Will there be an Avios platform announcement this week?

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We may get an announcement this week about the long-delayed restructuring of the avios.com platform.

There are a lot of moving parts, but what is rumoured is that avios.com will close as a standalone platform. You will no longer have an avios.com account – you will only be able to have accounts with one of the airline partners.

You may have noticed that the avios.com website has been looking a little abandoned recently:

Avios wing 12

the Laithwaite’s wine deal closed 10 days ago but is still being promoted even though the landing page is dead
the opposite has happened with the new Economist offer of 13,200 Avios – the Avios landing page only shows 4,400 until you click through.
the Lloyds Avios credit cards are still being promoted although they are no longer available online

avios.com will not be going away, however. Instead, the website may (or may not) become – like milesandmore.com – the place where you go to check your balance and redeem your points, with redemption stripped from the airline sites. Aer Lingus and Vueling already operate like this, so it is ‘only’ a question of changing British Airways, Iberia, Meridiana, kulula.com and LEVEL. I’m not sure how Flybe would be treated.

This is still very much speculation, however. For clarity, this is not a devaluation and no-one will lose out, although there may be an impact on avios.com partners who are exclusive to that platform.

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.

Save East Coast Rewards says:

9 Apr9 April 04:37

As an Aerclub account is the same as an avios.com account I could see it working different to how you say and all the IAG airlines unify under a single Avios signon. It would be even more of a mess than now if you had to redeem at avios.com but you had to log into an individual airline account on that site to do it. It makes sense if they unify it into a single account, it wouldn’t stop each airline having separate status levels (you’d log into the airline website to see this) it would just mean your log in details were the same for all.

So in this case Flybe would remain as is, you’d enter your Avios number and then points will fail to post and you wait 30 days to retroclaim.

Meridiana (now called Air Italy) isn’t really integrated anyway, they supposedly use Avios but you can’t transfer to other airlines. Perhaps they will integrate, but if they don’t nothing will change for them.

That’s my predictions anyway.
Memesweeper says:

9 Apr9 April 04:48

I spoke to a member of staff on the BA call centre for Avios bookings, who mentioned all the Avios.com call centre staff were being extensively retrained in the new system, but the BA staff were not (because they didn’t need it).

Sounds like the BA booking engine might be the ‘winner’ here behind the scenes regardless of what appears to happen on the websites.
- Tim says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 06:00
  
  Hopefully. Avios.com has become a shambles in recent times. If only G class bookings were to be made available again… happy days 🙂
Andre says:

9 Apr9 April 05:26

What is likely to happen to Avios vouchers from heritage Lloyds Premier Avios cards? Should I just try and use them ASAP?
Got an upgrade and world companion voucher
- Andrew says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 10:13
  
  I’m pretty sure both Lloyds and Avios would be in a lot of trouble if their upgrade vouchers disappeared. I wouldn’t panic about having to use it immediately.
Margaret says:

9 Apr9 April 05:29

What about those of us who have family accounts with BAEC? HOW will I transfer from Iberia?
- Danny says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 06:39
  
  This is a real concern. Will everyone with a family account now be unable to transfer from Iberia? I have the same problem, and no doubt many other HfP readers do as well. Perhaps Rob could touch on this particular issue (and any possible workarounds) when he (presumably) writes in full about the closure of the Avios platform …
  - Anna says:
    
    9 Apr9 April 06:53
    
    +1. I need to close my avios.com Household account soon so I can transfer points from BAEC but will this now not be necessary?
  - Alex W says:
    
    9 Apr9 April 09:15
    
    @margaret/danny. This is a worry. However the number of points in your Iberia account is likely small compared to those in your BAEC account? I think it’s unlikely I’ll depend on those Iberia Avios for a BAEC redemption.
    
    On the other side, I think you would still be able to transfer TO Iberia in order to make those cheaper transatlantic redemptions?
Phillip says:

9 Apr9 April 05:32

I noticed that it is no longer possible to sign up to Avios.com and you are redirected to sign up with one of the airlines, and to obtain your Avios.com membership number via “My Account”. This isn’t showing yet, however.
Andrew says:

9 Apr9 April 05:33

O2 tickets all gone at 5:32 – they were showing I think 3 for each night, but every time I clicked through it gave an error and wouldn’t complete the transaction, and they were going as I watched.

Other early readers I suppose!! Enjoy…
Steve says:

9 Apr9 April 05:46

I have both avios.com and BAEC, is it recommended to use combine my avios to move the point before this change happens, or OK to just wait and see? Any risk?
Lumma says:

9 Apr9 April 06:44

That seems to suggest that nothing is changing with regards to BA exec Club, just that you wouldn’t be able to have an avios.com account not linked to one of the other airlines. Mine currently says that I’m a member of aerclub, so I’m guessing that is staying (although I never got the 500 avios for signing up).

Biggest worry is if they make changes to the Iberia redemption opportunities