The destination: New York (in Club World)

One of the best ways to go big with your Avios is via some long-haul luxury in our Club World business-class cabin – home to hugely comfortable seats (that turn into lie-flat beds), bigger screen entertainment systems, more storage, delectable food detailed on printed menus and a full bar service available throughout. That’s not to mention a pillow, blanket and amenity kit courtesy of The White Company. A decadent flight calls for a spectacular end destination, and we can think of nowhere more worthy of the splurge than New York – an (almost) eight-hour flight away.

New York is intense, diverse and energetic, a city of musicians, artists and comedians – and all the buzzing restaurants and bars where they hang out. There are new supertall skyscrapers (check out the observation deck at Summit One Vanderbilt) and new age architectural marvels (Little Island, designed by architect Thomas Heatherwick). At the world-beating Metropolitan Museum of Art, the already-much-hyped Flight into Egypt exhibition will debut this November, while Lower Manhattan is home to a new Banksy Museum. And for a place to stay? We suggest the Ritz-Carlton NoMad, whose rooftop delivers uninterrupted views of downtown Manhattan.

So how to get there sooner and in style? Simply collect Avios on your current holidays (not to mention other expenditures) to help pay for your next upgrade…

Avios: how many do you need?

You’ll need 160,000 Avios, plus £350 for an off-peak return in Club World to JFK from Heathrow.¹ Or the upgrade on a return flight in World Traveller Plus to Club World is currently 75,000 Avios, plus taxes and fees.² The Avios app allows you to search Reward Flight availability to NYC to your heart’s content. Simply select your destination and your cabin class, and you can see all available departures and returns through to September 2025.  

Step one: be rewarded for going on holiday

Of course, the most well known way to collect Avios is by booking flights with us.³ The amount you’ll collect depends on the value of the flight purchased and your Executive Club Tier (Blue Members collect six Avios per £1, while Gold Members collect nine). Avios can also be collected with our 16 partner airlines, covering even more global routes. And good news for those who fly for work: you can collect Avios for any flights you fly, regardless of who bought the ticket.

You can throw even more Avios in there by booking your flight as part of a holiday package: that’s a flight + hotel or flight + car package with British Airways Holidays, with whom you’ll collect one Avios for every £1 spent on your holidays.⁴ Avios collectors can choose from more than 12,000 carefully selected hotels worldwide, but the real perk is the quality, from grand institutions such as The Savoy in London, through to affordable luxury at places including The Roosevelt in New York.

Step two: be rewarded for staying in the UK (yes, really)

Avios can still be collected right here at home, with no flights in sight. How? With Avios partners like Airbnb, which has more than seven million places to stay worldwide and hundreds of thousands here in the UK, including country cabins and seaside cottages, as well as apartments and even castles. You’ll collect two Avios for every £1 spent on the site’s self-catering wonders.⁵

Step three: score some serious wheels

With your flight and accommodation sorted, it might just be time to sort yourself a reliable car. Since we’re partnered with Avis car rental,⁶ you can boost your Avios balance on every class of vehicle, from a zippy little Fiat 500 to a luxurious Mercedes E Class, collecting five Avios per £1 spent on every booking. There’s a vast range of pick-up and drop-off locations, and all you Executive Club Members even get an additional driver for free every time you book through ba.com.

Step four: keep the Avios ticking on the way to the airport

Beyond these big-ticket items, there are plenty of ways savvy travellers can keep topping up their Avios account – even en route to the airport. A journey on Heathrow Express will net five Avios/per £1, or book car parking for Heathrow and Gatwick and collect seven Avios and four Avios per £1 spent, respectively.⁷ Or visit our shopping portal and collect Avios online booking tickets with providers such as Trainline (which offers 1 Avios for every £1 spent) if you’re heading to the airport by rail.⁸ Finally, you can earn one Avios for every £1 spent with Uber. Simply link your British Airways Executive Club and Uber accounts on the Uber app to start earning on every ride, including your airport trips.⁹ 

Step five: grow your Avios balance at World Duty Free

Give us a good bargain, and we’re sold — and the fact that World Duty Free at all Heathrow terminals is tax-free and accrues Avios in three easy steps is as good an incentive as it gets. Step one: sign up for Red By Dufry (the app is available from the App Store or Google Play).¹⁰ Step two: link your British Airways Executive Club account in the Red By Dufry app by tapping ‘Account’, selecting ‘Explore Partners’/‘British Airways Executive Club’, entering your Executive Club details and selecting ‘Make this my preferred partner’ – and you’re done. Step three: get ready to shop some of the best beauty buys from Bobbi Brown, La Mer, M·A·C and Jo Malone London, as well as gifts, sunglasses, drinks and toys, and be rewarded by showing the QR code on your Red By Dufry app. You’ll gain 250 bonus Avios the first time you shop at any World Duty Free store at London Heathrow, and then it’s 1 Avios for every £1 you spend.

And, if these steps give you some extra money in your budget to seriously hit the New York stores, as a Club World passenger, you’ll have an increased luggage allowance of two 32kg bags to bring your new purchases home in.