Qatar’s buy Avios sale now has a 60% bonus, and it ends tonight

Qatar Airways is running a buy Avios sale with a bonus of up to 60%, and today is the last day. The offer closes at 23:59 Doha time, which is 9:59pm UK time tonight!

Sorry we didn't get round to covering this one sooner...

The offer

• Promotion period: 15 October to 19 October 2026 (23:59 Doha time, 9:59pm UK)

• Where to buy: Here!

• Eligibility: Privilege Club members who have "earned" at least 1 Avios since joining

• Minimum purchase: 5,000 Avios to get a bonus

Avios purchased	Bonus	Effective price per Avios
5,000	30%	around 1.69p
6,000 to 10,000	30%	around 1.50p
11,000 to 20,000	30%	around 1.42p
21,000 to 40,000	50%	around 1.23p
42,000+	60%	around 1.09p

Prices are in pounds and include all fees.

Here are some examples for you.

Avios bought	Cost	Total with bonus
5,000	£110.00	6,500
10,000	£195.00	13,000
20,000	£370.00	26,000
30,000	£555.00	45,000
42,000	£735.00	67,200
50,000	£875.00	80,000
100,000	£1,750.00	160,000
150,000	£2,625.00	240,000

What you need before you can buy

Qatar won’t let you buy Avios into an empty account, so you'll need at least 1 Avios in there first.

If your Qatar account is already linked to BA, move a few Avios across from your British Airways Club account on the Avios website. It’s instant and free, and you’re ready to buy.

If you don’t have a Qatar account yet, BA can’t help you tonight. As we covered in May, Qatar now makes you wait 30 days between opening an account and linking it to BA.

But if you have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points, there’s a way round it. Open a Privilege Club account, link it on the Amex website, and transfer 500 points across, which is the minimum. Transfers are instant, so as soon as you see Avios in your account, you're good to go!

The catch is that whatever you buy stays in your Qatar account until the 30 days are up and you can link to BA. You can still book Avios flights on qatarairways.com in the meantime, including BA flights, so it’s only a problem if you specifically need them in your BA account in the next month.

If you have neither, I would still recommend that you open a Privilege Club account anyway. The 30-day clock starts when the account exists, and Qatar runs these sales a few times a year, so you'll be ready for the next one.

Moving the Avios to BA

Avios bought from Qatar thankfully aren’t stuck there for good. Once your accounts are linked, you can move them to your British Airways Club account instantly, and for free, via the Avios website.

If you’re the sort of person who buys points now and again, I’d also leave 100 Avios sitting in your Qatar and Finnair accounts. Qatar needs 1 and Finnair needs 50 before you can buy in a sale, so keeping a small balance in each means you’re never panicking to get things set up when you need to buy.

Can buying Avios get you a flight for less than the cash fare?

Sometimes, yes. Here’s an example of when it works if your BA and Qatar accounts are linked.

BA is selling London to the Maldives in Club World for £5,157, leaving 9 December and back on 23 December, home in time for Christmas. The same flights with Avios cost 209,000 Avios plus £599 in taxes.

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If you don’t have that many Avios already, you can buy them in this sale and still come out well below the cash price:

• Buy 135,000 Avios through Qatar at the 60% bonus for £2,362.50. This gets you 216,000 Avios

• Transfer them to BA

• Book the flights: 209,000 Avios plus £599 taxes

• Total spent: £2,961.50

That’s £2,195 less than paying cash for the same seats, with 7,000 Avios left over, which you could use on a Pizza Express voucher for dinner tomorrow?

This isn’t risk free. If you’re going for the last Avios seat on a flight, it could be gone by the time you’ve bought and moved your Avios, leaving you with a large balance and nowhere to go with it. I found these seats using the new Avios reward seat calendar, but do be aware of the slight risk involved.

Should you buy at all?

Our usual answer, from should I buy Avios?, still stands: probably not, unless you have a specific redemption in mind.

1.09p is an okay rate for bought Avios. One better way for some people is Balance Boost. This lets you multiply Avios already in your BA account for as little as 0.92p each. The catch is you can only boost what you’ve already earned, so if your balance is small, there’s not much to multiply.

Buying makes sense if you’re a few thousand short for a specific booking, or if you use Avios to pay for flights you’d otherwise have bought in cash, like the Maldives example.

Remember, you have until 9:59pm tonight. You can buy Avios here.

Sam

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