Avios Points: A Complete Guide On How To Collect Avios (Updated 2025)

Want to know how to collect thousands of Avios points on your every day spending to pay for your flights and holidays? You’re in the right place!

Anyone who knows me, knows I’m obsessed with collecting Avios points. I aim to be as strategic as one can be in the pursuit of making flying more financially viable, and hopefully, now and again, flying business class.

There are lots of people out there working at improving their airline status, and trust me, if I were someone with plenty of money to spare on flights alone, or moreover – if I got to travel for business, I’d be obsessed with that too. I’m not, I’m a regular blue BA Executive Club Member, but I’m an expect on saving up points in other ways. I rarely pay outright for a flight; last year I flew business to Mexico and 2024 means the adventure of all business class adventures: Qatar’s QSuite.

Is your seatbelt fastened? I’ll happily teach you everything I know!

Collecting Avios Points Contents

Check out my full guide to Booking Flights With Avios HERE.

I am no Should-be-Sir Martin Lewis, I just have a lot of people asking how I utilise my Avios points for decent travel rewards and I believe that sharing is caring, especially in this economy. If I can help someone go on a cheaper holiday in a cost of living crisis, that’s fantastic. Likelihood is, there are a lot of points you’re missing out on by not following a few basic rules.

The main rule of thumb is, I use my BA Amex credit card for everything. Everything I can purchase with my credit card, I do. Every coffee, every dash to the Co-op for emergency wine, Netflix, every tube journey, all of it. For every pound I spend I’m building on my Avios points, which allows me to (eventually) save enough to fly fancy, for free or maybe even fancy and free. We’ll come back to the different options/best card for you in a bit.

COLLECTING AVIOS POINTS VIA THE BRITISH AIRWAYS E-STORE

There’s another way I seriously stack up the points on every day spend, and that’s by doing all my shopping online via the British Airways e-store. There are hundreds of retailers on there, and when you shop via the links provided, you’ll get extra points per £1 spent. This way of shopping has gained me literally thousands of points over the months. At the time of writing, shopping at Booking.com will get you 8 points per £1, ASOS will get you 3 points per £1, Deliveroo 5 points per £1.

You can also register all your cards on the eStore to collect points on in store purchases with certain retailers. These cards do not have to be one of the BA/Avios credit cards listed below, but of course if you use one of these, you’ll get more points.

COVERT NECTAR POINTS TO AVIOS

You can convert Nectar points into Avios. 400 Nectar points equals 250 Avios, and for ease you can set it to automatically convert these every time you hit the 400 mark. So if you’re a Sainsbury’s shopper, get your petrol at Esso – all of these every day purchases can go towards your holiday.

COLLECT AVIOS WITH CREDIT CARDS

Let’s go through the credit cards that give you Avios points every time you do your weekly food shop.

AMERICAN EXPRESS

British Airways American Express Card

• No annual fee, with a sign up bonus of 5000 Avios points when you spend £2000 in your first three months. To qualify for this bonus you can not have held another personal Amex card in the last 24 months – business credit cards are fine, though.
• 1 Avios point for every £1 spent.
• Companion voucher after spending £15,000 in a calendar year for an economy reward flight
  • The companion voucher will allow you to purchase a reward flight with Avios points for one person in economy, and receive a second ticket on the same flight for ‘free’. The only thing you’ll have to do is pay taxes for these two seats, the cost of which can range from £1 for a European flight and steadily going up the further afield you go.
• SOLO TRAVELLERS: with a Companion voucher you can instead buy a ticket for one with half the number of Avios points you would usually need for a reward flight. Incredibly good value!
• For the free BA Amex card, the companion voucher will be valid for 12 months.

The £5000 increase of spend to qualify for a companion voucher is quite a steep step for the free BA Amex. If you can justify the £300 annual cost to get the Premium Plus card, you will get far more Avios points in the welcome bonus (should you qualify), and the companion voucher you receive will be valid for 2 years rather than 1, and will also be valid for premium economy and business class cabins. Definitely worth weighing these factors up when choosing between the two BA Amex cards.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

• The premium BA Amex card costs £300 per year, but the offset is a bonus 30,000 Avios points when you spend £6000 in the first three months. Unlike the free BA Amex, you can hold another Amex personal card (i.e. the Gold or Platinum card) and still benefit from this welcome bonus
• 1.5 Avios for every £1 spent, 3 Avios for every £1 with BA or BA Holidays.
• Companion voucher after spending £15,000 in a calendar year for a reward flight in any cabin up to business class
  • The companion voucher will allow you to purchase a reward flight with Avios points for one person in any cabin bar first class, and receive a second ticket on the same flight and cabin for ‘free’. The same instance as above when it comes to paying the taxes for each person.
• SOLO TRAVELLERS: with a Companion voucher you can instead buy a ticket for one with half the number of Avios points you would usually need for a reward flight. Incredibly good value!
• For the BA Premium Plus card, the companion voucher will be valid for 24 months.
• Travel accident and travel inconvenience insurance

