Collect Avios – 7 easy ways to power up your balance.

How many ways to collect Avios points do you know of? Check out our article on the different ways to collect Avios to ensure that you are not missing out on any opportunities to make the very most of your earning potential!

What are Avios points?

We will go on to look at the various ways to collect Avios points further on in the article below. For now though, let’s look at a brief explanation of what they are before we go on to look at how to earn Avios points.

Avios points are the loyalty currency used by various airlines in the oneworld alliance, most notably British Airways. They can be spent in a few different ways such as on flights, hotel stays, or hire cars (or combinations of the three via British Airways Holidays). The very best value will usually be to spend them on flights or flight upgrades, especially in premium economy, business class, or first class.

_{Disclosure : this article may contain affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase or booking via links in the article, I may receive a small commission which can help the blog to grow.}

Avios is a made up word, usually pronounced ah-vee-OSS (although this is debatable!). Most people will use the Avios app to collect, spend, store and keep track of their points. Let’s have a look at some of the different ways to collect Avios points . . .

Collect Avios with credit card spend and sign-up bonuses

Earning Avios with credit card spending is probably the best way to earn Avios. By signing up to an Avios earning card and running all of your spending through it, you will constantly be accumulating points.

Factor in sign-up bonuses, and you can bolster your balance even further.

Remember, DO NOT use points earning or voucher targets as a reason to overspend! ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS pay your statements on time and in full, otherwise the value of any points earned will be obliterated by the interest charges you accrue.

_{N.B. these are my own opinions and thoughts, and should not be taken as financial advice. Make sure to do your own due diligence!}

Before applying for any card, it is highly recommended to find a good eligibility checker first to ensure that your credit report is not hit with a rejected application being placed on your file. Look for one that only does a soft search on your credit file. 

Check your eligibility for airline rewards credit cards with Money Saving Expert here

Let’s have a look at American Express’ two Avios earning cards below :

Additionally, American Express has other cards such as their free Rewards Card which earn AmEx membership rewards (MR) points, which you can then exchange out to Avios points. Click here for increased referral offers on Amex’s other offerings.

In the AmEx app, there are regular offers, either for cashback or offers that allow you to collect Avios via spending at specific retailers, as shown above.

Barclays are another bank with whom you can collect Avios, and have two Mastercard credit card offerings with which you can collect Avios points :

Additionally with Barclays, those who earn £75,000 per year or more can open a Barclays Premier current account and earn 1500 Avios per month at a cost of £12 per month. Effectively you are buying Avios at 1.25p per point, although the account has various other perks included.

Whether you choose the AmEx or Barclays to collect Avios, you will find that with the paid cards your balance does tend to shoot up a lot more quickly. Whether the annual fee makes this worth it is something you may want to consider. For more detail on the BA Premium Plus AmEx card, read our in depth review below :

Review : Is the British Airways Premium Plus AmEx worth getting? – All Points To Travel

Collect Avios by converting Nectar points

Nectar is a UK reward currency which can be earned via a few different retailers. The most significant being Sainsbury’s, Argos, and Esso.

A Nectar point is earned at a rate of 1 point per £1 spent (or one point per litre of fuel bought at Esso). Points can be converted via the Nectar app at a rate of 250 Avios per 400 Nectar points.

Redeeming Nectar points in Sainsbury’s will only get you 0.5p per point in value, hence it is well worth converting them to Avios as they have the potential to be worth upwards of 1p per point when spent on flights.

A golden rule applies here… do not go miles out of your way to by fuel at Esso and groceries at Sainsbury’s just for a few pence worth of points!

The Nectar app will give weekly bonus offers for buying certain things at Sainsbury’s, but again don’t be tempted into buying things you don’t need…

Collect Avios with airlines

Earning Avios via airline spend is another great way to collect Avios. How many Avios you earn per flight will vary between carriers, and the rate will usually be higher in premium cabins.

