How many Avios will I earn from my British Airways flight?

In this article we’ll look at how you can work out how many Avios you will earn when you fly on British Airways.

Avios are calculated by route length, and the amount you earn depends on your fare class. As a general rule, the further you fly and the higher your class of travel the more Avios you get.

Here are the rates when you fly with British Airways.  Other airline partners have different rates which you can see on the airline partner page of ba.com here.

The letters below relate to your underlying ticket type.  Don’t worry if you don’t know what this is.

Economy lowest – Q, O, G – 25% of miles flown

Economy low – K, L, M, N, S, V – 50%

Economy flexible – Y, B, H – 100%

Premium Economy lowest – E, T – 100%

Premium Economy flexible – W – 150%

Business lowest – R, I – 150%

Business flexible – J, C, D – 250%

First lowest – A – 250%

First flexible – F – 300%

Do you earn an Avios status bonus?

Additionally, it is possible to earn bonus Avios at a rate of 25%, 50% and 100% for Executive Club Bronze, Silver and Gold members respectively.

Status members do not earn a tier bonus with all British Airways airline partners, so don’t assume you will get this if you credit a flight on another oneworld airline to British Airways Executive Club.

For example, a one-way flight from London Heathrow to New York JFK (3458 miles) would earn you:

Flying economy low (non-refundable ticket), no BA status:

1729 Avios – 50% of miles flown

Total: 1729 Avios, a total of 50% of miles flown.

Flying business flex (refundable ticket) with an Executive Club Silver card:

8645 base Avios – 250% of miles flown

1729 additional Avios status bonus – 50% of miles flown

Total: 10,375 Avios, a total of 300% of miles flown.

Note that Avios earning rates are always based on miles flown. The maximum earning rate of Avios per mile flown is four:  this would apply if you fly on a flexible First ticket (300% rate) and hold an Executive Club Gold card (100%).

British Airways has an online calculator which can give you a similar calculation for any flight you are planning.  Click here for the BA Avios calculator.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.4 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories and click here to join the mailing list for our weekly or daily email newsletters.)

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also good bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These are available to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.