How many Avios do you need? We built the only calculator that compares every Avios airline, in one search

How many Avios do you actually need for a flight? It depends. British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Finnair, Qatar Airways and Loganair all use the Avios, but they charge wildly different amounts for the same route. Comparing them properly has, until now, meant clicking through different award charts and hoping you've worked it out correctly.

So we built a tool that does it for you. The Avios Calculator: All Six Airlines, One Search compares how many Avios you need, across every Avios airline in a single search, and as far as we can tell, it's the only tool of its kind on the internet.

It works across the entire world (not just for Avios flights from the UK), for multiple passengers, in all cabins, on one-ways and returns, and even handles BA Amex Companion Vouchers.

If you are completely new to all of this, our Free Avios Guide is a great 40-page guide on earning, transferring and using Avios that will get you up to speed before you even open the calculator.

Five comparisons that show why we made it

Dublin to Boston, off-peak economy

Aer Lingus charges 13,000 Avios. British Airways via London charges 37,500. The same destination, the same Avios, almost three times the cost depending on which airline you book through.

London to Sydney, off-peak business

British Airways direct: 159,500 Avios. Qatar via Doha: 90,000. The Qatar routing is slightly longer, but you save 69,500 Avios on a one-way ticket. That is most of the way to another long-haul redemption.

London to Tokyo, off-peak, different winner in different cabins

Economy: Iberia at 34,750 Avios beats BA at 38,500, Qatar at 40,000 and Finnair at 42,000. Business: Qatar via Doha at 80,000 beats Finnair at 80,500 and smashes BA at 110,000. Same route, same dates, the cheapest answer changes depending on which seat you want.

Madrid to Dubai, business class, peak versus off-peak

Same flight, same seat, just a different date. Off-peak Qatar via Doha is 45,000 Avios; peak is 66,000. A 21,000 Avios swing for moving your trip by a week or two. The calculator's Season toggle makes the difference visible in one click. You can find information in the FAQ's regarding peak/off-peak dates.

London to New York, family of four with two BA Amex vouchers

Off-peak economy on BA is 27,500 Avios per passenger. Four passengers comes to 110,000 Avios. Add two Premium Plus Companion Vouchers, and the total drops to 55,000. But when you put it through the Avios Calculator, you'll see that Aer Lingus and Iberia are even cheaper than that. The calculator does all the working out for you, just toggle the voucher count in advanced options and the price recalculates for BA, Iberia, and Aer Lingus. If you are not sure how the voucher works, our guide to Companion Vouchers covers every rule and quirk in detail.

Things worth knowing

Free domestic connections - Both British Airways and Finnair give you a connecting domestic leg for free on long-haul redemptions. Search Edinburgh to Melbourne and BA prices it as just the LHR-MEL segment, with EDI-LHR thrown in. Same on Finnair from regional Finnish airports to Helsinki. You don't have to search the legs separately and add them together, the calculator applies it automatically.

BA Amex companion vouchers - Vouchers apply to BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus reward flights only, not Finnair, Qatar or Loganair. The Premium Plus voucher works in any cabin; the free Credit Card voucher is economy only.

Fifth freedom and niche routes - British Airways flies a handful of fifth-freedom Caribbean inter-island routes at the short-haul rate. Antigua to St Kitts, Nassau to Grand Cayman, that sort of thing. Qatar has its own oddities, like Saigon to Phnom Penh. And on the Loganair side, we have not forgotten about routes like Sumburgh to Kirkwall either.

Vueling - Vueling uses Avios as its reward currency, but their pricing is based on the cash fare available at the time, meaning it cannot be reliably compared to the other Avios airlines.

Qatar Flexi Award - This calculator only shows Qatar's peak and off-peak prices, and not the Flexi award prices which are double the off-peak price.

Peak/off-peak dates - Each airline operates slightly different in this regard, with their own peal/off-peak dates. BA's peak dates are essentially the school holiday. Iberia and Aer Lingus are peak during school holidays, but UK half-terms are off-peak (read more about that here). Finnair and Loganair do not do peak pricing. Whilst Qatar does do peak pricing, but does not publish these dates. More information can be found in the FAQ's under the calculator.

Speaking of FAQ's - As I just mentioned, underneath the calculator you will find an FAQ to help answer any queries you may have, such as how to find availability, why prices vary, does it show taxes and fees etc.

What it doesn't do

It doesn't show seat availability. That requires real-time access to each airline's booking engine, which we don't have.

It doesn't include taxes and carrier charges as these can change all the time depending on currency conversions, place of departure etc. Always confirm the cash element on the airline's website before booking.

It doesn't tell you whether to use Avios or pay cash. For BA you'll want our British Airways Avios Value Calculator, which shows the pence-per-point value of each BA redemption against the equivalent cash fare. The two calculators answer different questions and work well alongside each other.

Try it

Open the calculator, or find it under 'Guides and Tools' in the menu, and type in a route you are actually thinking about. How many Avios do you need? You will know in two seconds.

If you find a route where our pricing doesn't match what the airline charges, let us know by emailing me.

Anyway, I hope you all find it useful.

Sam

Points Well Made is a passion project from Sam and Helena. If you've enjoyed this and want to help us keep the lights on, please consider buying us a Ko-fi or subscribing monthly. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for more of the same. Thanks for reading.