NEW: Book an Avios flight now, earn the Avios later

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Avios has launched, as a trial, ‘Avios Advance’. This has been knocking around for a while on a limited basis but is now popping up for more and more people.

This is something new for airline loyalty programmes although Marriott has been doing it for years with its hotel programme.

You can book an Avios flight even if you don’t have enough points. You have until 35 days before departure to earn them.

Avios wing 6

How does it work?

This is an avios.com initiative. You will not find it on ba.com and so you cannot combine it with a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.

If all of your Avios are in British Airways Executive Club, you will need to move them over to avios.com before you can do this.

rsz_screenshot_2017-02-21_155155

The exact rules for ‘Avios Advance’ have not been published. This is how it seems to work – but please do not take this information as fully accurate:

You seem to need to book 6 months ahead of travel

You seem to need to have 75% of the Avios required already in your account

Note that there is no guarantee that you will be offered ‘Avios Advance’ even if you do meet these criteria.

Go through the flight booking process on avios.com and, assuming your potential booking meets the criteria above, the box above will appear on screen.

It invites you to ring the Avios call centre and make your booking. This is what happens:

Avios reserves your seat

You pay your existing Avios balance plus the full taxes for the ticket (the box only mentions £35 Reward Flight Saver taxes but I assume you need to pay the full taxes figure)

You have until 35 days before departure to earn the balance of the Avios required

It isn’t clear what happens if you don’t have the remaining Avios in your account 35 days before travel. Do you forfeit your ‘deposit’ (ie all of the Avios you used)? That sounds too excessive. I am guessing that the booking is cancelled and you receive your Avios and taxes back less the usual £35 cancellation fee.

What do I think?

This is an interesting move by Avios. It is customer friendly but also has the potential to cost Avios money:

It saves the customer from buying Avios points to top up their account at the punitive 1.6p per point rate

It creates additional call centre work as these bookings cannot be made online

Let’s see how it goes – the fact that it is now being offered more widely implies they are happy with it. Hopefully it will be a success.

PS. The Marriott version of this scheme is FAR more generous. Marriott Rewards members can make reward redemptions without having any points in their account, You have until seven days before arrival to earn the points you need. I have a Ritz-Carlton booking for October currently booked via this route.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Anon says:

22 Feb22 February 09:19

OT but following on from yesterday, a word of warning for any lady readers, who like me, use their maiden name for work and travel, and their married name for personal finance matters. It transpires that BAEC will not accept membership rewards points from an Amex account which does not have the exact same name as the BAEC account – even if the date of birth, address and email are the same. I’ve reluctantly decided to transfer my points to my HH account instead, but this has set my avios collection back significantly. I’m really annoyed that there is no mention of this anywhere on the Amex website, and I am tied by BA’s usual intransigence in these matters.
- mark2 says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 09:44
  
  Can you not open another BAEC account in the other name and put them into a Household account?
  - Frances says:
    
    22 Feb22 February 09:52
    
    That’s what I did.
  - Anna says:
    
    22 Feb22 February 11:04
    
    I will try that, though did they not query the same address and date of birth?
    - Anna says:
      
      22 Feb22 February 11:12
      
      It seems to have accepted the new account….fingers x’d and many thanks for the advice!
- Nate1309 says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 10:37
  
  If you contact BAEC they can change your name. That is what my wife did last year.
- AndyGWP says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 14:27
  
  Slightly related, but if you change the surname on your Lloyds account (for the avios earning credit card), they automatically get Avios to change your surname on the avios.com account too!
Scott says:

22 Feb22 February 09:32

I think that is probably quite a smart move. Analytics from their website must show them that people search for flights that they don’t have the miles for. For many of these people they will be actively looking to book. When they realise they don’t have the miles they abandon the booking and never come back. They have chosen to book elsewhere using cash.

In that situation this option will temp people to book rather go elsewhere. Many people won’t have a clear idea how they will acquire the miles, they will book in the hope that they will find a way. Roll forward to the payment deadline and if you haven’t got the miles, Avios will helpfully remind you that you can buy the miles you need. You have now committed to your travel plans so you open your wallet and buy the miles.

The savvy collector won’t get caught out by this but I can easily see how many people will.
Dave says:

22 Feb22 February 09:34

“Radically new”?

Lufthansa have had this for years with their Senator overdraft. And is more generous than this rather cautious 75% capital requirement.
RogerWIlco says:

22 Feb22 February 09:37

LH SEN used to have 50k miles “overdraft” facility – I don’t know how it is now, dropped out from the M&M scheme
mark2 says:

22 Feb22 February 09:46

Is the six months ‘at least six months’ or ‘within six months’ from flight date?
It will make a big difference: availability within six months is likely to be low.
- Rob says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 10:30
  
  Seems to require a booking 6 months out, eg August onwards if you book today.
Chelseafi says:

22 Feb22 February 11:14

O/T I’m about to hit my £1k spend on my SPG card which I’ve had a month, do I have to wait for all the starpoints to be transferred to my SPG account or do they just have to show on my amex account before I cancel the card? Thank you
- Genghis says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 11:34
  
  My advice would be to wait until they transfer across to SPG. I always have. I believe the T&Cs state that they will still transfer across even if you cancel the card but reinforced by @Liz’s experience, I’d always wait for transfers to complete before cancelling.
  - Chelseafi says:
    
    22 Feb22 February 11:38
    
    Thank you V much as always
    - Liz says:
      
      22 Feb22 February 12:31
      
      Definitely wait for the points to post!
- Adrian says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 12:38
  
  Last week when I cancelled my card, the lady from amex read out what was clearly a standard script an in that it said that you would lose any points that had not transferred.
- Alan says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 12:40
  
  Whatever you do, wait for them to post to the destination account first!
- Wally1976 says:
  
  23 Feb23 February 09:01
  
  I think the point is, it shouldn’t happen but if you don’t wait for them to transfer and then hit issues it’s potentially going to be a lot more difficult to resolve than if you still have a ‘live’ account. I always wait for points to hit the destination account before cancelling (however annoying it is!).
Ian says:

22 Feb22 February 13:49

O/T – The Hilton Honors scheme changes *may* be delayed from ‘late February’ to March. I hope not, but just a heads up.

[if anyone is curious, a Hilton HO staff member brought this to my attention]
- Rob says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 18:07
  
  A Hilton Head Office staff member told me today it is definitely 28th February!
  - Ian says:
    
    22 Feb22 February 22:02
    
    I said *may*
    
    the difference is at most 1 day
    - Ian says:
      
      22 Feb22 February 22:06
      
      UPDATE: Read the alert on the Hilton Honors mobile app
      
      “available March 1st”
  - Alan says:
    
    22 Feb22 February 23:21
    
    As mentioned in a comment yesterday the app update seems to have been pushed out already although the functionality isn’t yet live.
- AndyR says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 20:42
  
  Loyaltylobby is also saying 28th Feb for the change in points and money.
  
  I wish it was delayed, I’ve done well out of the current points and money.
CV3V says:

22 Feb22 February 16:14

OT – but was the suggestion that BA will announce domestic club world tomorrow??
- Rob says:
  
  22 Feb22 February 18:05
  
  It has been pushed back to early March, apparently, but the 1st April start date remains.