roimaaf

Just a friendly heads up that snagged me this morning. Been using Combine my Avios for ages and love having the ability to hotswap my Avios between BAEC, Avios.com and Iberia. However today, when I went to transfer my points from BAEC to Avios.com, I got an error message saying my details didn't match. This was technically true because I signed up for Avios.com a while ago with a UK address (I live in France) but up until now it's never had a problem moving my avios around. So I called up Avios.com to discover that BA have tightened up the enforcement of account holders having the same postal address between BAEC and Avios.com. All because of "too much fraud", according to the Avios agent.

Fortunately I found a workaround which I hope lasts for a while. If you transfer your Avios from BAEC to Iberia Plus first, Avios.com seemingly let me put those IB avios into my Avios.com account ? Seems weird but it worked.

Anyways, I just thought I'd share my story with the FT community in case anyone else gets caught out by this. The main reason I'm concerned about it cos Avios.com is how I intend to get the Avios that I'll earn once Vueling's Puntos program becomes Vueling Club and my points become Avios (I'd like to move them over to BA). Plus Avios.com is handy for searching Aer Lingus award space.

UPDATE Can anyone else confirm this but I'm now trying to the operation in reverse and it appears that Iberia Plus will no longer members to combine their Avios from IB to BAEC ?? What is BA doing ? This is kind of ruining the whole purpose of Combine my Avios IMO