What is an Avios Point Worth? A Comprehensive Guide

Just how much is an Avios point actually worth?

Ever wondered, “What is an Avios point worth?” The answer is both simple and complex. In this article, I break down how to value Avios points…and why you probably shouldn’t value them at all.

What is an Avios point worth?

To summarise a simple valuation of Avios points, a 1p per point valuation is an easy and fast way to value your points. This article discusses a number of reasons why you could achieve a much higher valuation for your points, including a real-world example from my own experiences. In addition, there may be times when you achieve a lower valuation of your points; however, I talk later about the value of the experience versus the cash value of the points.

What are Avios points?

Avios points are the frequent flyer currency of a group of airlines, predominantly British Airways, Qatar, Finnair, Iberia and Aer Lingus. All of those airlines, apart from Aer Lingus, belong to the oneworld alliance, and most are interlinked financially. IAG (International Airlines Group) owns BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus, and Qatar owns 25.2% of IAG.

You can easily swap Avios points between these airlines, with no real barriers and instant transfers. The “Move Avios” section of Avios.com lists the following airlines for transfers:

• Aer Lingus
• British Airways
• Finnair
• Iberia
• Loganair
• Qatar
• Vueling

You can also book flights using Avios points on an additional group of airlines that either accept that currency directly, or there’s an even wider group of partner airlines that you can book via BA, Qatar, Finnair, Iberia or Aer Lingus. Those bookings are possible due to each airline’s partnerships.

A short history of Avios points

Avios launched in 2011, replacing both BA and Iberia’s frequent flyer points, as well as the Air Miles scheme in the UK.

The rebranding of Air Miles to Avios brought about a number of changes. Whilst it was possible to earn Air Miles using some of the methods that you can use now (it had an equivalent to the Avios Shopping website), the new Avios scheme was a much better fit for what consumers want.

There are now multiple credit cards from different providers that will give you Avios points every time you spend, on top of any initial or ongoing bonuses. Consumers and businesses can earn points via cards from American Express, Barclays and Capital On Tap. You can also earn points with Revolut.

I’ve spent millions of miles and points over the last few year. I’ve never bothered to value my points, at least in terms of the flights that I used them for. This is coming from someone who loves to store details in a spreadsheet. The reality is that the value of my Avios (and other points) are nothing to do with money, and everything to do with the experience, and what I did when I got to my destination.

Should you value your Avios points when it comes to flights? Probably not.

What is an Avios point worth?

Most people put the value of an Avios point at 1p per point.

When valuing points, people sometimes keep a record of flights they have taken and what those flights would have cost them if they had paid in cash. This approach is flawed for two reasons. Firstly, the prices of flights fluctuate significantly, meaning that you are valuing the points at that moment in time. If you had waited a week, the flight could have been more expensive or cheaper.

The second reason that the valuation approach doesn’t work is that it assumes that you have the option of either paying for a flight with points or with cash.

A reasonable number of points collectors would not pay £8,000 for a First Class flight with British Airways or even pay £3k for a Business Class flight with Qatar. Therefore, the value of the point is much greater. You’re getting something (a first-class seat) that you wouldn’t normally have bought.

To provide some context, we used to pay for Business Class flights as long as the cost was less than £1,200. This usually meant waiting for sales and connecting via Dublin. Now we’ll fly in Business Class using Avios, often on flights where it would cost £2k to £3k. That’s a price we never would have paid.

Why you shouldn’t value your Avios points

For most points collectors, booking a flight using Avios alone means valuing your Avios points is a waste of time. It’s unlikely you’ll find an accurate price per point, and the whole purpose of collecting Avios is to have amazing experiences.

I flew in The Residence last year with Etihad using points. That experience was priceless. I haven’t considered the value of the points it cost us; we just had an amazing flight in an incredible room on a plane.

Why you should value your Avios points

There is one instance where you should consider the value of your points when flying, and that’s when you have more than one option to pay, and one of those options is cash.

If you’re looking to book a flight and you have the cash to pay for the seat or the points, then determining the value of the points allows you to make a direct comparison. The same goes if you are going to use Avios points to upgrade a flight.

If you’re going to use your Avios points on something other than flights, then it is absolutely worth looking at the value. You might want to use points to pay for a hotel room via Avios Hotels. In most cases, you probably shouldn’t, as it’s a poor use of points, but by calculating the value of your points, you can determine that.

You can also swap Membership Rewards points for things of value, such as gift vouchers. Again, this is a poor use of points, but you can see that by calculating the points needed at a 1p rate.

What if you want to get rid of some orphaned points?

