Today I want to take a look at how you can make substantial tax savings – and potentially Avios savings – when flying to Hong Kong and beyond on Cathay Pacific.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

You can’t use a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher on Cathay Pacific so this strategy is better for the solo traveller or someone who has already used their annual voucher.

Cathay Pacific is a fellow member of the oneworld alliance, alongside British Airways, so you can redeem your Avios for their flights. Availability is generally good outside London (you can often see six Business seats on Amsterdam and Manchester dates out of season) but note that only some routes have First Class.

Let’s look at British Airways redemptions to Hong Kong first

When booking redemptions to Hong Kong on BA there is one fact to remember. Historically, by law, there were NO surcharges on flights originating in Hong Kong. This does not apply to return legs of flights starting outside Hong Kong.

This regulation was reportedly dropped in late 2018 but, so far, most airlines have not changed their pricing.

What this means is that you MUST book Hong Kong BA redemptions as 2 x one-way flights if you want to save money. If you do this, there will be no surcharge on the inbound flight. If you book it as a return flight you will pay a surcharge on the inbound flight.

The snag, of course, is that by booking 2 x one-ways you cannot use your British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher ….

The impact of booking 2 x one-way redemptions on British Airways

British Airways business class RETURN flight, London to Hong Kong – 180,000 Avios + £590

Or when booked separately:

BA outbound – 90,000 Avios + £389

BA inbound – 90,000 Avios + £36

Total – 180,000 + £425, saving £165

These numbers are based on peak-day redemptions.

Save a little tax when you fly Cathay Pacific from London

If you choose to fly Cathay Pacific instead of British Airways from London, you will make a further saving:

Cathay Pacific business class (London to Hong Kong): 185,500 Avios + £338

This is £87 cheaper than redeeming on British Airways, based on a peak day redemption, and for a superior business class product.

Ex-Europe is even more interesting!

Cathay also flies to Hong Kong from various other European starting points.  Dublin is the newest route but there are plenty of other options.

Cathay Pacific also flies directly from Manchester which, whilst not offering a huge saving on taxes, will be more convenient than Heathrow or Gatwick for many readers.

It is not certain, at present, whether all of these routes will restart after coronavirus.

The tax numbers are very good, as low as £130 return.

Amsterdam to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £137

Brussels to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £140

Dublin to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £160

Frankfurt to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £225

Madrid to Hong Kong: 210,000 Avios + £135

Manchester to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £293

Milan to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £137

Paris to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £209

Rome to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £149

Zurich to Hong Kong: 185,500 Avios + £130

You may find it is slightly cheaper booking a return rather than two one-ways.  If there is a risk of cancelling, booking a return will save you money on cancellation charges as there will only be one £35 fee to pay.

As you can see, there are some big savings to be made here compared to the British Airways surcharges of £425. You need to factor in the cost of getting to and from your departure airport, of course.

The snag …. off-peak pricing

There is one thing which may make you think twice about Cathay Pacific.

If you book on a peak day there is no virtually difference in the Avios required whether you fly BA or Cathay – it is 180,000 Avios on BA vs 185,500 Avios on Cathay, apart from Madrid which is more.

Fly on a British Airways off-peak day and the Avios required fall to 150,000 per person, return, in Business Class. This offsets the saving in taxes and charges.

There are other factors to consider as well.  You will obviously need to get to your starting point which will incur additional costs.  Depending on the flight times, you may also need an overnight stay.  The Dublin flight, for example, departs at 11am in Winter which is pushing it if you want to connect from the UK on the same day whilst building in a big enough buffer in case your first flight is delayed.

Cathay Pacific, of course, still has arguably a far superior product as a look at online reviews will show.  If you are looking to travel at off-peak periods the discussion is more about quality than overall savings.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article explains how and why you may want to redeem Avios points on Alaska Airlines.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

Most readers of Head for Points will know that you can redeem Avios points sitting in a British Airways Executive Club account for any of the 13 airlines within the oneworld alliance.

As well as the oneworld members, British Airways has two additional ‘earn and burn’ partners as you can see here – Aer Lingus and Alaska Airlines.

Redeeming Avios points on Aer Lingus is a fantastic deal because of the lack of fuel surcharges as I explained here.  This article looks at their other partner, Alaska Airlines.

In Summer 2021, Alaska Airlines is joining the oneworld alliance and will become a full British Airways partner.  Until Summer 2021, it operates under the hybrid arrangement I explain here.

Despite its name, Alaska Airlines is based in Seattle. Whilst it flies more passengers to Alaska than any other US airline, it also serves over 100 other destinations in the US, Canada and Mexico.

The airline expanded substantially in 2016 when it acquired Virgin America, the US regional airline which operated primarily on the West Coast.  All of those flights have been rebranded, now carry Alaska Airlines flight numbers and can be booked with Avios.

Alaska Airlines is particularly good for getting to Hawaii with more than 175 flights a week from nine West Coast cities (Anchorage, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle) to four Hawaiian Islands (Big Island, Kauai, Maui and Oahu).

Whilst Alaska Airline will become a full member of the oneworld alliance in 2021, you can already earn and spend Alaska miles with British Airways and even gain Alaska Airlines status by crediting British Airways flights to their programme.  That article explains why this might be a smarter idea than you think.

Here are the key things to know about redeeming Avios on Alaska:

You cannot redeem Avios for Alaska flights online

The only way to book is by calling British Airways Executive Club.

Alaska redemptions are priced the same way as any other Avios redemption

The cost will be based on the distance you are travelling.  You can see the partner airline Avios redemption chart in this HFP article.

There is one ‘tweak’ to remember. On two-class planes, Alaska calls their cabins First Class and Economy Class.  Because of this, a redemption ‘up front’ costs FOUR TIMES the standard number of Avios rather than triple because British Airways applies the First Class redemption rate.

