How to Transfer Avios between Qatar Airways and British Airways
Now that Qatar Airways Privilege Club has stopped using Qmiles as its currency and adopted Avios, we assumed that you would be able to easily transfer your Avios from your account at Qatar to British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus. There’s now an easy way to transfer your Avios between accounts with Qatar Airways and British Airways. After doing this, you can transfer from British Airways to Iberia or Aer Lingus. Hopefully, this extra step will soon go away.
Here’s how to conduct the Avios transfers. Remember that you can earn a nice little $25+ bonus for setting up a Qatar Avios account too.
Link Your Accounts Using the Qatar Airways Site
When I logged into my Privilege Club account, I was greeted by this pop-up with information about Avios and prompting me to link my Qatar Airways and British Airways accounts, which makes the transfer possible.
After clicking “next” until the final (fourth) page, I got this screen.
If you don’t see these pop-ups or just want to head straight to the page to link accounts, try this link.
The next step prompted me to link my accounts and took me to the British Airways page to enter my user name and password. From here, I needed to receive a text message to confirm my identity.
Oddly, it asked for my phone number, rather than simply sending the code to the number on my account. After this, I got a long code to copy/paste back to the Qatar Airways site.
That was the last step, and then I got a confirmation that my accounts were linked.
Transfer Avios Between Qatar and British Airways – Qatar Site
Now that my accounts are linked, I can transfer Avios between the Qatar Airways Privilege Club and British Airways Executive Club. This is free and instant. I hold no status with either program, and it worked flawlessly.
Once your accounts are linked, you can head to this page to start a transfer.
At the bottom of the page, look for “Combine Avios”.
I first tried a transfer of just 1 Avios from British Airways to Qatar Airways. I wanted to see if there is a minimum transfer amount. Surprisingly, the transfer went through. That tells me you can move any number of Avios you want. It doesn’t need to be in blocks of 1,000 or “at least” a certain amount.
You can see that I now I have 1 Avios in my Qatar Airways account, and then I completed another instant transfer to send this back to British Airways.
On both transfers, I received a One-Time Passcode (OTP) via email and text message to confirm my identity before processing the transfer.
Link Your Accounts Using the British Airways Site
You can do the same process starting from the British Airways website. Log into your Executive Club account and head to this link.
You will see the option to link your British Airways account to Qatar Airways, which is what you need before you can transfer Avios.
You will be taken to this page, where you can enter your Qatar Airways Privilege Club information to link the accounts.
For me, the process felt exactly like the process above when I started on the Qatar Airways page. This time, it went even faster, since I had already completed the process on Qatar’s page.
Transfer Avios Between Qatar and British Airways – British Airways Site
Now that your accounts are linked, you can freely move your points between your accounts with BA and Qatar Airways.
Simply put in the number of Avios you want to move, which direction to move them, and it should happen instantly (assuming you have the required number of Avios.
One thing I liked better when doing the transfers on Qatar’s page is that it showed me real-time account balances. British Airways’ page didn’t show me that.
Again, I could easily move just 1 Avios without restrictions, delays, quantity limits, etc.
Final Thoughts
As expected, Qatar Airways adopting Avios as its mileage currency means you can transfer Avios freely to British Airways. We hope this is just the first step and that transfers to Iberia and Aer Lingus will be coming soon.
Until then, you’ll need to take an extra step. You can transfer Qatar Airways -> British Airways -> Iberia or Aer Lingus. The same is true in reverse, where you can transfer Iberia or Aer Lingus -> British Airways -> Qatar Airways.
For details on how to do these transfers, see here: How To Transfer Avios Between Programs For Free.
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I transferred from Qatar but the miles aren’t showing up in my BA account yet. How long does it typically take?
It should be instant.
I transferred from Qatar to BA, but don’t see them in my BA Account.
I keep getting errors on birthday mismatch even though they are correct.