How a weird ‘Combine My Avios’ quirk lets you move Avios from one person to another for free

When Qatar Airways Privilege Club adopted Avios as its loyalty currency a few months ago, it introduced its own version of ‘Combine My Avios’.

This allows you to move Avios from your British Airways Executive Club account – instantly and for free – to a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account. You can also move Avios in the other direction.

You don’t necessarily need to do this to book redemption flights on Qatar Airways, as the Avios costs and charges for Qatar Airways flights are now identical if you book via ba.com.

EDIT 2024: This loophole no longer works, sorry!

You do need to have Avios in Qatar Airways Privilege Club if, for example:

• you want to upgrade Qatar Airways flights

• you want to do a ‘double Avios’ redemption for Qatar flights with no standard reward availability or

• you want to redeem on Qatar Airways partner airlines

All of these transactions can only be done via the Qatar Airways website using a Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios balance.

Strange things happen when you move Avios to and from Qatar Airways Privilege Club

Let me start by saying that what we are about to cover only applies to people who are in a British Airways Household Account.

Here is my wife’s Avios account in British Airways Executive Club:

This is what happens when my wife moves 1,000 Avios to Qatar Airways Privilege Club:

Her Avios balance does NOT drop by 1,000. It drops by 382. This is because she is in a Household Account with me and, for some weird reason, BA Executive Club pro-ratas transfers into Qatar Airways Privilege Club. The other 618 Avios were taken from my account.

This is not normal. Historically, when you did ‘Combine My Avios’, the Avios were taken ONLY from the account of the person making the move, not from all of the participants in the Household Account.

However, here’s the truly weird bit.

Look what happens when she moves the 1,000 Avios from Qatar Airways Privilege Club back to British Airways Executive Club:

All 1,000 Avios go directly back to her British Airways Executive Club account. None are returned to me, even though I contributed 618 of those Avios in the first place!

Put another way, 618 Avios have been transferred from my account to my wife’s account without any transfer fees being paid.

You could take advantage of this to move Avios from other members of your Household Account to yourself – useful if you don’t necessarily want to be in a Household Account but were only in it because you were trying to drain Avios from the account of another member.

PS. If you are a British Airways Executive Club Gold member, remember that you can send 27,000 Avios to up to six different people each year without paying any transfer fees – no need to mess about with things like this.

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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:

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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