How to use Avios for (almost) free flights: Get rewarded for your everyday spending

If you’ve ever dreamed of flying for (almost) free, upgrading your Economy seats to the much fancier, Business Class, or treating yourself to a luxurious getaway without blowing your budget, learning how to collect Avios points is your ticket there — literally.

Avios is the rewards currency of the British Airways Club (and other airline partners including Qatar Airways and Iberia), and with the right strategy, you can use the points you collect to book flights, upgrades, and more.

Here, I’ll walk you through how to go about earning Avios points and how to use them to book elusive reward seats on British Airways flights.

Avios are the loyalty currency used by several airlines, including British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Qatar Airways. If you’re a member of the British Airways Club, you’ll earn and spend Avios through their system. You can use your Avios points pot to book flights on British Airways and partner airlines, upgrade your cabin to enjoy a more exclusive travel experience, and pay for hotels, car hire, and other travel extras. If you want to go all in, you can even pay for your entire holiday using your points with BA Holidays

Personally, I find the beauty of Avios to be in their flexibility and reach—especially when you understand how to collect and redeem them smartly.

Once you’ve joined the British Airways Club, whenever you fly with British Airways, Iberia, Qatar Airways, American Airlines, or any Oneworld partner, you will earn Avios, which will be deposited in your BA Club account. The number of points you earn depends on your fare class, what you pay for your flight, and BA Club tier status. Unfortunately, you don’t earn Avios on any reward seat flight you book.

Tip: Whenever you’re booking a flight, always include your British Airways Club number to ensure you earn your points.

One of the fastest ways I’ve managed to rack up Avios is by using a co-branded credit card. In the UK, that’s typically the British Airways American Express, or Avios Barclaycard credit cards:

This card has no annual fee, and offers a good Avios welcome bonus to new cardholders. You’ll collect 1 Avios per £1 spent, get extra Avios bonuses for card referrals and supplementary cardholders, and have the ability to earn a Companion Voucher (2 flights for the cost of 1 in Economy) if you spend £15,000 in a year on your card. This is a solid card to start out with if you’re new to Avios collection. I began with this card and my welcome bonus covered half the Avios cost of my first reward seat booking!

This is the next level up from the basic BA Amex card. It has a higher Avios earning rate of 1.5 Avios per £1 spent, and an exclusive earn-rate of 3 Avios for every £1 spent with British Airways and BA Holidays. The welcome bonuses are much bigger, plus you can earn a Companion Voucher when you spend £15,000 on the card in one year. The difference with this Companion Voucher is that you can use it in any cabin class – including Business or First, whereas with the basic BA Amex Companion Voucher, you can only use it in Economy.

Use your card for everyday spending—groceries, bills, travel—and watch the Avios add up. I make all my usual purchases each month using my card to earn as many points as I can. As far as I’m concerned, this is money I’d be spending anyway – so why not get rewarded for it?! Just remember to pay your bill in full every month, as the Avios earning value isn’t any good when you factor in interest.

The British Airways eStore is a goldmine for Avios collectors. You’ll find over 2000 retailers that reward you with Avios for every pound spent. These include Apple (5 Avios per £), John Lewis (1), Samsung (5), Reiss (12), B&Q (4) and Dyson (8). Simply click through the BA eStore before making your purchase.

You get these points on top of the points you earn on the BA Amex card – a double dip!

Bonus tip: I like to stack this with cashback sites for even more value.

Now, you might not be able to earn Avios on your reward seat flight booking, but you CAN earn them through your hotel stay. You can earn Avios when booking BA Holidays or the BA Avios store, as well as through Booking.com, Hotels.com, Accor, IHG, Marriott, and more.

If you already collect hotel loyalty points, including Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors, you’ll be happy to know that you can convert them into Avios.

If you need to hire a car during your trip, car rental companies like Avis and Budget also let you earn Avios on your bookings.

British Airways partners with lots of restaurants and lifestyle brands, including The Wine Flyer and subscription platforms like The Spectator or The Economist. If you’re already spending with these, it’s definitely worth it to check if you can earn Avios too.

If you shop at Sainsburys, or have a Nectar card, you can earn Nectar points and transfer them to Avios at a 400:250 rate. This one is great for topping up your pot. I changed my supermarket to Sainsburys when I started to collect Avios because we spend at least £150 a week on the family food shop – that’s an extra £600 of Nectar points (375 Avios) every month!