British Airways is part of an airline alliance called oneworld. You can earn Avios by booking flights on member airlines.

Airlines in the oneworld alliance are as follows (in alphabetical order) :

At the time of writing Oman Air is slated to join the alliance on 30th June 2025.

When you book and take flights with any of these airlines, you will be able to earn Avios points, which can be transferred between the loyalty schemes of the different oneworld carriers. You will need to sign up for the airline’s loyalty scheme and enter your membership number when booking (on some you may be able to enter your British Airways Club number).

Fill up at BP to collect Avios

Via the BPme app, you can collect points which you can convert to Avios via their app. The earning is 1 point per litre again, and the conversion rate is also exactly the same as Nectar.

You will need to link your account to your British Airways Club Account in the app.

The app often has bonus offers, especially if you haven’t filled up at BP for a while, in which case the algorithm seems to trigger offers to entice you back.

Again, make sure not to pay over the odds for fuel or travel miles out of your way solely to pick up a few pence worth of points.

Collect Avios by filling in surveys

Avios for Thoughts is a service whereby you can earn Avios by completing online surveys. Often there is a bonus award for completing your first survey, hence it’s usually worth doing at least one just for the welcome bonus. The points for each survey appear almost instantly in the Avios app with a pleasant party popper animation.

I once earned 5,000 points for a week long survey with some extremely easy diary tasks which were done by SMS. In general however, the surveys range from a couple of minutes all the way to 30 minutes, with earning rates 20-80 Avios. Some of the surveys can be quite dull, and the process can quickly become tedious.

Whether the time spent on each survey is worth it for just a few pence worth of points is debatable. However, if you are just a few points short for a particular flight redemption it could be worth firing out a couple of surveys to make up the shortfall.

The British Airways Shopping Portal

You can earn Avios as a form of cashback via the Avios app itself by going to ‘collect points’ at the bottom of the screen (see screenshot below), or you can shop through British Airways using the desktop website.

You can earn Avios via clicks through to various consumer sites, and can earn points on hire cars, hotels, insurance, luxury goods, and clothing.

You can also register some or all of your payment cards in the app, and these will automatically track with some retailers when you make in store purchases. The range of in store retailers is far more limited (as well as being very London-centric), however we did recently earn a nice chunk of points following a meal at The Ivy.

In all honesty, as a means to collect Avios I have found the BA Shopping Portal to be quite unreliable in terms of tracking the purchases. Additionally, customer services’ response to missing points queries can be very slow. As an example, I had 1400 points from Hotels.com which did not track, and it has taken six months to finally get them!

As a cashback earning method I much prefer TopCashback as the tracking is more reliable, and customer service response (if you do have to chase missing transactions) is more reliable.

Although you can no longer convert your cashback to Avios through TopCashback (you used to be able to), you could always keep your cashback to put toward cash spend on flights and holidays, or just buy Avios with it.

If you sign up to TopCashback with my referral link you’ll receive a £10 bonus on your first purchase through their app.

Earn Avios through Uber journeys

This is another great way to collect Avios points. Using the Uber app, you will need to locate the account settings, in which there is a feature to connect your Avios account.

Once you have done this you will earn 1 Avios per £1 spent, which includes taxi rides and train or coach bookings (including Eurostar).

Not only this, but with train and coach bookings you will also get 10% cashback in Uber credits too!

In my experience the tracking is totally reliable, and the points appear in your Avios account almost instantly!

Final thoughts…

I hope this article has given you some new ideas in your quest to maximise the methods by which you collect Avios.

I’ve found pushing all our monthly spend through an Avios earning credit card to be the most lucrative of these, along with initial credit card sign up bonus point offers of course.

If you sign up for the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card using our referral link you will receive an additional 1,000 points on top of the usual welcome offer. Check the link for increased sign up bonuses on the other AmEx cards too.

You can read our full review of the American Express British Airways Premium Plus credit card here

You can read our other articles about points and loyalty here