British Airways Now Lets You Book China Southern Flights With Avios

British Airways has quietly opened up one of the largest airlines in the world as an Avios redemption partner. China Southern - all 600-plus aircraft and 230-odd destinations of it - is now bookable with your Avios, and BA has confirmed it works across the carrier's entire network. After years of this partnership being little more than a codeshare and a patchy earning arrangement, redemptions are finally live.

This one slipped out without much fanfare, but it is genuinely worth your attention - especially if you ever travel within China or around Southeast Asia. Let me walk you through what is now bookable, run the maths on a few example routes, and give you my honest take on where the value actually sits.

China Southern and BA have had a relationship on paper for a long time. The two signed a bilateral agreement years ago, added reciprocal Avios earning on China Southern metal back in 2023 (which, by many accounts, often failed to post correctly), and left it there. The missing piece was always redemptions.

That piece is now in place. BA has confirmed that members of The British Airways Club can collect and redeem Avios across all China Southern routes, and reciprocally, China Southern's Sky Pearl Club members can do the same on BA flights. In short: you can now spend your Avios on China Southern flights, booked directly through ba.com.

The pricing follows BA's standard distance-based partner award chart - the same one used for Cathay Pacific - so the further you fly, the more Avios you pay. And because China Southern's strength is its enormous domestic and regional network out of Guangzhou, the short distances are exactly where this gets interesting.

BA prices partner awards by distance, in zones, with off-peak and peak rates. Here is roughly what some representative China Southern routes work out at, using BA's current off-peak partner pricing (one-way):

Add taxes and fees on top - these are generally low on intra-China and regional routes (often well under £30 in economy), which is the whole appeal. A 4,000-Avios hop down to the beaches of Sanya, or a 6,500-Avios economy seat to Vietnam, is the kind of redemption that quietly stretches a modest Avios balance a long way.

A quick honesty note on those figures: the Avios numbers are BA's published off-peak distance-band rates, and the exact price you see will shift with peak dates and BA's dynamic adjustments. Always check the live price on ba.com before you get excited. To work out the distance (and therefore the zone) for any route yourself, our Great Circle Mapper does the job in seconds.

Business class is now bookable too, but I would temper expectations here. When the business cabin inventory rolled out, China Southern noticeably tightened the availability it releases to BA - so where economy seats were once plentiful, the premium cabin is much scarcer. And on a value basis, the business rates on longer hauls are not the headline act.

The real sweet spot remains short-haul and regional economy. That is where the low Avios cost, the genuinely low taxes, and China Southern's network density all line up. If a business seat happens to open on a route you want, great - but I would not build a trip around hunting for it.

You can search China Southern award space directly on ba.com using "Book with Avios" - it is one of the partners that shows up natively in the BA search, which makes life easier. The catch, as ever with BA, is that the website only shows one route and date range at a time, so scanning for availability is slow going.

This is exactly the sort of multi-airline, multi-date search our own Award Travel Finder was built for - it lets you scan availability across dates and cabins far faster than clicking through ba.com manually. And if you want to eyeball the actual aircraft and cabin before you commit, Flight Seatmap will show you the seat map and live availability for the specific flight.

If your Avios balance is looking thin, the good news is that topping up has rarely been easier. In the UK, the most reliable route is transferable points from American Express Membership Rewards, which move to Avios instantly at 1:1. If you are weighing up which card to go for, our guide to the best Avios-earning credit cards in the UK breaks down the current options, and you can apply for American Express personal cards here or business cards here if a welcome bonus would do the trick.

For business owners, the Capital on Tap business card earns Avios on everyday spend and is a staple in my own wallet - I have two of them. It is also worth a look at our best business credit cards guide if that is your situation.

And if you would rather just buy your way to the balance you need, our Avios Balance Booster calculator will tell you whether it is cheapest to buy or boost Avios via BA, Qatar or Finnair.

I like this one. It is not the kind of flashy, headline-grabbing change that triggers a frenzy, but it is a genuinely useful expansion of where modest Avios balances can go. For anyone combining a China trip with regional travel - and with China's recent move to 30-day visa-free access for UK citizens making the country far more spontaneous to visit, more of us will be - having China Southern as a redemption option is a quietly excellent addition. If you are still working out how to actually get there on points, our guide to how many Avios you need for a flight is a handy starting point.

The caveats are real: business availability is thin, and the December 2025 partner devaluation means the chart is a touch pricier than it was. But a 4,000-Avios flight to a Chinese beach resort, or a 6,500-Avios hop to Vietnam with low taxes, is exactly the sort of high-value, low-cost redemption that makes Avios worth collecting in the first place. I will be keeping an eye on availability and may well put this to use myself.

Would you book a China Southern flight with Avios? Hit the poll above and let me know - I am curious whether this lands as a sweet spot or a curiosity for most of you.