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What is the best value Avios flight per mile?

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What is the best value Avios redemption per mile flown?  Or, put another way, what’s the furthest you can fly for the fewest Avios?

As we have just updated our ‘Avios price list’ (the only place online you’ll find the Avios redemption chart – it’s not on ba.com now) I thought it was worth having another look at where you get the best value.

We have put together a list of the flying distance of each long and mid haul British Airways route and compared it with the Avios required for a Club World off-peak redemption.

What is the best value Avios flight per mile?

Distances are measured using the ‘great circle route’ ie. the most direct path between origination and destination.

If you ever need to work out the distance between two cities, we recommend Great Circle Mapper at gcmap.com.  Use airport codes in the search box, eg LHR-CPT for London Heathrow to Cape Town, and click ‘Distance’.

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of the value of different routes, although you should remember that ‘value’ is subjective.  If you don’t want to fly to Kuwait, for example, it doesn’t matter how ‘cheap’ a redemption would be.

As we always say, the ‘best’ Avios redemption is one that takes you to somewhere you really want to go.

What is the best value Avios redemption based on distance?

The winner based on ‘Avios needed per mile flown’ is Sydney. Just 13 Avios will get you one mile nearer Sydney in a Club World flat bed on that route.

(Interestingly, the winner used to be Cape Town but BA’s changes to Avios pricing in December have pushed it down to second place.)

What is the best value Avios flight per mile?

Take a look and see what you think. The table shows you the Avios per mile you need to redeem to get a Club World redemption.

We have used the ‘highest Avios, lowest cash’ pricing option offered for each route. For mid haul and long haul routes, this tends to be the best overall value. It is not the best option on short haul but those routes are not included below.

You could, arguably, adjust the table to reflect the different surcharges between routes. At the end of the day, however, this is only meant to be a bit of fun.

Don’t forget our earlier HfP article which shows every British Airways route and the Avios required to fly it.

Here is the ‘best Avios redemption per mile flown’ chart, based on BA’s route map at the start of 2023.