(A similar situation applies to Qatar Airways across the Middle East, where planes are classified as Economy and First.  Economy is 6,000 Avios each way whilst First is 24,000 Avios.)

You can look up availability on the Alaska Airlines website

Their home page is here. You do NOT need to log in or register to search availability on miles.

Alaska offers redemption availability at varying levels of pricing depending on how busy a flight will be. You can only redeem when Alaska is showing tickets at the lowest level of pricing. The Alaska award charts can be accessed here but essentially you are looking for Alaska to show you one-way Economy flights at the lowest price level (5,000 miles for a ‘Hop’ flight through to 12,500 miles for a ‘Leap’).

Remember that you will NOT pay these prices when you book using Avios. These are the prices using Alaska miles. The price you pay will be based on the Avios redemption chart.

To double-check that a flight is available, you can do a dummy miles booking on the American Airlines website. Again, no registration is required. If the Alaska flight shows as available for booking with American miles then it will also be available for booking with Avios. Get on the phone to BA!

You won’t have any taxes to pay

The only fees payable will be the US security charges which are nominal.

British Airways may try to charge you a telephone booking fee. This can often be waived if you can convince them that you should not pay it because the functionality is not on the BA website. (Technically you should pay it because the fee is only waived when something can be done online but the website is having a bad day.)

On the day, you can change your flight for just $50

Alaska lets you switch your flight to another one for just $50 – even if no award space is available. You must keep the same routing and travel on the same day. This can only be done within six hours of your original departure time – it is handy if you wake up in Hawaii on your last morning and decide you can’t bear to leave for a few more hours!

There are other Avios options to Hawaii with American Airlines – this article looks at how to redeem Avios on American Airlines.  Alaska Airlines offers you a valuable additional option and one which, because it is a relatively small airline, can offer redemption space when other options are not available.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article explains how to redeem Avios for domestic flights in the United States.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

With the US being a top tourist destination for Brits, it is worth remembering that Avios can have substantial value when you redeem them for American Airlines or Alaska Airlines domestic flights.  The acquisition of Virgin America by Alaska Airlines a couple of years ago has added a lot of new route options.

The good news is that there is minimal tax to pay when redeeming for internal US flights.  Neither AA or Alaska impose fuel surcharges and there is no US equivalent to the UK’s Air Passenger Duty.

For example, a return flight from New York to Boston on American Airlines has just £9 of taxes in Economy.

To make your life complicated, however, there are special rules for the pricing of short domestic redemptions in the United States.

Here is the standard Avios pricing chart – click to enlarge. Note that flights on partner airlines such as American Airlines and Alaska Airlines are ALWAYS priced at peak day rates, whatever day you fly.

In 2016, Avios introduced a new rules specifically for short domestic US redemptions.

For flights under 650 miles:

• Economy class redemptions are now 7,500 Avios one-way instead of 4,500

• Business class redemptions are now 15,000 Avios one-way instead of 9,000

• First Class redemptions (on three class aircraft) are now 30,000 Avios one-way instead of 18,000

Pricing on routes over 650 miles remains the same.

One other issue which often crops up when pricing US domestic redemptions is that to get the pricing in the chart above, you must travel non-stop, without a change of plane.  If you change planes, you will be charged each flight separately.  This can make redemptions very expensive if there is no direct American or Alaska flight to where you want to go, which is often the case.

You can also see how many Avios are required for a flight by making a dummy booking on ba.com. Unfortunately Alaska Airlines flights are not (yet) shown on ba.com, although they are likely to be once Alaska Airlines joins oneworld in Summer 2021.

The following routes are generally regarded as examples of flights inside North America which offer great value, either because they just scrape into the top end of their Avios pricing band or because lack of competition leads to high pricing:

• New York to Montreal (7,500 Avios each-way, American)
• San Francisco to Honolulu (12,500 Avios each-way, Alaska)
• Los Angeles to Honolulu (13,000 Avios each-way, American)
• San Francisco to Los Angeles (7,500 Avios each-way, American)
• Detroit to New York LaGuardia (7,500 Avios each-way, American)
• Atlanta to Chicago (7,500 Avios each-way, American)
• Miami to Key West (7,500 Avios each-way, American)
• Toronto to Chicago (7,500 Avios each-way, American)

Long – and expensive – flights which still drop under 3,000 miles and thus cost just 26,000 Avios return in economy include:

• Miami to Lima
• US West Coast to US East Coast
• Hawaii to West Coast USA and Alaska

If you are struggling to find flights from the UK to the Caribbean, you can also take advantage of American Airlines connections to transfer cheaply from the US mainland. Perhaps you could have a ‘city and beach’ holiday instead?

Miami to Cancun, Grand Cayman, Montego Bay or Turks & Caicos is only 7,500 Avios one-way (Barbados etc is further, so 10,000 Avios each way)

When thinking about using your Avios for US flights, you will find the highest number of routes out of the main hub airports.

For Alaska Airlines, that means Seattle, although it has smaller hubs in Portland, Anchorage, San Francisco and Los Angeles

For American Airlines, the main hubs are Dallas, Chicago, New York JFK, New York LaGuardia, Los Angeles and Miami. It also has the ex-US Airways hubs in Philadelphia, Charlotte, Phoenix and Washington National.

What baggage allowance do I get?

Domestic flights in the US booked with Avios usually come with no baggage allowance if booked in Economy.  Click through for our full article on that topic.

Annoyingly, you won’t realise this unless you click the ‘Your Baggage Allowance’ dropdown box during the booking process.  It may make more sense to use extra Avios to book Business than pay for a bag in Economy.

How to book US domestic tickets with Avios

American Airlines flights can be booked on ba.com without difficulty.  If you need to connect, ba.com may struggle to put together a routing so you may find it easier to look up individual flights and then ring BA to book the whole itinerary.

