How to move Avios from Britsh Airways to Iberia (and vice versa)

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This is your step by step to moving Avios points from British Airways Executive Club to Iberia Plus, or vice versa. It is a process that is far more difficult than it should be.

The migration from Avios Travel Rewards Programme to British Airways Executive Club is underway. The first batch of avios.com accounts have already been closed and the rest will be done over the next couple of months.

One common question that comes up is this:

“When my Avios Travel Rewards Programme account is closed, how will I be able to move Avios from British Airways Executive Club to Iberia Plus? ‘Combine My Avios’ appears to be permanently broken when you try to go directly from BA to Iberia or vice versa.”

The good news is that you are not doomed to pay the price for Avios’s IT failure.

If you want to move Avios between BA and Iberia in the future, you will need to open an Aer Lingus Aer Club or Vueling Club account. The reason this works is that both of these schemes use the avios.com IT platform and you can use it as a conduit between British Airways Executive Club and Iberia Plus.

Here is a worked example using Aer Lingus Aer Club, although Vueling Club works the same way:

Visit the Aer Lingus website here and click on ‘Join Aer Club’ under the Aer Club dropdown menu

Fill in your name and email, using the same email address you use for BA Executive Club and Iberia Plus

You will be asked if you have an Avios account. Say ‘No’.

Fill in your address – again, this needs to match your BA and Iberia details

Create a username and password to use on avios.com – use a non-alphanumeric character even though it is not required

(Aer Club and avios.com do not have the same requirements for what must be included in your password. This is despite the fact that you will be logging into both websites using the same details. Your Aer Club password will be rejected by avios.com unless you include a non-alphanumeric character.)

You need to use matching details from your Iberia and BA accounts because that it is the only way to pass the ‘Combine My Avios’ security checks.

So …. my Aer Club account is now happily open:

Off I go to the avios.com website and I log-in by using my new Aer Club details. Under ‘My Account’ it confirms that this is an Aer Club balance:

And I can now do a test transfer. I pull in 1000 Avios from my British Airways Executive Club account using ‘Transfer Avios to / from British Airways or Iberia’ under ‘Your Account’:

…. and then I send them off to Iberia Plus, where they arrived immediately:

I then reversed the process and was able to get the Avios back into my British Airways account without any trouble.

So, good news. Despite the closure of the Avios Travel Rewards Programme, you can still move Avios from British Airways to Iberia by opening an Aer Club or Vueling Club account and logging in to avios.com with those details.

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

Aer Lingus and AerClub, British Airways and Avios, Iberia and Iberia Plus

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

Simon Cross says:

23 May23 May 07:43

One other useful thing which will be lost with the closure of avios.com will be the ability to use Avios to purchase a ticket for someone else.

Avios allow this but with ba the person has to be either a “My travel companions” or a “my family and friends” and adding and deleting names here is limited in how many and how often.
- Rob says:
  
  23 May23 May 08:39
  
  No it doesn’t. Unless you have a BA household account you can book for anyone via BA.
- The Original Nick says:
  
  23 May23 May 12:52
  
  I booked a flight from HKG-BKK using Avios on CX from my BAEC account for my brother a few months ago no problem.
Gavin says:

23 May23 May 07:44

I’ve never had any problems transferring BA to Iberia or the other way around. Always happens instantly. My accounts are both individual.
- Mikeact says:
  
  23 May23 May 09:47
  
  Me too…..dead easy.
  If only I could combine to top up my Avios SA acccount.
JOHN CONNOR says:

23 May23 May 07:50

The “second surname” field on the Iberia account seems to be the one that causes the problems in transfers.You can’t edit it yourself but an email will get it cleared. My transfers have been fine since this field was deleted.
Tony says:

23 May23 May 08:04

I moved my Avios points to BA some weeks ago with no problems but just thought how will my Shell and Tesco Avios points be treated?
- Rob says:
  
  23 May23 May 08:37
  
  Should automatically move across.
Lbc says:

23 May23 May 08:05

What happens to e-rewards? I earn 2000 avios /month through them and the avios.com page
- FlyUpTop says:
  
  23 May23 May 08:52
  
  Looks like your avios erewards account will become redundant. We may be lucky and they add more partners but they are so slow updating their sites it coukd be a while.
  I stopped completing surveys a few weeks ago and managed to cash out my last 2000 avios yesterday just in time.
  - PerkyPat says:
    
