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.

Nick M says:

9 Apr9 April 06:45

Quick question as I haven’t needed to combine my Avios before… I have a personal Avios account, personal Iberia account and household BA account – does it matter where I move the points to? (I imagine 99% of redemptions will be for myself/family in HHA and don’t foresee needing to make a booking for somebody that isn’t at least traveling with me)
- Rob says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 08:24
  
  Not really. Only household Avios accounts are troublesome.
  - Alex W says:
    
    9 Apr9 April 09:20
    
    I have never successfully managed to transfer directly from Iberia to a BAEC HHA. Have always had to go via Avios.com to pull from Iberia and push to BA. I believe others are the same so this could cause problems if Avios.com disappears.
- AB says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 11:19
  
  @Nick, I am in the same situation as you and moved all my Avios from Avios.com and Iberia Plus to BA Executive Club this morning, albeit through Avios.com. Transfer was instant…
Anna says:

9 Apr9 April 07:02

It sounds messy – they don’t say how they are going to link up avios.com accounts with the corresponding BAEC accounts, and if you don’t open a BAEC account, your avios will expire after 6 months! I think I’ll be taking a few screenshots of my account as avios.com’s IT is shaky at the best of times.

What would be really useful, however, would be the facility to make a single booking for 3 passengers using the 2 4 1 and the Lloyds upgrade vouchers but I’m not overly optimistic!
- Lumma says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 07:17
  
  It says they’ll automatically open an executive club account and move the avios there unless you specifically tell them not to. I guess that if your avios.com account is linked to a different airline (mine is linked to aerclub) then the account will stay open and the avios.com balance will remain
  - Lloyd says:
    
    9 Apr9 April 07:50
    
    Will I still be able to use my Lloyds upgrade voucher?
    Yes you can you can still book online with your voucher until the programme closes. After this you’ll need to contact us to book on 0344 49 333 49. Please make sure you use it before the expiry date.
Linda says:

9 Apr9 April 07:05

I wonder what will happen to anyone collecting towards their Lloyds Rewards upgrade voucher?

I have one which I am hoping to use soon, and have started to collect towards next years. Wonder if they will continue as no word from Lloyds on what is happening. If I wasn’t a subscriber to HFP I would not know anything was going on. I would hope they would give people some notification and not cut them off mid earning cycle?
- Callum says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 07:50
  
  Lloyds are incredibly liberal with paying out compensation – I’m half hoping they withdraw before I get my next voucher and I can get a big cash payment equivalent to the normal cost to upgrade a flight!
  - Darren says:
    
    9 Apr9 April 10:19
    
    But the Lloyds Avios card is living on borrowed time surely?
Mark says:

9 Apr9 April 07:06

O/T – looking at booking the Waldorf Versailles as a stopover driving to SW France this July, anyone else on here stayed there? We will be traveling with a 2m old and have HH Gold, thanks!
- John says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 10:43
  
  It’s ok, better now that breakfast is free for gold
Go says:

9 Apr9 April 07:15

Is this the end of cheap redemptions on iberia.com?
- Rob says:
  
  9 Apr9 April 08:26
  
  May be. However, it is also possible each scheme retains its own partners and charts and tax rates. Whacking Spanish residents with a 300% tax rise won’t help.
Tracey says:

9 Apr9 April 07:29

If an Avios account has the most recent activity will that date transfer over? Parent has a BAEC account that the most recent activity will be 3 yrs old later this year. Avios account has a recent credit from Flybe. Plan was to transfer from BAEC to Avios.
Now with a forced transfer to BAEC will the date of most recent transaction also transfer?
Mike says:

9 Apr9 April 07:45

Well the timing of that Enterprise deal is just typical. I’m just about to return a van to Enterprise this morning. I’ve had it for over a week and I started the rental 2 days before this promo started. Could really have done with some more M&M miles as well lol.
Save East Coast Rewards says:

9 Apr9 April 07:48

I really thought they were going to centralise things under avios.com considering that Aerclub and Vueling use that login, I wonder if that was the plan and they ditched it as they didn’t want to mess too much with the BA systems.