(One tip is to do a dummy redemption booking on aa.com – you don’t need to log in or even have an AA account. This will often show you potential redemption routes with connections which ba.com was not clever enough to find. You can then ring the BA call centre and ask it to book the flights that were shown as available on aa.com.)

Alaska Airlines flights can only be booked by telephone with British Airways Executive Club.  A later article in this series will look specifically at Alaska and its routes to Hawaii.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article explains how to redeem your Avios points on Aer Lingus.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

One of the biggest issues with redeeming Avios for long-haul flights is the level of taxes and surcharges imposed by British Airways. These usually run to around £550 per person in Club World (£650 to North America) and £275 in Economy, return.  For Club World, I can live with this – after all, I would be paying a lot more for a cash ticket.  For Economy seats it often makes your Avios close to worthless.

British Airways Executive Club has two partners who offer long-haul flights from Europe without excessive surcharges.  I have already looked at how to redeem Avios on Iberia.  In this article we will look at Aer Lingus.

How to book Avios flights on Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus is a sister company to British Airways since it was bought by IAG, BA’s parent company, a few years ago.

Following substantial investment, it has an impressive long-haul operation focused exclusively on the United States and Canada.  New seats and new aircraft means that it has a Business Class product which is, frankly, superior to the legacy British Airways Club World in many respects.

If you redeem your Avios for a transatlantic flight on Aer Lingus, you will need to start your trip in Dublin or Shannon.  There are two upsides here though:

• You won’t be paying long-haul premium cabin Air Passenger Duty to the UK Government as long as your connecting flight to Dublin is on a separate ticket
• Aer Lingus lets you clear US immigration in Ireland allowing you to land as a domestic passenger and saving a potentially long queue at immigration

We reviewed the Aer Lingus Business Class service between Dublin and Boston in Business Class in 2017.  The flight and seat is reviewed in that article and others in the series cover the Aer Lingus lounges in Heathrow, Dublin and Boston and the pre-clearance lounge (once you’ve cleared US immigration) in Dublin.

Here is the current Aer Lingus long-haul Business Class seat – it looks pretty good, I’m sure you’ll agree:

…. and here is the seat map, which varies from 1-2-2 to 1-2-1:

Where can you fly with Avios on Aer Lingus?

Here is the current list of Aer Lingus long haul routes from Dublin.

NOTE:  Obviously, with almost flights now suspended due to coronavirus, these lists are not currently accurate.  We have based it on lists we compiled last year.  There is no guarantee that all of these routes return when flying restarts.  

• Miami
• New York
• Boston
• Chicago
• San Francisco
• Orlando
• Seattle
• Philadelphia
• Washington
• Los Angeles
• Hartford
• Minneapolis
• Toronto

There are also services from Shannon to New York and Boston.

How to book Avios reward seats on Aer Lingus

Confusingly, there are TWO ways of booking an Avios flight redemption on Aer Lingus:

Option 1 is to use avios.com. You can book online and you get the widest choice of dates. You will pay around £250 in taxes and charges for a long-haul business class flight from Dublin to North America.

or

Option 2 is to use ba.com. You cannot book online, only by telephone. Anecdotally, there is less availability than you see via avios.com, and you cannot check availability online before you ring. However, you will only pay around £75 in taxes and charges for a long-haul flight from Dublin to North America.

You can still access avios.com if your Avios Travel Rewards Programme account has been closed by opening an Aer Lingus AerClub account here.

For clarity …. if you book UK – Dublin – North America on the same ticket then you will also need to pay long-haul premium cabin UK Air Passenger Duty.  This is currently £172 for Business Class.

Booking two separate tickets dramatically reduces the taxes although you must build in enough flexibility to ensure you don’t miss your connection.

Can you use a BA American Express 2-4-1 voucher on Aer Lingus?

No.  You cannot use a 2-4-1 voucher on Aer Lingus or any partner airline.

You CAN use ‘cash and Avios’ to replace some Avios with a cash payment if you do not have all of the points you need for your redemption. The cost per Avios varies depending on your class of travel and how many Avios you are short.

How many Avios will I need?

Here is the Aer Lingus reward chart showing zones, mileage and Avios pricing:

However, Aer Lingus has been rather sneaky.

Dublin / Shannon to Boston SHOULD be in Zone 4.  It used to cost 75,000 Avios for a return business class flight from Dublin to Boston, which is what you expect to pay for a partner airline flight of 2,986 miles which is how long the Dublin flight is.

A couple of years ago, Aer Lingus moved Boston 14 miles to the west.  Dublin to Boston (and Shannon to Boston) have been moved into Zone 5 which means it now costs 100,000 Avios off-peak and 120,000 Avios peak.  This is the same price as Dublin to New York.

And there is peak and off-peak pricing

Aer Lingus has its own peak and off-peak pricing.  The list of peak dates does NOT match the British Airways list of peak dates.

Here is the Aer Lingus 2021 peak and off-peak calendar (click to enlarge). 

For comparison, the British Airways 2021 Avios calendar is here whilst the Iberia 2021 peak/off peak calendar is here.

Three periods are noticeably different from the BA calendar.  Aer Lingus doesn’t have an October and February peak season during the UK half terms and there is no peak season towards the end of May.

On a long haul flight the saving in Avios would be attractive.  It makes the Aer Lingus long haul services from Dublin to North America worth considering during weeks where BA is charging peak prices and Aer Lingus is not.

Just to be clear the Aer Lingus peak and off-peak dates apply to Aer Lingus flights wherever you book them.  If you book an Aer Lingus flight on ba.com then it goes by the Aer Lingus calendar and not the BA calendar.

What do I pay in taxes on Aer Lingus?