    23 May23 May 09:23
    
    Cashed out last week, havent done any more surveys. No indication on the site as to whats happening. Can always take an Amazon voucher with their points, I guess
- ANDREW says:
  
  23 May23 May 11:44
  
  My e-Rewards points are credited to Iberia….any chance that you can get e-Rewards to switch your crediting to them instead?
  - John says:
    
    23 May23 May 16:04
    
    No, accounts opened with avios.com can only cash out to avios.com. The available partners depends on how you got the erewards account.
Jackh says:

23 May23 May 08:24

OT. Did anyone else get the ideria email yesterday. 50% back on avois flights to Madrid Inc business
- Rob says:
  
  23 May23 May 08:35
  
  Got it but small print said targeted so I didn’t cover it.
  - Jonathan says:
    
    23 May23 May 13:28
    
    Its now on the front page of the Iberia website.
    
    https://www.iberia.com/gb/news-updates/Recover-Avios/
- Jackh says:
  
  23 May23 May 08:54
  
  Interesting…my email has different terms. This offer seems to be for Iberia express, whereas the email offer is for any iberia flight from Heathrow to Madrid booked before 3 June and flight taken before 31 Dec…in any case the link you posted seems to be open to all?
  - KevMc says:
    
    23 May23 May 10:04
    
    They are two different offers. The one in the link is for any Iberia Express trip to/from one of 8 destinations (from/to Madrid), has to be booked by 31st May and travel by 31st July.
    
    The email offer was limited to Heathrow – Madrid (and/or back), book by 3rd June, fly up to 31st July. I only checked the small print of this after I had found a LGW-MAD-LGW flight I was going to book for August Bank holiday week, so I’m glad I double checked!
  - Jackh says:
    
    23 May23 May 10:18
    
    KevMc: my flight dates say for flights to Dec 31 (email offer)
  - KevMc says:
    
    24 May24 May 11:36
    
    @Jackh yes, sorry – typo! 🙂 email offer is 31st December, link offer is 31st July
DerekH says:

23 May23 May 08:29

I asked Avios to transfer my Avios to my BAEC account and they said they couldn’t because I/we had a household account with Avios and separate individual accounts with BAEC. The person I spoke with at Avios told me that BAEC would issue 2 new accounts for my wife and myself when the transfer was carried out and then BAEC would combine each of our 2 accounts into one each. Not expecting this to be done without any problems or am I being over pessimistic?
- Anna says:
  
  23 May23 May 11:45
  
  I asked about this and the CS advisor at avios.com just split our household account into two then and there over the phone. Didn’t even need my OH’s authorisation and he was the head of the account! So from there I just moved all our avios across to BAEC myself.
  - DerekH says:
    
    23 May23 May 13:29
    
    The Avios CS guy told me I had “missed” the Household Account “splitting” date so it would have to proceed as mentioned in my first post. I hadn’t known there was a cut off date, or even a date for that procedure at all. Still doesn’t instill me with confidence!
Luke Mills says:

23 May23 May 08:37

Maybe I’m missing something here but I transferred Avios from Iberia to BA directly yesterday via the Iberia website ‘combine avios’ …….it worked fine!
- Mark says:
  
  23 May23 May 09:04
  
  I’m pretty sure the problem is household accounts. If all your accounts are individual you won’t have a problem, but the combine my avios terms and conditions specifically exclude the transfer of avios in some cases:
  
  Members of a Household Account under the Programmes may not use CMA other than (a) from a BA Executive Club Household Account to an individual account under the Avios Programme or the Iberia Plus Programme and (b) from the individual account under the Avios Programme to a Household Account under the BA Executive Programme. Any other Household account transaction will not be permitted under CMA
  
  That means if you have a BA household account you can’t transfer directly from Iberia, but can via avios.com.
  - Navara says:
    
    25 May25 May 19:49
    
    Mine have gone missing . Disappeared from the Avis account but not arrived in the ba account. Both are household accounts
- John F says:
  
  24 May24 May 15:55
  
  Same here using the Avios transfer tool, but also transferred from Iberia to BAEC without any problem using the BAEC tool as my e-rewards go into my Iberia account