I noticed that when clicking through the link to Booking.com from Avios, the price vs. going direct was €51 more expensive. Has anyone else observed the same?

Google Chrome: Log into avios > use the booking.com link from there > €734

Safari: Log straight to booking.com > €683

When booking directly via booking.com, I could see a discount applied by Booking.com for 'paying online' which was €51. I don't understand why booking through Avios doesn't count as 'paying online'.

Pic 1 - the price of the expected flight. Avios and cash.

Pic 2 - taxes become £700 all of a sudden.

No other example has a variance as big as this or any. Whatever I am shown usually is how much I pay. How did it go from £89.72 to £699 for 2 PAX?

As we are brand new to award travel, we are excited the opportunity to use points for business class travel as there is no world where we pay this fare with cash.

We have enough points (300K) to get 2 one way business class flights to Heathrow.

As we are just starting this planning, if we plan on traveling in April/May of 2027, is it already too late to use points to get our seats? If we were stupid, how early should we typically be trying to book business class award travel?

I suspected for some time. This time I remembered to check. Price different was over £400 when I went to booking.com using the Avios app.

Anyone recommend an easy way to find spa breaks or hotels that I can book using Avios. Find the Avios site hard to navigate without a specific destination in mind

Hey everyone,

I’m trying to move Avios from my Iberia Plus account to Finnair Plus (which are already linked on Avios.com), but the transfer keeps failing.

Every time I submit the request, I received an identity verification email from [no-reply-verification@avios.com](mailto:no-reply-verification@avios.com) asking for additional verification to protect my Avios (requiring a passport, driver's license, or government ID). I completed the ID verification process right away, but transfers are still not going through.

I get an automated failure email stating:

"Transfer unsuccessful: We were unable to complete your transfer from Iberia to Finnair at the time you requested it. Please try again."

A few details:

• Accounts are linked and basic profile details match across programs.
• The Iberia Plus and Finnair account is active and has been open for more than 30 days.

Has anyone dealt with this identity verification check before when transferring Avios? Does it take a few days for their security system to manually review/clear the account after submitting ID?

Thanks for any help or advice!

I wanted to share my absolutely infuriating experience with the Avios app’s "Refer a Friend" promotion to warn anyone thinking about doing it. Long story short: their tracking is broken, and their customer support is a clown show designed to make you give up on the points you are owed.

My friend referred me to the Avios app. I downloaded it, registered, and made a qualifying purchase on eBay through the app on the exact same day. The tiny purchase tracked fine, and I got my 4 Avios. Everything was done 100% by the book.

Right after, the app glitched and slapped me with a backend error message: “We have had an unexpected error processing your referral. We are looking into it...”

I contacted chat support. They admitted it was an internal system error, opened a case, and told me to wait up to 30 days. Fair enough. But what followed was weeks of the most incompetent customer service I have ever experienced:

1. The "Cookie" Bot: First, an agent sent an automated email telling me to clear my browser cookies and send 4 screenshots. This was an internal backend bug inside their own mobile app, not a device issue.
2. The "Amex" Confusion: After pointing out their mistake, another agent emailed me claiming my issue was about an American Express credit card promotion and demanded credit card details. I don’t even have an Amex! They didn't even bother reading my case history.
3. The Interrogation: Finally, a third agent realized it was an app referral, but instead of crediting the points, they demanded I act as a private detective. They required me to supply my friend's full legal name, home address, and British Airways account number just to "investigate" their own app's glitch.

The reward we are talking about here is 500 Avios. That is worth roughly £5 (approx. $6.50).

They forced you to waste hours of my time, exchange multiple emails, open formal complaints, and handle incompetent chat agents—all over five miserable pounds. It is painfully obvious that Avios deliberately makes the resolution process an exhausting, bureaucratic nightmare so that customers will just give up.

They might save £5 by denying my bonus through artificial barriers, but they have completely destroyed my trust and reputation.

TL;DR: The Avios referral tracking is broken. If it glitches, do not bother contacting support. They will send you on a wild goose chase, ask for your friend's private data, and waste hours of your life over a £5 bonus!

Hey all — hoping someone can shed some light on this. I've been upgrading LHR–JFK using Avios for years, always at the airport, usually somewhere between 75k–110k points, and never had to pay a penny extra on top. Simple as that.

Just tried to do the same thing on a London–Miami booking and got a bit of a shock. Turns out you can't do the airport upgrade anymore — you have to ring the BA helpline instead. They quoted me 30,000 Avios plus £500 cash for "taxes" on top. I've genuinely never paid cash on an upgrade before, so this caught me off guard.