Taxes are very low when redeeming Avios for Aer Lingus long-haul flights.  Avios has still found a way to make it confusing, however.

NOTE: Due to coronavirus overwhelming the BA call centre, we have been unable to re-check the figures for booking via ba.com.

As I mentioned above, there are now TWO ways of booking a redemption on Aer Lingus. Book via avios.com and you will pay around £250 return for a Business Class return.  Here is a Dublin to New York flight in Business Class for £213 return (click to enlarge):

Book via British Airways Executive Club, on the telephone, and you should pay even less at around £75 return.  We couldn’t reconfirm the figure unfortunately.

Remember that these tax figures assume you start your trip from Dublin. If you add in a connection from the UK on the same booking then you will be hit for long-haul Air Passenger Duty of £176.  You would need to buy or redeem for a separate connecting ticket to Dublin.

However, when you are on separate tickets, Aer Lingus has no liability to you if you miss your connecting flight due to the late arrival of your incoming flight.  You may therefore need to travel to Dublin a day earlier, or give yourself a long connection time in Dublin. You need to factor all this in when considering whether this is a better deal or whether you should swallow the APD and book UK – Dublin – North America on the same ticket to guarantee you are protected if you miss the connection.

How do I check Aer Lingus Avios availability?

The obvious thing to do – given that taxes are lower if you book via British Airways Executive Club via telephone – is to book that way.

You can check availability at avios.com online first before calling British Airways. However …. anecdotal evidence suggests that avios.com has better availability than ba.com.

Since the Avios Travel Rewards Programme was closed, you may no longer be able to log in to avios.com.  If this is the case, open an Aer Lingus AerClub account via this page and then log in at avios.com using those details..

It is possible that you can see a seat available for booking via the Avios website which British Airways cannot see. If this is the case, you should try calling BA back. You may simply have had an agent who doesn’t understand how to find Aer Lingus flights. If a second agent cannot find the flight, you need to decide whether to change your dates or book via avios.com and pay the higher taxes.

These taxes are still a lot cheaper than booking on British Airways from London.

Coming back to the UK, you CAN book your connecting flight from Dublin to the UK as one ticket. It makes no difference as there is no Air Passenger Duty on flights TO the UK.

Moving your Avios around between Aer Club at avios.com and British Airways Executive Club is free and instantaneous via ‘Combine My Avios‘ on avios.com.  We explain how ‘Combine My Avios’ works here.

Conclusion

If you are heading to Canada or the USA, Aer Lingus offers you a great way of saving a substantial amount of money in taxes and charges.

Even if you want to have your connecting journey from the UK to Dublin on the same ticket, to avoid any risk of misconnecting, you will still make a large saving even after paying Air Passenger Duty.  You will arguably also get a better Business Class experience than British Airways Club World.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article explains how to book Avios flight redemptions via Iberia Plus, and how you can save hundreds of pounds in taxes by doing so.

These savings can be huge.  A return Business Class Avios flight to New York costs just £130 in taxes and charges with Iberia.  British Airways wants £680.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

When an Avios collector in the UK looks for a long-haul redemption, British Airways is the obvious choice of airline. However, the taxes and charges can often be very high – around £550 per Club World seat flying east, and around £650 flying west.

One way around the taxes problem is to redeem on Aer Lingus, the subject of a future article.  Often overlooked in the hunt for low taxes, though, is BA’s sister company Iberia.  Taxes on Iberia flights are often a fraction of those charged by British Airways.

Iberia has extended its UK connections network.  You can fly from Manchester and Edinburgh to Madrid with Iberia Express, which makes it a lot easier to use Avios to connect to an Iberia long haul flight. There are also plenty of budget airline options.

Iberia has an obscure route network

Iberia has been through a substantial restructuring since being bought by IAG, the parent company of British Airways.

To IAG’s credit, Iberia has been turned around. 16 new long-haul aircraft – 12 x A330s and 8 x A350s – have been delivered or are on order for delivery by the end of the year. There is a decent new business class seat, with an even better version on the A350 (see my Iberia A350 business class review) and the long-haul network is expanding again.

The great news is that the new destinations being added are places you would actually want to visit such as Tokyo, Havana and San Francisco.

These are the non-European Iberia destinations:

• Africa – Algiers, Cairo, Casablanca, Dakar, Fez, Marrakech, Melilla,  Oran, Tangier
• USA – Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Washington DC
  
• South America – Bogota, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Guayaquil, Lima, Medellin, Mexico City, Montevideo, Quito, Rio do Janeiro, Santiago, Sao Paulo
• Central America and Caribbean – Guatemala, Havana, Panama City, San Salvador, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), San Jose (Costa Rica), San Juan
• Asia – Tokyo, Shanghai
• Middle East – Tel Aviv

All of these are flown from Madrid.  Note that some of the African routes are served with short-haul aircraft.

Iberia has vastly improved its business class seating

Iberia has no First Class.

The great news is that, over the last five years, Iberia has installed new fully flat seating across its long-haul fleet.  This is the A330 version:

I flew this on a Madrid to London flight as you can read (and see) here in my Iberia A340 business class review.  Iberia runs a few London to Madrid services a week with long-haul aircraft and flat beds in business class because it needs the cargo capacity offered by the bigger aircraft.  The new Iberia A350 business class seat has a few tweaks as our review shows.

How to price Iberia Avios flight rewards

This isn’t as simple as it could be.  Iberia has its own Avios reward pricing chart with its own peak and off-peak dates (click to enlarge):

This chart is NOT the same as the British Airways chart:

The charts are nearly the same, but not quite.