It’s possible that you’ve got a small number of points in your BA/Qatar/Finnair/Iberia/Aer Lingus account, and you just want to get rid of them. If that’s the case, then there’s no need to value them; anything you can do with them is fine, as you just want to get some value – any value – from them.

One way to use points is the BA Wine Flyer store, which allows you to earn and spend points on wine.

How much is an American Express Membership Reward point worth if you transfer it to Avios?

If you’ve earned the Membership Rewards points through a GBP card, then you will be able to swap them to Avios at a rate of 1:1, which would value the MR points at 1p per point. If you value your points at a different rate, that 1:1 ratio means that MR points will match your rate.

If you’ve eartned points from a USD or EUR card, then you’ll have earned points at a rate of 1 cent per point; however, the transfer rate to Avios is 3:2. This means your Avios will be worth 0.8p at the simplest rate.

There are a small number of airline partners that have a 1:1 transfer rate, for example, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific. That means the points you have via a EUR/USD card will be worth 1.2p.

Generally speaking, it’s best to leave your Membership Rewards points as they are until you need them. You might have to swap points to a non-Avios airline to achieve the journey that you want, so only transfer them when you absolutely need to.

A table of Avios valuations

(All of the rows below use the 1p per point valuation)

What’s the difference between Avios and Tier Points?

Tier Points are separate from Avios points, and they were awarded to you when you took a flight with BA (or some partners) and paid for it using cash. Tier points determine your status with BA (e.g. Bronze or Gold), and they were directly linked to the distance the flight covered and the cabin you flew in. That was a ham-fisted way of linking tier points to how much you spent. The longer the flight, and the closer to the front of the plane you get, the more you will have spent with BA.

In 2025, everything changed. The tier points you earn are now directly related to the amount you spend with BA. You get 1 tier point per pound. The number of tier points you need to move up from Blue to Bronze, and higher, has also changed.

Another big change concerning tier points is that you can now earn them via other methods. You can collect them by hitting a spending goal on a credit card, via BA Holiday bookings, and also by making a donation to sustainable aviation fuels.

You can even (in a roundabout way) buy Tier points using Avios.

Making the Most of Your Avios – Top Tips and Tricks

There are two ways to earn Avios that are often overlooked. Firstly, the Avios Shopping portal. That’s been a gold mine for us. Despite the name, it’s not just about buying goods online; you can also earn a lot of points when you renew your insurance, your utilities or your TV package.

Secondly, there are credit cards. From BA’s branded cards with American Express to the Avios Barclaycard, there are more options than ever for earning points. The best cards come with an annual fee, but there are still free options that allow you to put your usual spend through the card and amass points for it.

If you’re an SME, there are more card options available to you, particularly the Capital On Tap card. I wrote a long article about how to earn Avios points as a business.

If you’re starting out on your points collection journey, I’ve written about three things to do when you’re getting started with Avios.

When it comes to spending Avios, there are a few ways to cut down the number of points that you need for a flight:

• Booking a flight during off-peak periods.
• Utilising a companion (2-4-1) voucher, via a BA credit card.

Combining the two will reduce the number of Avios you need for a flight by more than half.

How to record the true value of your points

If you do want to value your points accurately, then the process is simple. Use a spreadsheet (like Excel or Google Sheets) and each time you book a flight using points, note down the number of points used and the cash element of the booking (taxes, carrier-imposed surcharges, etc).

At the same time, search for the flight as if you were going to book it using cash, and then record what it would have cost you at that moment in time.

This will give you the points value for a single flight. If you update this sheet each time you book a flight, then you will start to get a more accurate average.

Going one-way? Your Avios points are worth more

It’s long been known that if you want to pay for a flight with cash, a one-way ticket will usually cost you more than half a return ticket.

There are many reasons for this, but the good news is that when you use points, there is no penalty for a one-way flight. It gives you much greater flexibility; for example, on our last trip we flew out to Tokyo using Finnair, and then flew back from the Far East using Emirates.

That flexibility means that you can use your points more effectively. No availability on a return leg with BA, but there is with Qatar? It’s no less efficient to split your trip, although you won’t get the benefit of using a companion voucher.

If you’re looking at the cost of a one-way flight, then your Avios points will deliver more than a return, and that means your points would be valued higher.

BA redemptions mean your Avios are worth even more.

If you’re going to redeem your Avios through British Airways, then you have two different aces up your sleeve:

1. The BA Companion Voucher, which effectively halves the number of points needed for a return flight
2. The Barclays Cabin Upgrade voucher, which will significantly reduce the Avios needed for your outbound OR return flight.

