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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.

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.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year 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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (54)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Oli says:
    22 Feb22 February 06:39

    Flying Blue lets its Elite Plus members book award tickets as long as they have 90% of the miles at the time of booking. I am not sure if the missing miles have to be earned before flying or not.

    • Denis says:
      22 Feb22 February 10:03

      Nope, the don’t need to be earned. You can also request a special credit over the phone. I’ve been FB Plat for 5 years so far (and mostly knock to off with FB in favour of DL) and they let me book 2 award tickets cost 300K with a balance of 253K. I specifically asked for a conditions of the “debt” payback. They were no conditions at all. I paid it off 4 months after the flights had been completed.

      Also Turkish Airlines lets Elite members to go -10,000 miles when redeeming (don’t know about Elite Plus). I redeemed my miles shortly pre devaluation in 2014 and since then my balance has been -9500.

      When I was a Senator back in 2006-2008 LH allowed a credit of 50,000 miles, which you had to request and could keep a negative balance as long as you have a status. In case of status drop you was asked to pay for miles under their sale price. A friend of mine did that and when he got downgraded he still owed a couple of thousand miles. LH mailed a paper invoice to his home address. It’s fair I believe (though price was not reasonable as you assume).

  • Kathy says:
    22 Feb22 February 06:50

    Interesting. I wonder if the idea is to encourage people to book connecting or partner flights when there’s no availability on the BA/direct flight they wanted? Nothing more frustrating than trying to book a flight after saving the exact number of Avios you should need, to find no availability and the connecting/partner options that are available cost more.

  • the real harry1 says:
    22 Feb22 February 06:56

    Do you notice the string of logos along the bottom of the flight booking page? Aer Club, BAEC etc – they’re getting ready for the single Avios platform.

    • Kathy says:
      22 Feb22 February 08:27

      It can’t come in soon enough for me! Trying to use a Lloyd’s upgrade voucher ties me to the Avios platform, but it gets new flights released at t-355 half an hour after BAEC, so they’re gone already by that time.

      • Ian says:
        22 Feb22 February 13:43

        Kathy – you appear to contradict yourself. You want Avios.com fast, yet you say they mess things up for you. Which is it?

        For what its worth, IMO Avios.com are a shambles, and always have been, especially for those in the regions.

        • Kathy says:
          22 Feb22 February 14:42

          I want to be able to book flights using my Lloyds upgrade voucher when they get released at midnight, and not have to wait half an hour, by which time they have been snapped up by someone else. I can’t do that at the moment. The result is that I might have to grab a flight on BAEC at midnight using the full Avios amount, and then cancel it – hoping it will then show up as available in Avios.com – and re-book it using the voucher (probably via the call centre!). I don’t care whether the system uses BAEC IT or Avios.com, what drives me crazy is the artificial barrier that having separate platforms creates.
          Or the fact that you can book some flights in BAEC and not on Avios.com or via their call centre, so you have to platform-hop in order to see all the available flight options.

      • AndyGWP says:
        22 Feb22 February 14:24

        Although more importantly, there’s the risk that the ability to earn this voucher becomes redundant because of a merge 🙁

        • Kathy says:
          22 Feb22 February 14:44

          More likely the card benefit will be withdrawn due to the interchange cap than due to the platform merger.

          • Alan says:
            22 Feb22 February 23:21

            Indeed – would be extremely disappointing if the Lloyds card went and left only the BA Amex.

        • Alan says:
          22 Feb22 February 23:19

          That would be a major issue! Personally I’m quite happy with everything running on separate systems – when one site doesn’t work often another one does instead!

  • Lux says:
    22 Feb22 February 07:00

    One word for the old hands: Lufthansa.

  • ComeFlyWithMe123 says:
    22 Feb22 February 08:28

    You say it saves the customer from buying at the 1.6p per point rate but it actually might be a smart move by Avios to increase revenue from people buying points. If I know I have 75% of the avios required today and the flights are available, I would book today. Worst case scenario for the customer is having to buy the remaining points to ensure they don’t lose the flights if they can’t generate them from elsewhere.

    Savvy collectors will have a plan in place to earn the remaining balance by the deadline but others won’t.

  • Dave says:
    22 Feb22 February 08:34

    This option has been coming up for me all year, didnt realise it was new

    • Rob says:
      22 Feb22 February 08:56

      Yes, it seems they have stepped it up recently after a limited trial earlier on.

  • Talay says:
    22 Feb22 February 09:15

    Seems a very good idea implemented in a cack handed fashion after dumbing down by the bean counters and top brass.

    Thus, not developed enough with those who would use it given any say.

  • Monopolies commission says:
    22 Feb22 February 09:15

    Presumably this means availability will get taken up sooner, albeit with the same or potentially less conviction required on the part of the booker.

    • Alan says:
      22 Feb22 February 09:31

      That was certainly the justification from BA for removing free cancellations from Gold Exec Club members.

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