Let’s take New York as an example. Both British Airways and Iberia price New York as a Zone 5 redemption. However:

British Airways charges 100,000 Avios off-peak and 120,000 Avios peak for a Club World flight to New York

Iberia, as you can see above, charges 68,000 Avios off-peak and 100,000 Avios peak for a Business Class flight to New York

There are not many destinations which are served by both BA and Iberia, of course, so the opportunities for arbitrage are limited. You also need to factor in the cost and time of getting to Madrid, although if you live outside London it is not massively more complex than changing planes at Heathrow.

A word about peak and off peak Avios dates

Just to make life even more complex, Iberia has its own list of peak and off-peak dates. This is different from the British Airways list:

For comparison, the British Airways 2021 Avios calendar is here whilst the Aer Lingus 2021 peak/off peak calendar is here.

For clarity, the Iberia peak and off-peak chart is used even if you book an Iberia redemption via ba.com.  It isn’t exclusively for redemptions booked via Iberia Plus.

October half-term, for example, is a peak week for British Airways redemptions and peak pricing is in force. Iberia does not treat this week as a peak week.  During such periods the price differences can be stark:

• London to New York, BA Club World, is 120,000 Avios during October half term
• Madrid to New York, Iberia Business Class, is 68,000 Avios during October half term

And that’s before you factor in the massive difference in taxes ….

Iberia is the home of low taxes (but only on the Iberia website!)

Iberia Plus does not charge the full range of airport taxes and fuel surcharges imposed by ba.com.  This is a BIG thing and the main reason – as well as the better seat and potentially lower number of Avios needed – to consider Iberia seriously.

Let’s look at Madrid to New York in Business Class, return.  Iberia, when you book on iberia.com, will charge 68,000 Avios plus £130 return on an off-peak date.  See here:

A BA redemption from London to New York (via ba.com on a BA plane) on the same route in Club World costs 100,000 Avios plus £680 on an off-peak date!  That is, by any stretch, a big difference. It makes it well worth heading to Madrid to start your trip if you are price conscious.

More interestingly, if you try to book the identical Iberia Madrid to New York flight on ba.com using BA Avios, it will charge you £393 of taxes!  This is for the SAME Iberia flight which costs only £130 of tax on iberia.com using Iberia Avios.

Now, of course all is not plain sailing:

• From the UK, you need to fly to Madrid. However, if you are not based in London you will be taking a connecting flight anyway. And the saving probably justifies not flying direct from London.
• The London to Madrid flight cannot be booked on the same itinerary as the Madrid to New York flight or you will be obliged to pay UK Air Passenger Duty at the long-haul rate. Since you will have separate tickets, IB is not obliged to look after you if you miss your long-haul flight – although if you fly IB from London, it is very unlikely they would abandon you if the delay was down to them.
• A flight from London to Madrid, return, costs 13,000 Avios and £35 in Economy (offpeak) – but that is hardly making a great dent in your £550 taxes and charges saving (£680 – £130)
• Iberia reward availability is not great as they fly far fewer seats to New York than British Airways

You need to open an Iberia Plus account to get the best deal

Note that, to get the £130 of taxes for Madrid to New York in our example, you must book on the Iberia website and use Iberia Avios. If you try to book this itinerary on the BA website, BA will add fuel surcharges and other ‘random stuff’ which adds up to £393.  This means that you need to open an Iberia Plus Avios account.

Most importantly, you need to open it 90 days before you want to book. You cannot transfer British Airways Executive Club Avios or avios.com points into Iberia Plus Avios if the Iberia account is under 90 days old. (And this little wheeze is probably why.)

Your IB account also needs to have had an Avios earning transaction put through it.  You cannot move your BA Avios into an Iberia account, even if it is 90 days old, if the Iberia account has never had any activity on it.  You need to credit a flight segment or a car hire or a hotel stay to class it as ‘active’ and thus qualifying to receive incoming Avios transfers.  If you cannot put a flight or hotel stay through it, you could transfer some existing hotel points or American Express Membership Rewards points.

A word about Iberia Avios availability

Even if you aren’t convinced to book via Iberia Plus to save money on taxes, you should also note that economy class Avios availability is better on iberia.com compared to ba.com.  There no longer appears to be much difference in business class availability.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that redeeming Avios points on Iberia is confusing if you are used to the British Airways system. You need to get your head around the different peak and off-peak dates as well as remembering that using Iberia Plus will give you a lower taxes charge. You also need to ensure that any new Iberia Plus account you open is ‘activated’ via an earning transaction and that you have opened it 90 days before you need it.

The bottom line, though, is that you can make substantial savings in tax – and sometimes in Avios too – if you are willing to fly the much improved Iberia business class instead of British Airways Club World.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

What flights can you book with Avios if you live in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham or anywhere outside London?

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

When British Airways sold its regional operations to Flybe a few years ago, it became an airline with NO flights which did not begin or end in London.  This situation has been reversed slightly in recent years as a few weekend routes were added using aircraft which were idle whilst London City Airport was closed, but to all intents and purposes there is no substantive route network outside London.

Luckily, there are still some good value options available if you live outside London.  In this article we have summarised direct flights from the UK regions which can be booked with Avios points.

NOTE:  Obviously, with almost flights now suspended due to coronavirus, these lists are not currently accurate.  We have based it on lists we compiled last year, plus the 2020 BA CityFlyer leisure routes schedule, which is the best we could do.  There is no guarantee that all of these routes return when flying restarts.  

What regional flights can be booked with Avios?

We have given this list our best shot but I am sure a few options have slipped past us. Please post below with any additions and I will add them in. If you are reading this via email, please take a look at the online version later on to check for additions and deletions.

Remember that short-haul redemptions are NOT covered by Reward Flight Saver unless operated by a British Airways franchise such as SUN-AIR. These flights will often be a very poor use of Avios points because the taxes represent a very high percentage of the fare.

Some services may be seasonal. Domestic British Airways flights have been ignored. Isle of Man and Channel Islands departures have been ignored.

