Avios Balance Boost: How It Works, How Much It Costs, & When It's Worth It
- Helena
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Balance Boost lets you multiply recently earned Avios from your British Airways Club account for as little as 0.92p per point—up to 62% cheaper than buying Avios outright.
If you're short on Avios for a redemption, need points quickly, or can't earn enough through flying and credit card spend alone, boosting Avios can bridge the gap faster and cheaper than most alternatives.
But Balance Boost isn't right for everyone. Used strategically, it's one of the best ways to top up your account. Used carelessly, you're just converting cash into points you might not actually need.
Here's how Avios boosting works, what it costs, and when it actually makes sense to use it.
What is boosting your Avios?
Balance Boost allows you to increase Avios you’ve already earned by paying a cash fee. Instead of buying Avios outright in set amount, Balance Boost allows you select recent transactions and multiply the points earned from them.
Eligible transactions from the last 30 days can be boosted by one, two or three times, with the boosted Avios landing in your account shortly after payment.
How Avios boosting works
It's simple:
Log in to the Avios website, and go to "Collect Avios"
Find "Purchase, boost & subscribe", and then go to "Boost Your Avios"
Choose from eligible transactions (flights, credit cards, shopping, sign-up bonuses, etc.)
Select your boost level:
100% increase
200% increase
300% increase
Pay for the boost
Avios are credited within three days, but often appear faster
Outside of boosting or buying Avios, most earning routes involve delays and aren't as quick.
Which Avios transactions can be boosted?
Boost Avios applies to a broad mix of everyday earning, including:
Avios earned from flights, including British Airways, Qatar Airways, Iberia etc
Uber rides
Amex and Barclaycard Avios credit card earnings (this can be a great one to boost)
Avios Shopping portal transactions (including bonuses)
Barclays Premier Banking Avios rewards
Credit Card welcome bonuses (HUGE!)
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What’s excluded
Now for the boring bits! Here's what you cannot boost:
Nectar-to-Avios transfers
Avios gifted or transferred from another person
Avios you’ve already bought
Avios earned with non-BA airline partners
Avios boosted at checkout on Avios Hotels
Each transaction can only be boosted once, which limits how useful this is as a long-term, repeat strategy.
How much does boosting your Avios cost?
Pricing depends on how aggressively you boost, for your first 300,000 Avios, the rates are as such:
Boost Level | Effective Rate | Cost per Avios |
300% | 109 Avios per £1 | ~0.92p |
200% | 106 Avios per £1 | ~0.94p |
100% | 104 Avios per £1 | ~0.96p |
The differences aren’t huge, but the larger the boost, the cheaper each Avios becomes. In theory! As we saw last week with the 500% offer, the largest boost option had a worse cost per Avios than 400% and 300%! In part due to the fact that for me, it would take me over the 300,000 figure for boosting, so anything over that amount is at a worse rate! Boooooo!
If you wished to go over 300,000, then the rate worsens as such:
Boost Level | Effective Rate | Cost per Avios |
300% | 56 Avios per £1 | ~1.77p |
200% | 56 Avios per £1 | ~1.77p |
100% | 56 Avios per £1 | ~1.77p |
Regardless of boost level, once you go over 300,000 Avios in a year, you'll pay 1.77p per Avios for any amount above that threshold.
How many Avios can you boost?
There no cap on how many Avios you can boost - you can keep boosting beyond 300,000 Avios per year, but the pricing becomes worse once you cross that threshold to 1.17p per Avios.
The 300,000 figure is really a "sweet spot limit" where you get the best rates (around 0.92p-0.96p per Avios).
Boosting Avios vs Buying Avios: Cost comparison
Even when Avios runs promotions, boosting is significantly cheaper than buying points outright.
Avios Amount | Buy Avios | Boost Avios | Saving |
2,000 Avios | ~2.45p per Avios | ~0.92p | ~62% cheaper |
10,000 Avios | ~1.95p per Avios | ~0.92p | ~52% cheaper |
100,000 Avios | ~1.78p per Avios | ~0.92p | ~48% cheaper |
Boosting also avoids minimum purchase issues. Buying Avios requires set quantities; whereas boosting lets you customise exactly what you need, even if that’s a small amount.
Do you earn Avios when you boost?
No.
If you wish to earn Avios, when you'll have to pay with an Avios-earning credit card.
British Airways American Express' and Barclaycard Avios cards earn at their standard rate
You won’t earn British Airways card bonus rate for BA spend, as the transaction isn’t processed directly by British Airways
Can you boost Avios from Amex Membership Rewards transfers?
I love this one. Yes. Transfers from Amex Membership Rewards into Avios count as eligible transactions and can be boosted. As do credit card sign up bonuses!
If you were planning to transfer anyway, this can quietly improve the value of that move.
When boosting your Avios makes sense
Boosting Avios works best when:
You’re just short of a redemption
Reward availability has opened and timing matters
You don’t earn Avios frequently through flights
You need fewer than 2,000 Avios, where buying doesn’t help
In short: when you have a clear plan for how the Avios will be used. We always encourage you to have a plan and a strategy in place, not to hoard unnecessarily.
When you should think twice
If you haven't earned any Avios recently, that means you'll have nothing to boost
You can’t boost the same transaction twice
Stockpiling Avios without a redemption can be dangerous when we think about devaluation. British Airways devalued their Avios pricing in December 2025 so it's unlikely we will be on the receiving end of another one soon but you never know!
Cheap Avios are still poor value if redeemed badly
The bottom line
Boosting Avios is one of the cheapest ways to acquire Avios, and one of the few methods that works almost instantly.
Used selectively, it can unlock excellent value, especially for high-end redemptions or time-sensitive bookings. Used casually, it’s just another way of converting cash into a loyalty currency that can (and will) change.
As ever with points: the value isn’t in how cheaply you acquire them, but in how well you redeem them.
Helena
Points Well Made is a passion project of Sam and Helena with a loyal following. If you like what we do, and wish to help us continue to create the content you love, please consider buying us a Kofi, or subscribing monthly. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
