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Qatar Airways Privilege Club has been using “Avios” as its award currency for a month or so now. This means that you can “Combine Your Avios” freely between Privilege Club and British Airways Executive Club – click here for details of how to move your Avios around.

Perhaps many InsideFlyer UK readers have recently opened a Privilege Club account in order to pick up a free and easy 2,500 Avios (again, click here for details). You might be wondering, therefore, whether those Avios will expire one day.

The answer is YES. According to the Qatar Airways website, Avios will expire after 36 months of inactivity.

Avios will not expire as long as member does Avios accrual / redemption activity with Qatar Airways or partners (Air, Non-air,).

By default, if members have no activity for 36 consecutive months, then all of their balance Avios will expire. Expiry will be three years from their last accrual or redemption activity.

How Can I Avoid my Qatar Avios Expiring?

There is one crucial element to remember about Avios.

Each individual Avios account (British Airways, Iberia, Qatar, etc.) must be INDEPENDENTLY active.

Combining Your Avios between accounts is NOT considered to be activity.

This means that you must either:

1. Earn Avios in your Privilege Club account – i.e. credit a flight or car rental, or convert some hotel points to Qatar Avios
2. Redeem Avios out of your Privilege Club account – i.e. a reward flight

You REALLY want to avoid sending Avios into a Privilege Club account that hasn’t been active for 3 or more years – they might immediately expire!

Bottom Line

Being able to move Avios around is an amazing benefit. But you definitely need to remember to remain independently active in all of the Avios-based accounts that you use.