DestinationClub World Avios
off-peak (one-way)		Miles flown
(one-way)		Avios needed
per mile
Sydney145,000 + £37510,66513.60
Cape Town90,000 + £2256,01014.98
Santiago110,000 + £3007,24915.17
Buenos Aires110,000 + £3006,91515.91
Johannesburg90,000 + £2255,63515.97
Tokyo100,000 + £2756,22016.08
Mexico City90,000 + £2255,53016.27
Singapore110,000 + £3006,75516.28
San Diego90,000 + £2255,47016.45
Los Angeles90,000 + £2255,45516.50
Mauritius100,000 + £2756,05516.52
San Jose (C’Rica)90,000 + £2255,42516.59
Hong Kong100,000 + £2755,96516.76
San Francisco90,000 + £2255,36016.79
San Jose (CA)90,000 + £2255,36016.79
Sao Paulo100,000 + £2755,89016.98
Male90,000 + £2255,29517.00
Phoenix90,000 + £2255,25517.13
Las Vegas90,000 + £2255,23017.21
Rio De Janeiro100,000 + £2755,74517.41
Shanghai100,000 + £2755,72017.48
Chennai90,000 + £2255,11517.60
Grand Cayman90,000 + £2255,08517.70
Seoul100,000 + £2755,65017.70
Beijing90,000 + £2255,06517.77
Bengaluru90,000 + £2255,00417.99
Cancun90,000 + £2254,96518.13
Portland (Oregon)90,000 + £2254,91418.32
Austin90,000 + £2254,91018.33
Houston90,000 + £2254,82018.67
Turks and Caicos90,000 + £2254,82018.67
Hyderabad90,000 + £2254,79518.77
Seattle90,000 + £2254,78518.81
Dallas90,000 + £2254,74518.97
Vancouver90,000 + £2254,70519.13
Kingston90,000 + £2254,68019.23
Aruba90,000 + £2254,67919.23
Denver90,000 + £2254,67019.27
New Orleans90,000 + £2254,61719.49
Georgetown90,000 + £2254,50819.96
Tobago90,000 + £2254,49520.02
Mumbai90,000 + £2254,46520.16
Cincinnati80,000 + £1753,96320.19
Port of Spain90,000 + £2254,45520.20
Chicago80,000 + £1753,95520.23
Miami90,000 +£2254,43520.29
Tampa90,000 + £2254,42520.34
Grenada90,000 + £2254,36020.64
Orlando90,000 + £2254,35520.67
Nassau90,000 + £2254,33020.79
Punta Cana90,000 + £2254,29020.98
Nairobi90,000 + £2254,25021.18
St Lucia90,000 + £2254,22021.33
Islamabad80,000 + £1753,75021.33
Atlanta90,000 + £2254,20021.43
Barbados90,000 + £2254,19521.45
Delhi90,000 + £2254,19121.47
Pittsburgh80,000 + £1753,71521.53
Nashville90,000 + £2254,17621.55
St Kitts90,000 + £2254,14021.74
Washington DC80,000 + £1753,67521.77
Baltimore80,000 + £1753,62522.07
Antigua90,000 + £2254,07522.09
Charleston90,000 + £2254,07522.09
Philadelphia80,000 + £1753,54522.57
Toronto80,000 + £1753,54522.57
New York80,000 + £1753,45023.19
Bermuda80,000 + £1753,44023.26
Dubai80,000 + £1753,40523.49
Abuja70,000 + £902,96023.65
Kuwait70,000 + £902,90024.14
Boston80,000 + £1753,26024.54
Doha80,000 + £1753,24024.69
Montreal80,000 + £1753,24024.69
Accra80,000 + £1753,17025.24
Bahrain80,000 + £1753,15025.40
Lagos80,000 + £1753,11525.68
Riyadh80,000 + £1753,06526.10
Amman70,000 + £902,29030.57
Tel Aviv70,000 + £902,21531.60
Cairo70,000 + £902,19531.89
How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £12,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

Get a 10,000 points bonus plus an extra 500 points for our readers Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and free for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (55)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Richie says:
    16 Feb16 February 07:49

    Thanks Rhys, great additional information.

  • Erico1875 says:
    16 Feb16 February 08:25

    I wonder if assuming cost per Avios of say 1p for the cash portion changes the order .i.e
    Sydney 300k Avios + £300 =30k
    so 330k Avios versus say Abuja 70k Avios + (£90=9k) so 79K avios

    • Erico1875 says:
      16 Feb16 February 09:07

      I don’t know where I got the SYD figure from !!!???
      That should have been 145k + £375 ,(37500 Avios )

  • NorthernLass says:
    16 Feb16 February 08:33

    Be aware that not every flight is non-stop and this affects the service you get on board. E.g. the GCM flight goes vis NAS, so you get the CW service between LHR and NAS but the last 3 hours consists of descent, time on the ground and the onward connection. Once you’re back up in the air you might grudgingly get a drink and some nuts (sometimes offered but can be on request only), but the only meals served over the entire 12 hours are lunch and the insubstantial afternoon tea. Knowing this, CW passengers descend like a swarm of locusts on the Club Kitchen as soon as it’s loaded 😂

    • zapato1060 says:
      16 Feb16 February 14:08

      Hehe it’s that Caribbean charm. “Island time”. Wanted a quick bite of McDonalds, for novelty more than anything in St Croix. Fast food, more like slow food. Took 25 mins for a burger as I was trying to get attention moving and looking across the counter at people chatting in the back.

