Sometimes you need a quick Avios boost, but how can you add 10k to your balance fast?

There's nothing worse than being just shy of your Avios goal, especially when you really need to nail down those last two Club Suites. In this article, I take you through the quick ways to boost your balance.

Buy Avios direct

It's the quickest, simplest way to increase your Avios balance, albeit at a cost. With BA you can buy up to 200,000 per calendar year, with a minimum transaction of 2,000. The price you pay for each Avios point reduces the more you buy, with 2,000 Avios costing £49 or a steep 2.45p per Avios, whereas 200,000 Avios costs £3,539 at a rate of 1.77p per Avios. BA regularly have promotions where they will gift you an additional number of Avios for your purchase, effectively reducing the price of each point. These sales happen sporadically.

You can also buy Avios from Qatar, and if your Privilege Club account (which is free to open) is linked to your Executive Club account transferring Avios to BA is instant. At the time of writing the price to buy via Qatar is the same as BA, however, they have also been known to run promotions and often at different times to BA. It's worth checking as they can offer up to a 40% boost, depending on how many you buy.

In March 2024 Finnair moved to Avios for their Finnair Plus programme. This follows the same approach as Qatar: instant transfers either way. The same rules as BA apply: A maximum of 200,000 Avios can be bought each year, however, they state that it can take 1- 3 days for them to be added to your account after you buy them. They also run promotions. Recently they were offering upto a 40% boost on the Avios you buy.

To buy Avios directly from BA, visit the shopping.ba.com website. Log in using your Executive Club username and password, hover over the Buy Avios menu option then click Buy Avios.

Here's a view of the pricing for buying Avios:

However, there's a much cheaper way of quickly increasing your Avios balance.

Instead of buying, boost your Avios

There's a little-known way to effectively "boost" your Avios at a lower cost than buying Avios. Any points you've earned in the last 30 days can be doubled, tripled or quadrupled for a cost. This is referred to on the BA site as either Avios Boost or Balance Booster.

Although you're only able to "Boost" Avios that you've collected in the last 30 days, you can boost up to 300,000 Avios per calendar year which is generous. Your limits when you buy Avios are 200,000 per year.

Unless there's a promotion on, it is significantly cheaper to Boost Avios rather then buy. The catch is you must have some Avios transactions in the last 30 days to boost. If you need some Avios quickly to lock down that Avios-Only flight, and you're willing to pay, then this should be your first port of call. 

Not all of your Avios transactions can be boosted, but the reality is that most can. Excluded items are balance transfer from other airlines (e.g. moving from Qatar to BA), Nectar exchanges, or Avios transferred or gifted from other BA executive club members. For most people, the vast majority of their points transactions will be eligible.

Boosting is quick, although BA does say that it may take up to three working days. In my experience this is not the case, but you should factor this in.

To see your Avios Boost options login to shopping.ba.com and hover over the "Buy Avios" menu item then click on "Balance Boost". Click the "Start Boosting" button and you'll be taken to a screen that shows you your recent Avios transactions

I've been fairly quiet on my Avios collection recently so I have three transactions that I can boost. I've selected 9.5k of credit card spend, and to 2x boost that (giving me 19,152 additional Avios) it's £180.03 at a cost of 0.94p per Avios. A 1x boost costs 0.96p per Avios, and maximising your increase by boosting x3 is 0.92p per Avios.

The downside to boosting is that it's more challenging to "buy" an exact amount of Avios. To get 10k quickly you'll need to x3 boost a transaction that has 3,334 Avios, or 2x 5k. It will likely mean that you end up with some surplus. If you're boosting credit card transactions you can go more granular, and select items to boost.

Buying Avios vs Boost Avios - which one is cheaper?

Here's a run down of the pricing for three different transaction sizes

Transfer other airline points to Avios

If you have points with other airlines then you could transfer them to your Executive Club account. These transfers should be quick, but this method relies on you having spare points unless you decide to buy them from another airline and then transfer.

You can only transfer Avios from other IAG airlines if both accounts are under the same name.

To transfer from Finnair or Qatar, use the shopping.ba.com website.
To transfer from Iberia and Aer Lingus, use the Transfer page on BA.com

Transfer Amex Membership Reward points to Avios

If you have spare points on an Amex credit card then it's easy to transfer this to Avios. Head over to the Amex website, log in and then click the "Use your points" button (usually on the right-hand side). This will take you to the Membership Rewards website. Search for "British Airways" in the search box at the top, then select "British Airways Executive Club".

If you haven't transferred points before it will ask you to enter your "Partner Account Number" which is your BA executive club number, along with additional personal information. Setup is usually instant. They state that transfers take up to 3 business days, but I've found it's usually 1-2 business days. There's also a minimum transfer amount of 1,000, and you have to transfer in blocks of 500 points. The transfer rate is 1:1, so 1 Membership Reward point becomes 1 Avios.

There is no two-way transfer with Amex points, so once you complete the process you can't move them back.

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