Can I Convert Avios To Cash?

If you’ve been collecting Avios for a while you may have tens or hundreds of thousands of points that are worth 3-4 digits off flights but what happens when you don’t want to use them anymore? Maybe you no longer wish to fly or your personal circumstances mean a potential conversion to cash would be more welcome. In this post, we’re going to look at if you can convert Avios to cash and what value you can get from your points if you no longer want to fly…

So can I convert Avios to Cash?

No. Avios themselves, or reward tickets procured using Avios, cannot be sold, traded, or exchanged for cash. Any attempts to do so could see your account being closed. See point 22 of the executive club terms & conditions here – https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/terms-and-conditions. Point 24 covers what action they may take against you, including account closure and forfeiture of Avios.

You may see various different brokers or similar when searching for ways to convert Avios to cash… don’t do it. There is a very high risk of having your account closed with all your Avios forfeited.

So what can I do with my Avios then?

If you still don’t want to use your Avios for flying there are alternative things you can do with them that are ALMOST as good as cash. The most valuable redemption outside of flights would be to transfer your Avios points into Nectar points. With Nectar’s British Airways partnership you receive 400 Nectar points for every 250 Avios points you convert. With Nectar points worth 0.5p it means you are getting 0.8p per Avios point converted, which isn’t too far away from our 1p valuation.

Nectar spend partners can be viewed on their website here – https://www.nectar.com/card/spend – there are currently 13 partners. Predominately 500 points are worth £2.50 off your shopping (with a few exceptions.) You can redeem at stores such as Sainsbury’s, eBay, or Argos. With these 3 shops, you can pretty much cover most items you can imagine buying! Outside of this, you have brands such as Vue, Caffe Nero & Eurostar where you can also redeem your points. If you want the ‘cash’ you can always buy items for other people or sell what you buy on eBay.

If you are looking to transfer between the two schemes take a look at our article here – https://pointsuncovered.com/avios/how-to-link-your-avios-nectar-accounts/

Conclusion

Whilst you can’t convert Avios to cash converting to Nectar is pretty close! At 0.8p a point it’s also not far off our valuation of an Avios point. So if you are looking to cash out on your Avios points it’s probably the best option and definitely the safest. Are you tempted to cash out your Avios points to Nectar?