Coming soon: Earn Avios on Uber rides taken in the UK

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British Airways has announced that at some point later this month, members of its Executive Club loyalty program will be able to collect Avios every time they make a booking through the Uber app in the UK.

More specifically, this is what BA has said:

“From later this month, Members of the airline’s loyalty programme will be eligible to collect 1 Avios for every £1 spent on any ride, whether that be by car, coach or train, booked on the Uber app in the UK. These can then be put towards worldwide flights, upgrades and extras.”

Also, once the partnership is live, British Airways Executive Club members who link their accounts to an Uber account via the Uber app by the end of the year will receive a bonus of 250 Avios.

Thoughts

As this partnership will not be rolling out until later this month, the option to link accounts is not yet showing in the Uber app (it should appear in the app’s “settings” section) but, presumably, an update will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

I have to admit that I couldn’t help but laugh a little when I saw this announcement drop into my inbox as it’s a little ironic.

In the week since we found out that British Airways will be changing the way Avios are earned so significantly that most of us will be earning a lot fewer Avios when we fly, the airline has announced two new ways that we can earn more Avios – a limited time “Double Avios” promotion and now this Uber partnership.

It’s almost like the airline has a split personality with one side wanting to scale back the number of Avios being paid out and the other wanting to do the exact opposite.

The truth is, however, that for most of us, the number of Avios that we’ll be picking up via Uber in the UK will be insignificant but despite that, unless linking your Uber account to your British Airways Executive Club account means that you’ll miss out on earning another currency, there’s no reason not to link the accounts anyway.

Clearly, if you’re a heavy Uber user in the UK this new partnership will be good news for you (especially if you can expense your Uber spending) but, on the whole, I think that this partnership may end up being most useful for the more infrequent travelers among us.

An Uber ride will be a very easy way to get some activity going in an Executive Club account, and that should make it a lot easier for infrequent travelers to ensure that their Avios balances don’t expire (after 36 months of inactivity) and that they don’t lose access to Reward Flight Saver bookings (after 12 months of inactivity) so as well as the free 250 Avios that will be on offer, that’s another reason that everyone should link their account seven if they’re not a frequent flyer or frequent Uber user.

Bottom line

British Airways and Uber will be launching a partnership later this month in which flyers who link their BAEC accounts with an Uber account will earn 1 Avios for every £1 spent on UK rides booked with Uber.