This list keeps on getting shorter ….

I update this article annually.  Every year it gets shorter.  We’ve lost, entirely, Aurigny, Monarch, Air Malta and Flybe.  In 2019, British Airways dropped its weekend routes from Birmingham and Bristol.  American Airlines dropped out of Glasgow and stopped the New York flight from Edinburgh.

The major gain in the last couple of years was Cardiff, which launched its Doha flight with Qatar Airways.  In 2020, Manchester gains a Royal Air Maroc service to Casablanca as the airline has now joined the oneworld alliance.

A note on redeeming

Nothing is ever simple when it comes to redeeming Avios, but I think the caveats below show that the level of confusion has now got beyond silly.  For the airlines listed below:

Aer Lingus can be booked online at avios.com but taxes may be lower if you ring up British Airways Executive Club and book from your BA account.  For additional confusion, avios.com has different availability to ba.com.

Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair and American Airlines should only be booked at ba.com – you can book them via iberia.com but they are not refundable so this should be avoided

Vueling can only be booked at vueling.com and iberia.com – bookings via vueling.com are revenue-based (more expensive flights need more points) whilst bookings via iberia.com are priced off the standard Avios redemption chart

Iberia and Iberia Express can be booked across all platforms but there is better availability via iberia.com

Long haul flights have been marked in bold for easy reference.

Avios flights from Aberdeen Airport:

Aer Lingus to Dublin

Avios flights from Birmingham Airport:

Qatar Airways to Doha

Aer Lingus to Dublin, Cork, Shannon

Vueling to Barcelona

Avios flights from Bristol Airport:

Aer Lingus to Dublin, Cork

Avios flights from Cardiff Airport:

Qatar to Doha

Vueling to Alicante, Majorca, Malaga, Rome, Barcelona

Avios flights from Edinburgh Airport:

Qatar Airways to Doha

American Airlines to Philadelphia (Summer only)

Aer Lingus to Dublin, Cork, Shannon

Iberia Express to Madrid

Vueling to Barcelona

Finnair to Helsinki

British Airways CityFlyer weekend routes to Palma, Florence (seasonal)

Avios flights from Exeter Airport:

Aer Lingus to Dublin

Avios flights from Glasgow Airport:

Aer Lingus to Dublin, Cork

British Airways CityFlyer weekend routes to Palma (seasonal)

Vueling to Barcelona

Avios flights from Leeds Bradford Airport:

Aer Lingus to Dublin

Avios flights from Manchester Airport:

American Airlines to Philadelphia

Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong

Qatar Airways to Doha

Aer Lingus to Dublin, Cork

British Airways (SUN-AIR) to Billund

British Airways CityFlyer weekend routes to Alicante, Florence, Ibiza, Malaga, Mykonos, Nice, Palma, Salzburg, Chambery (seasonal)

Finnair to Helsinki

Iberia Express to Madrid

Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca

Vueling to Barcelona

Avios flights from Newcastle Airport:

Aer Lingus to Dublin

Avios flights from Newquay Airport:

Aer Lingus to Dublin, Cork

Avios flights from Southampton Airport:

Aer Lingus to Dublin

It is also worth remembering that most oneworld partners fly to other European capitals. Instead of flying from Edinburgh to London or Manchester to pick up a Cathay Pacific redemption flight to Hong Kong, why not fly to Amsterdam instead and connect there? If you separate your tickets, you would make a substantial saving on Air Passenger Duty. You may also find better availability out of Europe.

The only thing to check is the type of plane used. Airlines generally send their newest aircraft to Heathrow because demand and competition is higher. Routes like Amsterdam often get older equipment with older-style seats. Check before you book.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article looks at how you use ‘Part Pay With Avios’.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

‘Part Pay With Avios’ has, apparently, been very successful since it was launched.  It allows you to redeem your points for a discount against a cash ticket, although in most cases you are not allowed to pay the entire price with points.

(I’m not sure that I am happy that ‘Part Pay With Avios’ has been successful.  In general, it does not offer the best value for your points – you should be able to DOUBLE the value you get by booking a standard redemption instead.  You could argue that this leaves more standard redemptions for the rest of us, but PPWA could also be seen as the first step towards making the entire Avios programme revenue based – with NO standard redemptions at all.  That would not be good ….)

Unlike an Avios reward redemption, you will still receive tier points (with BA or Iberia) and earn Avios when you take the flight.  There are also no availability constraints, of course – all you are doing is booking a normal flight and using Avios to reduce the cost.

There are different versions of ‘Part Pay With Avios’ for BA, Iberia and their other sister airlines.  I thought it was worth running through all of the options in one place.

Just for clarity, before we get started, remember that ‘Part Pay With Avios’ is NOT the same as ‘Pay with Avios and Money’:

• ‘Part Pay With Avios’ lets you reduce the cash component of a standard cash flight ticket by redeeming some Avios

• ‘Pay with Avios and Money’ lets you reduce the Avios component of an Avios redemption ticket by paying some cash instead

We looked at ‘Avios and Money’ redemptions in this article in the series.

How us ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on British Airways

Value received: 0.48p to 1p per Avios

You can find full details of Part Pay With Avios on the British Airways site here.

As well as using ‘Part Pay With Avios’ for British Airways flights, it can also be used at ba.com to discount American Airlines flights between the UK and North America and on British Airways codeshare flights operated by Air Baltic, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Cathay Pacific, China Eastern, China Southern, Fiji Airways, Finnair, Flybe, Japan Airlines, LATAM, Loganair, Qantas, Qatar, S7 and Vistara.

‘Part Pay With Avios’ isn’t great value unless there is a special promotion running.  This is something you will read again and again in this article.

