia Plus and Aer Lingus AerClub, your Avios stay alive as long as you have at least one qualifying activity every 36 months. Miss that window and the whole balance is wiped — and expired Avios generally cannot be reinstated.
What counts as activity (resets the 36-month clock):
Two things to watch. First, Finnair Plus is stricter, with an 18-month expiry. Second, simply moving Avios between the different Avios programmes does not always count as activity — the safest reset is a genuine earn or spend. A tiny eStore purchase or Nectar conversion every couple of years is enough to keep everything safe.
You now know what Avios are, who uses them, what they are worth and how not to waste them. Turning that into real flights takes just a few steps:
New to all of this? Our Avios beginner’s guide walks you through your first year step by step, and the reward-seat finder guide shows you how to actually book the flight you want.
The AviosArcana Editorial Team
We decode the British Airways loyalty programme in plain English, cross-checking every figure against BA’s published rules. We only recommend products we would use ourselves — and we tell you plainly when a redemption or card is not worth it.