Using either type of voucher will significantly reduce the number of points you need for a flight. If you’re comparing the cash value versus the points needed, the Companion voucher will increase the value of your Avios by a factor of 2. That is a significant change.

It’s worth saying that you can also utilise a BA companion voucher (but not the Barclays voucher) on Iberia and Aer Lingus. It is, however, very difficult to find availability. Even more so than BA flights.

Avios points are “worth” more on last-minute flights

If you need to fly somewhere in the next week or two, then you’ll likely see cash fares that are much higher than booking months into the future. However, if there is availability to book using Avios points, then you’ll pay the same for a flight next week versus one six months in the future. That will boost the value of your points significantly.

The added value of flexibility

When you book a flight using Avios, or indeed most airlines’ frequent flyer schemes, then you have the ability to cancel the flight and get most of your money and points back. British Airways levies a £35 charge per person for a cancelled booking.

That flexibility has a value. You can lock in a flight even if you haven’t firmed up your plans yet, knowing that cancellation will be easy. It also means you can hedge your bets and book one flight, hoping an alternative, or a higher cabin, becomes available.

It is harder to quantify the value of that flexibility. For some travellers, it’s simply useful if you need to change your plans at the last minute. For others, it is highly valuable as you can hedge by booking a flight, and then cancelling (and rebooking) on a better alternative.

Examples of valuing Avios points

A real-world example of extreme Avios value

We missed a flight recently and were temporarily stranded in Bangkok. In our defence, it was due to the flooding. A one-hour taxi ride took four hours, and we arrived just as our plane was due to take off.

Qatar cancelled both legs of our journey. That included the Doha to Manchester leg, which wasn’t due to depart for another 20 hours. That was frustrating as we had multiple other ways to get to Doha for that. Rules are rules.

The Avios gods were smiling upon us. We were able to book seats in Business using Avios. We arrived back in Manchester at exactly the same time as our original flight. The cash cost came to around £17,000. We got both flights for just under £1.5k and around 300,000 points.

The amusing part, although it certainly didn’t feel like that when we booked it, was that our second leg from Doha to Manchester saw us fly in exactly the same plane. We were also in the same seats as our original booking. We ended up paying for the same flight, and the same seats, twice over.

Example 1 – Avios value for a couple flying short-haul in Economy or Business

In this example, a couple want to have a weekend trip to Madrid, flying from London. They do not have a companion voucher, and just want to use up some Avios and get something from their relatively low balance. Flying out on a Friday and back on a Monday in March, their ideal dates happen to be “off-peak”, which reduces the points needed marginally.

• Flying Club Europe (Business Class) would cost 88,000 points in total, with £80 cash.
• Flying Euro Traveller (Economy) would be 52,000 points and £10 in cash.

The actual cost of paying for those flights is currently:

• £350.70 in Economy, in the cheapest seats that include checked baggage.
• £634.70 in Business, flying in the cheapest seats at sensible times.

That means that the Avios are valued at 0.63p for Business and 0.65p for Economy. That calculation takes the total cash cost, subtracts the cash element of the Avios booking, and divides the remainder by the Avios points needed. I then multiply by 100 to get the per pence rather than the pound.

Using a companion voucher significantly increases the value. By halving the number of points needed, you are almost doubling the value. I say almost, as the cash element of the Avios booking remains. The value per point increases to 1.31p for Economy and 1.26p for Business.

Example 2 – A family flying to New York in Business or First

In this example, a family of four wants to fly to New York in Business Class. They want to fly for a week-long break over Easter, taking advantage of some of the limited off-peak dates.

• Flying Club World (Business) from Heathrow to NYC would cost 748,000 points and £1,996 in taxes for four people.

Looking at the same outbound and inbound flights, the cheapest business class tickets are £11,722. That gives you a value of 1.3p per Avios point. A significant uplift versus the first intra-Europe example.

If you were to use two companion vouchers, that would reduce the points needed to 374,000. That increases the points value to 2.6p per Avios.

What type of routes, and which cabins, give you the most value from your Avios?

This is an easy question to answer. In almost all cases, you will get more value from flying in a higher cabin (so business and First) and on long-haul flights. That value comes from both the experience and the actual cash value of a ticket.

This then increases if you book a last-minute ticket. Cash fares for a flight in a few days’ time are typically much higher than when you book months out, yet the Avios required for those seats remains the same no matter when you book.

This then plays into decisions you may make around vouchers. The Barclays voucher, for example, cannot be used in First. The Companion Voucher from the free British Airways Amex card can only be used in economy. Neither stops you from booking seats in a particular cabin using Avios; you just can’t use a voucher to reduce the number of points needed.