British Airways Avios Guide: How to Book with Avios

British Airways Executive Club is the name of British Airways’ loyalty program. Nearly all credit card points transfer to British Airways, so acquiring the points and miles you’d need to book with them is very easy.

Here’s what you need to know about booking with British Airways Avios.

What are British Airways Avios?

British Airways’ miles are called Avios. This is the “currency” used to book British Airways flights.

How to create a British Airways Executive Club account

You'll need to be logged in to search for flights you can book with Avios. Therefore, the first step is creating a free account. 

1. Go to BritishAirways.com.
2. Under the top menu, select Discover. Under the heading Executive Club, navigate to and click Join the Club. 
3. After clicking or tapping Join the Club, you’ll be directed to a new page where you’ll be asked to enter your name, email, address, and other contact information. (Many of the fields marked “optional” are actually required.)
4. You’ll be asked to create a username and password on this same page. The default option is to use your email address as your username, which makes things easier.
5. After clicking the blue Join button at the bottom, a new screen will instruct you to open an email to activate your new membership.
6. Open the email and click on the activation link. You’ll receive a confirmation that your account has been activated. 

How to book with British Airways Avios

Step 1. At BritishAirways.com, click the Log In icon in the top right

Enter your username or membership number and password. Don’t forget to select you’re a human!

You’ll likely have to do two-factor authentication with your phone or email to log in. 

Step 2. Select Book a flight with Avios

After logging in to your account, you’ll be redirected to the homepage. This time, you’ll see your name in the top right hand corner. 

From the top menu, select Book > Book a flight with Avios.

Step 3. Enter your search criteria

You’ll be redirected to a new screen where you can enter your search criteria. 

If you are trying to book a Going with Points deal using British Airways Avios, you can enter the information from that deal alert here.

You’ll be asked to enter:

• Departing airport
• Arrival airport
• Departure date
• If your flight is one way only
• If not, a return date
• Your preferred cabin class
• How many passengers

You may have better luck searching one way with one person.

Step 4. Browse flight options. 

After clicking search, you’ll be presented with all the available flights on the requested day. You’ll see all available flights that can be booked with Avios, plus how many seats are available in each cabin.

One nice thing about British Airways is that their searches also present ±3 days, so you can compare if there are more available flights to book with Avios on various days.

When you’re ready to book your flight, click continue.  

Step 5. Select a flight and confirm your booking. 

A new screen will open with your itinerary. 

To finalize your booking, you must have enough Avios in your account first. 

Transfer partners with British Airways Executive Club

It’s easy to amass British Airways Avios because nearly every credit card point currency is a transfer partner with British Airways. This means that you can transfer 1,000 credit card points to become 1,000 British Airways Avios with:

• American Express Membership Rewards
• Bilt Rewards
• Capital One Miles
• Chase Ultimate Rewards®
• Citi ThankYou Points
• Wells Fargo Rewards

The following credit cards earn points that you can transfer to Avios:

How many Avios will I need?

The great thing about Avios is that British Airways uses a distance-based redemption chart for its award seats. In plain English, this means that the amount of Avios it’ll cost you to book a seat is fixed based on the flight distance, cabin class, and whether you’re traveling peak or off-peak.

Booking partner flights with Avios

British Airways is a founding member of the Oneworld Alliance. This means that you can use Avios in your British Airways account to book award flights on other Oneworld Alliance airlines—if they have award availability. 

Airlines included:

• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• Cathay Pacific
• Finnair
• Iberia Airlines
• Japan Airlines
• Malaysia Airlines
• Qantas
• Qatar Airways
• Royal Jordanian
• Royal Maroc
• Sri Lankan Airlines

Just because they’re part of the alliance doesn’t guarantee that you’ll find award availability, but it is possible. And since many of these alliance airlines aren’t transfer partners with your credit card, transferring to British Airways Avios and then booking through British Airways is a great workaround. 

Because of British Airways’ distance chart, you might be able to book flights for fewer Avios than you could with their airline’s own miles.

Transferring Avios

The cool thing about Avios is that it is also the currency for several other airline loyalty programs, including: 

• Iberia Plus 
• Qatar Airways Privilege Club
• Aer Lingus AerClub
• Vueling
• And, Finnair Plus

Even better? You can transfer Avios between loyalty programs at a 1:1 rate. This means that you could transfer credit card points to to British Airways Avios, then transfer those Avios from British Airways to Qatar Airways.

Here are some reasons why you'd want to transfer Avios among programs:

• You credit card points transfer to one partner (e.g. British Airways), but you want to book on another airline (e.g. Qatar).
• Redeeming another airline costs fewer Avios. This would be because of distance-based award charts. 
• Your Avios are about to expire and transferring them to another program extends their lifetime.