Two bonus Avios promotions – double your earnings with BA and Meridiana

In May 2014, Italian airline Meridiana changed its frequent flyer currency to Avios. To celebrate this, it has teamed up with BA Executive Club (currency obviously also Avios) to offer two simultaneous bonus Avios promotions.

The promotions run until 31 March 2015. First, if you are a member of the Meridiana Club (join for free, here) you will earn double Avios on all British Airways flights that you credit to your Meridiana Club account. Second, if you are a member of the BA Executive Club (join for free, here) you will earn double Avios on all Meridiana flights that you credit to your BA Executive Club account.

To enable you to do the maths, Meridiana Avios earned on British Airways flights (which will be doubled) are as follows:

While BA Executive Club Avios earned on Meridiana flights (which will be doubled) are as follows:

However, if you are looking to earn double Meridiana Club Avios with your BA flights, the obvious issue here is that, as far as I can make out, you cannot combine Avios from Meridiana Club into other programmes (in the way that you can combine Avios between BA Executive Club, Avios.com and Iberia Plus). That means that your Meridiana Club Avios will, it seems, be a “standalone” stash of points. While you can of course spend these Avios on BA or Iberia Plus flights, you will therefore not be able to add them to your existing Avios balance elsewhere, or use them on Oneworld partners, as you can do with Avios sat in your BA Executive Club (+ Avios.com or Iberia Plus) account.

With that in mind, earning Avios with Meridiana Club is of limited value to me: I have a big stash of Avios sat (interchangeably) in Avios.com/BA Exec Club/Iberia Plus), so starting to build an unconnectable pool of Avios with Meridiana does not appeal. Conversely, the double BA Avios with Meridiana flights is a very good offer for me.

As a useful aside, Meridiana is currently offering 25% off all flights booked on or before 28 January 2015.