In this three part series I discuss the collection Avios on a marco level. There are enough articles explaining how to collect Avios from shops or the obligatory “fastest way to get Avios” articles – however I want to focus on the rational of why you need three Avios accounts. I discuss the need to have a BAEC account, an Air Lingus Account and an Iberia account. The chart below sums this up nicely.
In this first article I focus on the British Airways Executive account (BAEC)
PART 3:
Coming Soon
British Airways Executive Club
For many, BAEC is the main account for collecting Avios via the more common means. This is especially true if you are based in the England and make use of the American Express cards and Tesco Loyalty Scheme for instance.
While if this is not the case, there are some unique collection methods which are exclusive to one or two of the cards and with BA being the biggest airline in the group, there is a potential to miss out.
Code Share
while needless to say you can collect Oneworld miles on a BAEC or Iberia account, specific code share agreements (which are individual to the airline) means that due to how Avios works, it is worthwhile to have a specific airline loyalty card just to collect on the code-share agreement. For BA, they have agreements with Air Baltic (no Alliance) and Air Italy (no Alliance) for instance.
Although the list is not exactly complete as BA is atrocious at publicising their list of code share agreements except for a little blurb on the website stating the partner will be shown at time of flight selection
Credit Cards
Credit cards are one of the main ways that loyalty points are earned. The main ones in this sector allowing you to collect Avios are the American Express and the HSBC premier credit cards. While having the cards allows you to earn either 1 or 1.5x per transactional pound spent, opting for such cards usually locks you into transferring the Avios solely into the BA account. This means that to access these rewards, you need a BAEC account.
Loyalty Schemes
With loyalty schemes, some of the larger brands only allow you to transfer the points to a BAEC account – namely Shell and Tesco. Therefore, if you wish to collect Avios from these stores, you will need a BAEC account.
BA Online E – store
BAEC and Avios operate two different E-stores since BA pulled out of the Avios.com website. While there are some better (and some exclusive) deals to be had than others you will need the BAEC account to collect from this store.
Heathrow Rewards
Heathrow rewards is a the reward scheme for Heathrow Airport and if you are not London based, or use the airport frequently, you can pretty much forget about this section as you will unlikely make the £250.00 required spend to transfer the points out.
But if it is of use, it is important to remember that you can get 10x Avios per pound spend using an affiliate link through the BAEC e-store or Iberia e-store for their respective cards. Although the limitation is that you get pushed into the full fare bracket. Should you feel that £25 ish pounds for a 15 minute train ride is a bit too dear and have 1 or 3 months advanced notice – then you can pay a lower fare and collect Heathrow reward points (1:1 with Avios) instead. The second point to remember is that you can only convert out to an Air Lingus or BAEC account.
Hotel Loyalty Schemes
With hotels, BA allows you to convert hotel loyalty scheme points into Avios. While you will only find the larger hotel chains allow you to do so, the conversion rate can be found on BA’s website –Here.
In Summary…
the graph below shows the overview of why, as an Avios collector, you need a BAEC account.