Given the 2 year validity of the companion voucher and the fact it can be used for any class, I think this is the best of the two. The £300 you initially pay all goes towards that long haul business class experience, which for me, makes it totally worth it. Totally comes down to personal preference and what your goal is when it comes to spending your Avios points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card

• Annual fee of £195 but FREE in your first year
• Sign up bonus of 20,000 membership rewards points when you spend £3000 in first three months, but you cannot hold another personal Amex card to benefit from this.
• Amex membership points can be converted to Avios: 1 point = 1 Avios.
• Membership points can also be converted to use on other airlines that do not use Avios, such as Emirates, Virgin, Singapore Airlines – worth considering depending on where you plan to fly to
• 1 point for every £1 spent; 2 points for every £1 spent with airlines; 3 points every £1 spent at American Express Travel
• 4 Priority Pass airport lounge passes a year
• £5 cash back on Deliveroo twice a month
• Every time you spend £5000, you get a bonus 2500 Membership points. This will change from 15th October 2025, when you will need to spend £10,000, but get 5000 bonus membership points (up to a maximum of 10,000 bonus points a year). This is on top of the points you earn on your every day spend.

American Express Platinum Card

• Annual fee of £650, but this card comes with some high value benefits: annual £400 dining credit each year, free hotel upgrades, free lounge access, car rental upgrades and travel insurance. For the full list of Platinum benefits click here
• Very generous sign up bonus of 50,000 membership rewards points when you spend £6000 in first three months, but you cannot hold another personal membership point Amex card to benefit from this (i.e. the Gold card).
• Amex membership points can be converted to Avios: 1 point = 1 Avios.
• Membership points can also be converted to use on other airlines that do not use Avios, such as Emirates, Virgin, Singapore Airlines – worth considering depending on where you plan to fly to
• 1 point for every £1 spent; 2 points for every £1 spent at American Express Travel

BARLCAYCARD

The Barclaycard Avios credit card allows you to earn an upgrade voucher, meaning you only need enough points for say, a premium economy reward flight, but can upgrade to business using the voucher (as long as there is room in the cabin).

Barclaycard Avios

• No annual fee, with a sign up bonus of 5000 Avios points when you spend £1000 in your first three months.
• 1 Avios point for every £1 spent.
• Cabin upgrade voucher after spending £20,000 in a calendar year. Voucher is valid for 24 months.
• You can opt for 7000 bonus Avios instead of the cabin upgrade voucher, but I don’t know why any one would do this!

Barclaycard Avios Plus

• £20 monthly fee, with a sign up bonus of 25,000 Avios points when you spend £3000 in your first three months.
• 1.5 Avios point for every £1 spent.
• Cabin upgrade voucher after spending £10,000 in a calendar year. Voucher is valid for 24 months.
• You can opt for 7000 bonus Avios instead of the cabin upgrade voucher, but I don’t know why any one would do this!
• Discounted airport lounge passes

AVIOS: NEED TO KNOW

1. The BA e-store is your new best friend.
2. Avios points are to be used on reward flights. Different flight paths, times and distances will cost varying Avios and taxes. As an example, a short haul return flight in Europe can be as little as 9,500 Avios and £35 taxes, or 18,500 and just £1! For a full guide on booking reward flights click here.
3. Avios can be used for all BA code share flights (e.g. American Airlines, Iberia, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific, Aer Lingus & more)  as long as they are offered as a reward flight option.
4. The companion vouchers can only be used to book reward flights with British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus. For example, I could use my Avios points to book a flight with Qatar, but I would not be able to use a companion voucher for that flight.
5. The availability of a flight and the availability of reward flights are not one and the same. There will only be a certain amount of reward flights available to purchase with your points on each flight, so bear in mind that the more flexible you are, the better. The further in advance you book, the more availability. If you want to fly at a peak time, it’ll cost you more points.
6. Avios aren’t just for reward flights – they can be spent on hotels, car hire and can be used to be put towards upgrades.
7. Although at first glance the annual fees for the premium cards is pretty hefty, you will reap better rewards. They won’t be the right choice for everyone, but consider whether the fee is worth it overall for you.
8. You can work towards those coveted points with additional cardholders on the same account. This probably comes with the caveat of having to definitely use the companion voucher with the cardholder, mind. So make sure you really do like them.

Happy Avios Points Collecting!

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with the above credit cards and you should read into each of these, their rates and their Ts&Cs before applying directly on their websites.

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Updated July 2025.

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