If you’re short on points for a dream trip, but you don’t want to wait around to book it, you can buy Avios directly through the British Airways site. While this usually isn’t the best value, sales offering 30-50% bonus Avios can make it worthwhile. Just keep a look out.

Avios collectors can make significant cash savings on flights by using points to pay for them. Some travellers have reported cash savings of around £7000 when booking a trip to Japan in Business Class, by paying with points and using their American Express Companion Voucher. I’d recommend valuing 1 Avios as 1p when considering savings. All you need to do is check the Avios cost of your trip and compare it to the equivalent cash fare on the BA website to show you how much you’re saving by utilising Avios to book seats.

One of the lesser known ‘Avios hacks’, which is actually a particular favourite of mine, is that you can cancel a reward seat booking with BA for just £35 per person up to 24 hours before your flight. If you opt to do it, you also get your full Avios cost refunded, as well as taxes and fees – minus £35 a person. This is really handy if your plans change for whatever reason, and it’s an extra benefit when you’re deciding whether to book a particular cash fare or to use Avios points. Using this particular hack allows you to potentially book a number of destinations and flight times, then pick your best option.

British Airways offers Reward Flight Saver fares, which let you book flights with a fixed low fee (taxes and charges) plus Avios. If you’re looking to spend the least cash possible on your flight booking, short-haul flights within Europe, often start from just 9,250 Avios + £1. Long haul flights have a higher cash cost – starting at around £40 – because taxes and charges are higher for those routes.

It’s really simple to actually book your reward seats. Just log on to the British Airways website or mobile app to search for “Book with Avios.”

Because BA releases a very limited number of reward seats per flight (14 across all cabins) availability can be limited, so plan and book early—BA releases reward seats 355 days in advance. There are currently around 40m Avios collectors across the world looking for reward seats, and when you remember that BA only releases 14 seats per flight, you probably want to do everything you can to get ahead of the crowd. In this case consider using an independent UK reward flight finder tool where you can track availability, see flight by flight information and set Alerts to get instantly notified when your ideal seats become available. I always use these tools – I set up to 10 Alerts for different routes that I want and wait to get Alerted. Then I let the tools do the work for me.

You’ll have better luck bagging reward seats if you’re flexible with dates and times for your flights – my only rules are that my flights must be in school holidays. I set my Alerts at least 6-8 months ahead. It’s also worth noting that if you’re short on Avios when you want to book, you can top up your fare with cash – so you use a mixture of Avios and cash to book your seats. All you need to do is use “Avios + Cash” options when you’re on the BA website.

Avios aren’t just for British Airways flights—you can redeem them on all Oneworld partners, including: Qatar Airways (who often have lower cash surcharges), Iberia (great for long-haul to the Americas with lower fees), American Airlines, Finnair, Japan Airlines, and more

There are a few golden rules to always remember – NEVER let your Avios expire: They’re valid for 36 months, but any earning or spending resets the clock. Imagine how heartbroken you’d be if you’d saved points for all that time, only for them to vanish because you hadn’t used them!

I’d also steer you away from using your Avios for poor-value flights. Always compare the cash price vs. the value of your points. I stick to the 1p per 1 Avios rule so I can compare the cash cost of a fare to what I would pay if I booked with Avios. I love doing this because it shows me how much money I’m saving compared to the cash seat booking – it’s a great motivator to keep on collecting.

Last but not least, don’t forget you’ll need to pay cash taxes and fees. This isn’t even worth thinking about when you’re booking a short haul flight in Europe that usually has a £1 fee, but some redemptions, especially long-haul in premium cabins, come with cash costs of up to around £600 for First Class. Don’t forget you’ll need to pay this when you book.

Collecting Avios isn’t just for frequent flyers or travel hackers—it’s for anyone who wants to make their money go further when traveling. I like it because I’m able to travel more with my family just by having a certain credit card, doing the weekly shop or paying a household bill. I even earn points while I’m on my holiday to use on the next one. With a bit of planning and a few everyday habits, you can be well on your way to a reward seat on a British Airways flight. If you spot me on the plane, be sure to say hello!

Have questions or your own Avios tips? Drop them in the comments.