Even worse, it appears that BA has dropped the valuation of each Avios by 0.1p across the board – except for the 1,000 Avios option – in the last year.

If you read our article yesterday on using Avios for hotel room bookings, you will remember that Avios has also cut the value you get from booking hotel rooms by 10% in last 12 months.

On short haul European flights, you currently receive between 0.48p and 1p per point.  The value gets worse the more points you redeem.  Here are is a typical example for an Economy flight, although the exact numbers may vary by route:

• £10 off for 1,000 Avios (1p per Avios)
• £14 off for 1,700 Avios (0.82p per Avios)
• £20 off for 2,780 Avios (0.71p per Avios)
• £28 off for 4,300 Avios (0.65p per Avios)
• £40 off for 6,800 Avios (0.58p per Avios)
• £56 off for 10,500 Avios (0.53p per Avios)
• £88 off for 17,800 Avios (0.49p per Avios)
• £108 off for 22,500 Avios (0.48p per Avios)

You will NOT be allowed to pay for your entire flight with Avios.  In my example above, I was only offered a £108 discount on a £227 fare.

Here is an example for a long haul Economy flight:

• £20 off for 2,000 Avios (1p per Avios)
• £40 off for 5,900 Avios (0.67p per Avios)
• £70 off for 12,200 Avios (0.57p per Avios)
• £96 off for 18,900 Avios (0.50p per Avios)
• £140 off for 29,600 Avios (0.47p per Avios)

1p per Avios is decent and I would always seriously consider making a tiny redemption to reduce the cost of my ticket if the option was available.  I wouldn’t refuse to speak to anyone who took the 0.82p option either, although once you get much below 1p per Avios, I struggle to justify it.

How to use ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on Iberia

Value received: a terrible 0.46p per Avios

If you want to book an Iberia flight, you can use ‘Avios discount’ if you book it via iberia.com. This is the same as ‘Part Pay with Avios’ on ba.com.

It’s not just Iberia mainline.  You can also use Avios for bookings on Iberia Express, Vueling or Air Nostrum.  Past reader feedback is that it also works for BA, apparently, although that requires calling Iberia reservations.

In order to get your Avios into Iberia, you will need an Iberia Plus account which can be opened at iberia.com.  You also need to fulfil the following two conditions:

• your Iberia Plus account must be 90 days

• your Iberia Plus account must have ‘earned’ 1 Avios – the easiest way to do this is to transfer in some Amex Membership Rewards points or credit a flight, hotel stay or car hire

You can then use ‘Combine My Avios’ on ba.com to move your points to Iberia Plus.  If you get an error message, the workaround is to move your points from ba.com to avios.com and then from avios.com to iberia.com – this will work 95% of the time.  As your old Avios Travel Rewards Programme has now been closed, you will need to open an Aer Lingus or Vueling Avios account.  The new account number generated will work perfectly at avios.com.

Again, however, ‘Part Pay With Avios’ is not great value with Iberia.  In fact, it is shockingly bad.

This is what I was quoted to reduce the price of an economy Iberia flight between London and Madrid:

• £8.53 off for 1,850 Avios (0.46p per Avios)
• £30.07 off for 6,525 Avios (0.46p per Avios)
• £50.12 off for 10,880 Avios (0.46p per Avios)
• £80.20 off for 17,410 Avios (0.46p per Avios)
• £95.23 off for 20,670 Avios (0.46p per Avios)

The maximum discount offered on a £100 flight was £95.  A long haul Economy flight from Madrid to New York produced similar results.

How to use ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on Vueling

Value received: 0.52p per Avios

Vueling is BA’s low cost sister airline, primarily flying around Europe, including regional UK airports, from bases in Barcelona and Rome.

Vueling has its own Avios-based loyalty scheme called Vueling Club.  You can learn more about Vueling Club in this HFP article.

Redemptions via vueling.com are ONLY available with ‘Part Pay With Avios’.  You can pay for the ENTIRE cost of your flight with Avios if you have enough points.

You need to log in using your avios.com account details on vueling.com.  If you no longer have an account which works at avios.com, open a new one. This will generate a new 3081xxxxxxx account number which can be used on the Vueling site and which, via ‘Combine My Avios’ on avios.com, you can use to push your points across from BA.

The redemption rate is poor, unfortunately.  You will be offered 0.52p per Avios.

Before making such a booking, see if you can book the same flight for Avios via Iberia Plus at iberia.com.  This will be priced using the ‘standard’ Avios pricing model (9000 Avios plus taxes for a short flight, return, for example) and may be a better deal.

To book a Vueling redemption for Avios via the Iberia website, you need to:

• open an Iberia Plus account at iberia.com
• had it open for at least 90 days
• earn at least 1 Avios in the account, possibly from a BA or oneworld flight, from crediting a hotel stay, from another partner or from moving across some American Express Membership Rewards Points and then
• use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move your points to Iberia Plus from BA

Complicated, I know – but booking Vueling flights via iberia.com using the standard Avios redemption chart is potentially better value than booking a Vueling flight via vueling.com and getting just 0.52p per Avios.

How to use ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on Aer Lingus

Value received: around 0.6 Eurocents per Avios

‘Part Pay With Avios’ is available for Aer Lingus flights via booked via aerlingus.com.

There are some restrictions in place.  You cannot use it on flights which include codeshare sectors and you cannot pay towards ancillary products such as fast track security and lounge access.  You also cannot use ‘Part Pay With Avios’ if there are seven or more people on your booking.

For a typical flight from Dublin to Frankfurt, I was offered:

• €62 off for 10,175 Avios (0.60c per Avios)
• €125 off for 21,925 Avios (0.57c per Avios)

….. which is poor.

You can also use ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on Aer Lingus if the flight you want is bookable via ba.com.  This requires your Avios to be sitting in British Airways Executive Club rather than AerClub, but you can use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move them around.  Note that Aer Lingus booked via ba.com can be more expensive than if booked via the Aer Lingus site.

