British Airways moves to revenue-based Avios earning

Frequent flyers on British Airways will notice a significant change to how their Avios reward miles are tallied from today, with the Oneworld airline switching from its long-held calculation based on the distance you fly to how much you spend instead.

The number of Avios earned by Executive Club members now factors in the price of your ticket, along with additional spending on the likes of upgrades, pre-paid seat selection and excess baggage, at a rate of between six and nine Avios per £1 spent.

Many airlines have made a similar shift from miles-based earning to revenue-based earning, and the happiest of high flyers are those who typically travel in business or first class.

Naturally, passengers who sit further towards the back of the plane and rely on discounted tickets stand to be worse off.

The number of Avios per £1 is also geared according to the traveller’s Tier status in the Executive Club:

• Blue members receive 6 Avios per qualifying £1 spent
• Bronze members receive 7 Avios per qualifying £1 spent
• Silver members receive 8 Avios per qualifying £1 spent
• Gold members receive 9 Avios per qualifying £1 spent

What hasn’t changed, BA says, is “the way you spend your Avios or collect Tier Points.” 

An Avios analysis

As a practical example, British Airways’ Kangaroo Route from London to Sydney via Singapore is a trip of 10,672 miles, for which an Executive Club Gold member travelling on a flexible business class ticket – which currently costs around £7700 today – previously earned 37,051 Avios.

Now, that same flight earns 69,300 Avios (almost twice as many as before) based on that £7700 fare and a 9x Avios multiplier based on the passenger’s Gold status.

However, the Avios earn on shorter trips into Europe – which are more commonly done in economy, especially when top-tier frequent flyers already enjoy status perks such as lounge access and priority boarding – have taken a hit.

The same Gold-grade BA frequent flyer making the 1h45m dash between London and Frankfurt on the lowest-priced economy ticket – costing around £50 – now lands just 450 Avios under the new revenue-based model, versus the previous 625.

While that 175 Avios shortfall – or 350 Avios on a return trip – is not a large amount in itself, you can appreciate how frequent flyers regularly doing these UK-EU hops stand to lose out in the long run.

Business class travellers on long-range international trips will come out ahead in the Avios overhaul.

The new Avios-earning scheme is ironically of extra benefit to premium cabin travellers saddled with the current slew of high airfares, while pushing down the Avios haul of anybody who snares a heavily-discounted sale fare, even in business class.

BA describes the Avios-per-pound model as “a more consistent and clearer approach” to earning points which can later be turned into upgrades or free flights.

“This is a simpler and more transparent system offering more opportunities to collect Avios than ever before and rewarding loyalty based on customers’ cash spend,” said Ian Romanis, British Airways’ Director of Retail and Customer Relationship Management.

The same approach was adopted by British Airways' sister airline Iberia in 2022.

British Airways notes that flights marketed by other airline partners – such as Oneworld members including Qatar Airways, which also uses Avios – continue to collect Avios “based on how far you fly, the cabin you fly in and your Executive Club Tier level.”

BA has a detailed explainer online at britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/faqs/collecting-avios-changes.