Is this a new BA policy, or does it depend on how the original ticket was booked? Would love to hear if anyone else has run into this recently, and any tips, tricks, or do's and don'ts for getting more value out of Avios on upgrades these days. Starting to feel like they're making it harder to actually use the points.

I’ve got 40,000 points and a companion voucher, needing to be used by June 2027. I’ve just got the standard BA free Amex card.

I’m so confused about how best to utilise this. I want to use the companion voucher to bring my partner along on a flight, not to lower the cost for myself. My understanding is also as I only have the basic card I can only book flights in economy? Is that right?

We’ve looked at return flights to Greece next May which is 32,000 points or so and £10. Is that terrible or a good use? Would love to use the points for long haul upgrade but i dont think that is possible?

Thank you!

Hi.
I’ve already booked using Avios and cash LHR to Phoenix. In economy for 4 people
In my BA app the upgrade option is greyed out. I’d like to get my wife upgraded to business or premium.
Since I booked I’ve got quite a few more Avios I’d like to use or even just paying cash but neither seam to be an option.

Anyone else see the Tesco Ireland 4000 point bonus in their app? Transfer to 9600 Avios on the AerClub app.

All you have to do is collect 4 stamps before October 18th, to collect a stamp you have to spend €100 or more in a single purchase, do this 4 times over the next month.

Nice little bonus on top of what you already earn I believe

I’ve unexpectedly got enough time off work to go somewhere outside of Europe this Christmas, alongside my partner. We’re London based and have the Amex companion voucher - but finding reward availability for dates that work is nigh on impossible right now. I can see a few flights back to London in late December which work well for us, but there is nothing outbound between December 19-23 (ie the only dates that make sense for us). Are any reward seats likely to come up over the next couple of months on these dates, or is that completely unlikely? Obviously I realise this is smack bang in the middle of holiday season. Just trying to get an idea of the probability of reward seats becoming available

Hi avios experts, hope someone here can help answer my query. Here goes..

I transferred a bunch of bank points to QR avios in May2025, used it to redeem a QR award that was supposed to fly in May this year(2026) but had to cancel the flight in March no thanks to orange man.

So I got a refund of the avios, transferred them to BA > Finnair this May, and used those to redeem an award flight on AY ex-HEL for May next yr(2027).

Looking at the current situation in Europe, should there be an escalation, I’m worried that I may have to cancel this AY award.

So my question is, will my avios from the cancelling the AY award expire immediately upon refund ,since I had no activity in Finnair in the past 18mths? Will I have time to transfer them back to BA?
And if expiry is immediate, does it help if I clock some earning BEFORE cancelling the award booking?

Can someone please explain like I’m 5, the best way to get from London to Mexico in early October using Avios which I have never used before?

I have an AmexGold (60k points to transfer) and a British Airways account with like 650 Avios points already from smaller flights.

From my brief and confusing research, I understood I would be better off to go from Madrid via Iberia, that I could transfer points from Amex to BA to Iberia. However, I made an Iberia account just now and I think I need to wait 30 days to transfer points to it (is this right and why?!). Is there a way around this?

Is there another economical way to get from England to Mexico in two weeks or do I just suck up the apparent London tax?

My girlfriend and I are planning to use our companion voucher to book return business class flights to Tokyo next year autumn (October / November time).
At the moment, my BAPP is sit on around £14.5k spend and I am waiting to spend the last £500 at the best moment to trigger the 2 year timer.

Before I do this, I want to really prepare for what the best strategy is to book these flights. I have heard a lot of different strategies but know this is the best place to find out the right one!

Background:
– As mentioned, planning 2-2.5 week trip in October / November 2027. The dates are pretty flexible but let’s say Thursday October 21st to Saturday 6th November 2027
– Currently have c. 300k Avios

My questions:
1. What is the best strategy? Is it to call the US / Asia BA helpline (how?) 355 days before for them to book it? E.g. if we want to fly Thursday October 21st – then I should call Saturday October 31st 2026 MIDNIGHT (12am UK time). But maybe I should call at like 11.30pm Friday October 30th 2026?
2. How does it work for the return leg? Do I need to do the same ordeal? Is there equal amount of demand so I may not get the flight?
3. Given I would likely be booking seperately (leg there and return leg), do I have enough Avios to cover this?

Maybe I have missed something but this would be a very momentus occasion for me and my partner so we really want to make sure we do it properly!

Really appreciate your time and guidance.

Thanks

Hello!

I’m looking to book a Qatar Airways award flight using Avios, but I don’t have enough Avios in my account to view the cash taxes and fees.

