Can I earn Avios and British Airways tier points if I fly with Vueling?

In this article we’ll look at how you can earn Avios and British Airways tier points by flying with Vueling, and whether it’s worth it compared to flying British Airways.

Vueling is a Spanish-based low-cost airline equivalent to easyJet or Ryanair that belongs to International Airlines Group (IAG), which also owns British Airways and Iberia.

There are three ways of earning Avios with Vueling.

Option 1: Earn Avios with Vueling Club

It is possible to earn Avios on Vueling via Vueling Club, their frequent flyer program, which also uses the Avios rewards currency. This makes it very convenient for earning Avios and crediting them to your Executive Club account.  This is the logical option for most people.

Unlike British Airways and Iberia, you earn Avios per € spent rather than per mile flown. This makes it a revenue-based system.

As you can see on the Vueling website here, you earn 2 Avios per €1 spent on a Basic fare and 4 Avios per €1 on all other fare classes.

You need to open a Vueling Club account on the website.  Once your flight has been taken, Avios will be added to your account.  You can access this account via avios.com and use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move the points to British Airways Executive Club.

Option 2: Earn Avios via BA Executive Club if you book via ba.com

Some Vueling flights are codeshares with British Airways.  This means that they can be booked via ba.com and your flight will carry a British Airways flight code.

In this case you will earn Avios directly in your British Airways Executive Club account and earn tier points.  Fares are likely to be higher than you will find at vueling.com however.

When you book or manage your flights with Vueling, you will be able to add your British Airways Executive Club number. Upon completion of your flights you will automatically be credited the correct Avios.

Option 3: Earn Avios in Iberia Plus

If you book Optima fares on Vueling, you can choose to earn Avios using a traditional miles-based system rather than based on spending.

To do so, you must use an Iberia Plus account number, though you can later transfer your Avios to your British Airways Executive Club account using the free ‘Combine my Avios’ tool.

These are the earning rates:

Vueling flight carrying an Iberia (IB) flight number:

• Economy Flexible – 1 Avios per mile flown (min 500)
• Economy Classic – 0.5 Avios per mile flown (min 250)
• Economy Basic – 0.25 Avios per mile flown (min 125)

…. and on flights with a Vueling (VY) flight number:

• Economy Flexible – 1 Avios per mile flown (min 500)
• Optima Class – 0.5 Avios per mile flown (min 250)
• Basic Class – 0.25 Avios per mile flown (min 125)

Depending on your flight length and ticket cost, it may make more sense to use the Iberia Plus earning rates rather than the revenue-based system that Vueling normally offers. Unfortunately, you need to do the maths for every flight to find out which would earn you more, as there is no easy blanket statement for which will earn you more Avios.

Do I earn British Airways tier points when flying Vueling?

No.

Despite belonging to the same group of companies as British Airways, you will not earn any British Airways tier points flying Vueling.

This is because Vueling is not a member of the oneworld airline alliance.  The same situation applies to Aer Lingus and LEVEL, both of which are also sister airlines of British Airways.

(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.)

---

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.