Aer Lingus, British Airways, and Iberia share a common rewards currency: Avios. Strangely, despite sharing a currency, each program has its own loyalty program with different award charts and rules. Since they are partners, it’s often possible to book the same flights with any one of these programs, but your cost will vary (both in number of points required and fuel surcharges).
Sometimes British Airways is best:
- Use BA Avios to fly Aer Lingus from Montreal to Dublin for only 12.5K economy or 37.5K business class one-way
- Fly around Japan for 4.5K each way with British Airways Avios
Sometimes Iberia is best:
- From 11K RT on American: A sweet spot for North American flight redemptions
- Searching for business class sweet-spots in Iberia’s OneWorld award chart
There are probably some situations where Aer Lingus is best too.
Fortunately, it’s easy to move points from one to another so that you can book your award from the program that charges the least. Here’s how…
Preparation
Before you can move points around, you’ll need to open an account with each program. Here are the links for signing up:
Important! Make sure to enter all of your personal information (name, email, birth date, address, phone) exactly the same way with each program.
If you want to move points to/from Iberia, note these additional requirements:
- You cannot move points to/from Iberia within 90 days of joining the Iberia Plus program. So, this is a good reason to enroll in Iberia Plus now, even if you don’t have any immediate need for it.
- Your Iberia account must have had some activity within the past 36 months (points earned or redeemed). An easy option is to transfer 1,000 points from Amex Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards.
- If moving points from Iberia to British Airways, your British Airways account cannot be a household account (but you may be able to get around this by transferring points first to Aer Lingus and then to British Airways).
Pick your favorite website for the transfer
When moving points between programs, you can use either the website of the program you are transferring from, or the program you are transferring to. If you encounter problems with one, try the other! Here are links to each program’s “Combine my Avios” page:
- Aer Lingus (via Avios.com): Click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page (you’ll have to log in with your Aer Lingus credentials)
- British Airways Executive Club: Click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page (you’ll have to log in with your BA credentials).
- Iberia Plus: After logging into Iberia Plus, click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page.
Once you get one of the above sites working, you should be able to use that one site for all of your transfers if you want to. For example, you can use the Avios.com (Aer Lingus) site to move points from BA to Iberia, but it would require two steps: 1. Move points from BA to Aer Lingus; and 2. Move points from Aer Lingus to Iberia. This is great because the other websites are known to be buggy (especially the BA site).
The rest of this post goes into details about moving points using each website…
Using the Avios website to transfer Avios between Aer Lingus, BA, and Iberia
The capability to move Avios around isn’t found on the Aer Lingus website. Instead, you should use your Aer Lingus AerClub credentials to log into Avios.com.
Once you’ve logged into Avios.com, go to “My Account”, then to “Combine my Avios”:
Aer Lingus/Avios.com Shortcut: Click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page (you’ll have to log in with your Aer Lingus credentials)
Once you find your way to the Combine My Avios page, simply select the program you want to move points from or to, log into that program, then enter the number of points you want to transfer. Done!
Using the British Airways website to transfer Avios between Aer Lingus, BA, and Iberia
The BA website makes it very easy to move points around once you find the option to do so. Here’s how:
Log into your BA Executive Club account, then click Manage my account…
On the next screen, click: Combine my Avios:
BA Shortcut: click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page (you’ll have to log in).
Once you find your way to the Combine My Avios page, simply select the program you want to move points from or to, log into that program, then enter the number of points you want to transfer. Done!
Using the Iberia Plus website to transfer Avios between Aer Lingus, BA, and Iberia
The Iberia website is a good choice for moving points around. The only hard part is finding the option in the first place! Here’s how:
Log into your Iberia Plus account, then hover the mouse over the “Iberia Plus” tab, and click on “Buying or transferring Avios“.
Next, scroll to the bottom to find a link that says “Don’t forget you can combine your Avios with those of other customer loyalty programmes.>>”
Iberia Shortcut: After logging into Iberia Plus, click this link to get to the Combine my Avios page.
Once you find your way to the Combine My Avios page, simply click the “Combine my Avios” button, select the program you want to move points from or to, log into that program, then enter the number of points you want to transfer. Done!