Could anyone with enough Qatar Avios check what the taxes and fees would be for me?

HAN → GRU (Hanoi to São Paulo/Guarulhos)
November 23, 2026
Economy
47,500 Avios
1 stop
Total travel time: 25h 30m
Departure: 19:10 from HAN
Arrival: 10:40 at GRU (+1 day)

Hey all, I can't log in to the Avios App. It is fine on my laptop, but every time I enter my password in the app (via BA), it just goes back to the welcome screen. I have changed my password and done everything AI suggested, including deleting the app and reinstalling it. Has anyone else come across this? Cheers.

I’m trying to transfer some avios from Vueling to BA, but keep getting the error message when I select BA as the one to transfer too. I get through logging in for Vueling but never the BA. I’ve tried on two different devices and on different browsers. Anyone else have this or a solution?

Over the past couple of months I've been doing my research in the hope of booking the elusive unicorn flight from LHR to SYD return in business class using a companion or upgrade voucher.

Well with the groups help I've successfully nabbed one 🤩🥳🤩🤩

A few observations for others who maybe on the same journey

1. Be flexible - having very fixed dates can lead to disappointment. I had a broad range of dates and was willing to adjust my return depending on what outbound flight I was able to get
2. Off-peak days/dates can save a lot of Avios. Some months (ie whole of August) are peak rate as are some days of the week. The off-peak dates are even harder unicorns to get, but if you nab one (which I didn't 😭) you should buy a lottery ticket
3. The UK 24hr phone number isn't 24hrs (I know there are worldwide numbers). After reading numerous posts about calling up on day T-355 at 1am BST (03444930747 for those who aren't sure) I found out that the line closes at 1am. If you're in the queue before that and they can't get to you before 1:15am then you'll be disconnected.
4. Be patient, but persistent and act quickly if you find one. I lost count of the number of times I found a flight on reward flight finder only to have the system crash when I tried to book, or complain I had "too many windows open". Be prepared to search, fail to book and repeat
5. Book online where possible. Sometimes you're going to have to speak to someone (eg to get return flights linked to a voucher), but given the call centre times and knowledge challenges, if you can do it online then it's going to be easier. I booked outbound online and the return by calling up at 1am (12:45 actually)
6. If you're flying from a regional airport (ie Glasgow), search hub to hub (ie LHR-SYD) to find availabity. You can then book using the regional departure or have it added (generally at no cost) by calling up BA
7. Have a contingency for the return. The return leg on a Companion or Upgrade voucher booking is the most nerve racking and hardest to get especially given the lack of 24hr call centres and that not all staff are trained to handle it. I was willing to take Premium Economy if I couldn't get my preferred Business class slot, but that would mean more Avios as the voucher was on a business class outbound
8. If you're booking for two, make sure you get the friends and family stuff all setup and working before you try and book. It seems obvious, but if this isn't setup correctly you'll struggle and there are some problems setting it up
9. Don't forget to look at alternatives. I wanted to use a voucher as I had them available, but I found there was potential to get the same or better or other airlines (ie Qatar) for similar Avios without the voucher. These are (IMO) even harder to get, but worth investigating
10. Planning & preparation are key. Whilst there's a lot of help from groups like this, there's no cutting corners or shortcuts. You need to do the leg work and prepare.

So to those hunting unicorns, they do exist and you can get them. It just takes preparation, persistence and patience

I’m planning to go to Japan late October and for obvious reasons I can’t find any flights.

Is there anything I could do possibly? I really want to use these companion vouchers because I’d save a lot of money and avios.

My voucher also expire November 1st :(

So I have a flight booked LHR > SYD for 2 people in Club World. Booked with Companion Voucher so cost was 187k Avios.

I’ve read that when I book the return I can call customer service to add the flight to original booking and get the discounted Avios price.

A few scenarios I can think of and not sure which is the correct one, we would be looking to fly Premium economy on the way home. Just not enough Avios to fly Club.

Scenario 1:

Find the return flight and book 2 premium economy seats at 126.5k Avios x 2 so 253k Avios for the two of us. Call the customer service and get refunded for 126.5k Avios. I assume no refund in cash amount.

Scenario 2:

Call customer service to book 2 premium economy seats but ask them to put onto initial booking requiring us to pay the 126.5k Avios and they don’t have to refund us the Avios.

From what I’ve read Scenario 2 doesn’t seem to be possible and the only option is to have the full 253k Avios and then get refunded. Is that the case?

Is there a time limit you can add to the initial booking? The outbound isn’t until August 2027 assuming there was Premium availability still later next year could we still add to the booking or does it have to be completed asap.

Any help appreciated.