      • Anna says:
        16 Feb16 February 16:21

        Lol. I don’t think that’s the reason!
        St Croix is a U.S. territory though, so I’m not sure why MaDonalds would be a novelty …

  • Charles Martel says:
    16 Feb16 February 08:45

    Nice information, another angle is the cost per tier point earned available from https://speedbird.online/fares.php

  • NPWharf says:
    16 Feb16 February 08:46

    Interesting chart although you can pretty much ignore Sydney as Business Class redemptions there with BA are the stuff of dreams

    • Rhys says:
      16 Feb16 February 09:06

      It’s really not that hard. I managed to nab all 4 Club seats to Sydney for my family in April/May, no problem. You just have to be prepared and call at midnight 355 days in advance. If you can be bothered with that, it’s easy.

      • Aston100 says:
        16 Feb16 February 10:44

        You make it sound as if people are guaranteed to get 4 CW seats if they bother to phone at midnight.

        I think you may want to consider yourself a bit lucky there Rhys.

        • Rhys says:
          16 Feb16 February 11:11

          I don’t think I am lucky, actually. All I do is call 15 minutes before the seats are available – go through BA’s security questions and then they get them.

          I managed to do the same with Bangkok before covid – another very popular route.

          If you’re willing to be on the phones at that hour (I got my return flights to Sydney at 3am Qatar time!) then you have a high chance of getting them.

          • elt says:
            16 Feb16 February 11:47

            Where do you call at that time?
            Thanks

          • louie says:
            16 Feb16 February 11:54

            Trust me, you have been lucky. That you got your phone answered at all by midnight, that they didn’t pick up early and say “I can’t hold until midnight”, that there weren’t multiple people doing the same as you that night, etc. I’ve not yet won that lottery.

          • Rhys says:
            16 Feb16 February 15:52

            I’ve had them say they can’t hold until midnight. I waited 5/10 mins and called again…and got the flights.

          • JERMLB says:
            16 Feb16 February 11:58

            I managed to book 4 club seats using 2 new 2 4 1 vouchers to Sydney last month for travel in August. I was amazed 4 seats were available 6 months out but starting outside of London with the new vouchers does seem to open up many more options.

          • Brian P says:
            16 Feb16 February 13:39

            Think the 355 booking and then nabbing the return leg is worthy of an article…

          • Rob says:
            16 Feb16 February 14:14

            He wrote one – search 241 beginners.

  • Alex Sm says:
    16 Feb16 February 08:47

    The table on email looks alright (on an iPhone), so nothing to worry about, Rhys!

  • Max says:
    16 Feb16 February 09:16

    I’m not able to find direct BA flights to Seoul, are these flights actually running?

    • Rhys says:
      16 Feb16 February 09:21

      No, not at the moment.

      • Peggerz says:
        16 Feb16 February 09:54

        Hi Rhys.
        I noticed Seoul on the list too.Is this a ‘No, not at the moment, wait and see?’ I have family in Seoul and I’m always on the lookout for this route opening up again with BA. However, I was forced to go with QR last year…..😎

        • Jonathan says:
          16 Feb16 February 11:01

          If you’ve got a good VS FC balance then you haven’t got very long left at all before the latter becomes part of SkyTeam and then you book flights with Korean Air with VS FC points

        • Rhys says:
          16 Feb16 February 11:08

          I don’t think BA is bringing Seoul back in a hurry. I don’t have any insider info I’m afraid!

  • rob keane says:
    16 Feb16 February 09:18

    When the best value is 13.6 Avios per mile, it is unsurprising they took the decision to drop the name “airmiles” many many years ago. One unit is now somewhere between 1/13th and 1/32nd of a mile.

    • No longer Entitled says:
      16 Feb16 February 12:17

      You will not enjoy your next visit to Poundland.

      • rob keane says:
        16 Feb16 February 12:26

        There are many things available for a pound at poundland, but your point is non-sensical, they do NOT call it airmiles any more, they do STILL call it poundland ???

        • Jonathan says:
          16 Feb16 February 12:40

          For people who don’t do airline loyalty programs, that’s what the points system is called to them, in plain simple English without having to give a detailed explanation

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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