Is ‘Part Pay With Avios’ ever worthwhile?

Unfortunately, the answer is ‘not really’, apart from potentially using 1,000 Avios to save £10.

The only exception would be if you are getting all of your Avios for ‘free’ via business travel, in which case you might be ambivalent as to what you achieve for them.

Be very clear about one thing.  If you earned your Avios via credit card spend, via a Tesco Clubcard points conversion, via an American Express Membership Rewards points conversion etc then your Avios were NOT ‘free’.  You could have redeemed your Tesco or Amex points for something else of value, or used a cashback credit card.

You are likely to have ‘paid’ more than 0.5p per Avios compared to the value you could have got elsewhere, so accepting something close to 0.5p per Avios by doing a ‘Part Pay With Avios’ redemption is not smart.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article looks at whether it is worth using your Avios points to book a hotel.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

Is it worth using Avios for hotel bookings?

I generally try to stay away from the eternal question of ‘what is an Avios worth?’. Because, at the end of the day, it is a 100% personal decision. It is a decision based on numerous factors – where you fly, what cabin, whether you normally use a 241 voucher and (the one rarely considered) what class you would pay for if Avios flights were not available.

Click here for my best effort at answering the ‘what is an Avios worth?’ question.

What you can do, though, is put a floor of the valuation of an Avios. One way of doing this is to look at what they are worth if you redeem for hotel bookings since this is an easy way to cash out of your Avios pile if you had to.

You can book a hotel with Avios miles via this page at ba.com (log-in required).

As an experiment, I randomly picked four hotels in four cities for Saturday 17th October 2020. This is what I found, pricing up a four star hotel for two adults. I took the top ‘Best Sellers’ option in all cases. Cash prices included all taxes.

• Hamburg – NH Hamburg Mitte – 31,600 Avios or ‘7,900 Avios + £120’
• London – Hilton London Paddington – 34,900 Avios or ‘8,750 Avios + £135’
• New York – Crowne Plaza Times Square – 74,500 Avios or ‘1,000 Avios + £370’
• Singapore – Grand Copthorne Waterfront – 27,100 Avios or ‘6,800 Avios + £105’

10 seconds with the calculator shows that these all give you a value per Avios of around 0.50 – 0.51p.

It is not quite that simple, of course.

Is the underlying price charged by BA Hotels competitive?

Is the ba.com ‘cash price’ fair? I turned to Expedia to check, adjusting the Avios price to assume 0.50p per Avios. The results were interesting, especially as Expedia provides the bulk of the hotels booked via BA Hotels:

• Hamburg – Avios price £160, Expedia price £135
• London – Avios price £178, Expedia price £195
• New York – Avios price £375, Expedia price £368
• Singapore – Avios price £135, Expedia price £135

As you can see, there is often little resemblance between the Avios price and Expedia’s cash price.  This means that you could be getting a far better – or far worse – deal by using Avios depending on how the cash price compares.

When the Avios price, adjusted for 0.5p per Avios of value, is the best price you can find, you should still take the option which minimises the Avios used.

Take the London example above.  Your three options are £195 Expedia, £135 + 8,750 Avios via BA or 34,900 Avios.  The best deal here is £135 + 8,750 Avios.  Taking the 34,900 Avios option means that you are ‘selling’ an extra 26,150 Avios back to BA for just £135.  This is a bad deal, getting you just 0.5p each.

Should you book hotels with Avios?

Based on the hotel prices at ba.com, you get 0.50p per Avios when you book a hotel with them.

It is worth noting that the result is noticeably worse this year.  For the last 4-5 years, when I have done the same analysis, it has been around 0.55p-0.56p per Avios.  There has been a clear 10% devaluation in what you get per point.

But is 0.50p per Avios a good deal?

If you earn your Avios points from credit card spend, converting Tesco points etc, then you are unlikely to find 0.50p acceptable.  Your Avios were not ‘free’ – you could have used a cashback credit card or redeemed for a different Tesco Clubcard offer – and you want to be getting nearer 1p per Avios when spending them.  My ‘what is an Avios worth?’ article (click here) shows how 1p is easily achievable.

If, however, you earn all of your Avios from business travel then you have no ‘opportunity cost’ for your Avios.  You may find a hotel redemption worthwhile if you are struggling to find suitable flights even if you know it isn’t the best possible deal.

Here is one final point to consider. Redeeming Avios for a chain hotel via ba.com, or paying for one via Expedia, means that you will not earn hotel points from your stay.  You will also not receive any status benefits unless the hotel is feeling generous.  You should bear this in mind when booking, especially if your status would otherwise get you free breakfast or an upgrade.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

What is the cheapest way of buying Avios points?

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

It is inevitable that, at some point, you will need to buy Avios in order to make a redemption booking.  It is rarely great value but if you are just a few thousand short of your target then it clearly makes sense.

The obvious thing to do is to go to ba.com and buy Avios via the website here. However, you may be missing out on some clever tricks which can reduce the cost of buying Avios points sharply.

There are FIVE realistic methods of purchasing Avios, plus a few more options which simply do not compete on price and still wouldn’t even under a special offer. This article does not reflect any special offers which are currently running, so do take a look at ba.com first.  Occasionally there are offers like this one:

Do you really need to buy Avios at all?

First, think about whether you really need to buy Avios at all.  If you are using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher or a Lloyds Avios upgrade voucher then you have to use ‘all Avios’ to book.  You don’t have any options.

For any other Avios booking, however, you have the option of using ‘Avios and Money’.

How to use ‘Avios and Money’ to reduce the Avios you need

I explained how ‘Avios and Money’ works in this article earlier in the series. It is often a lot cheaper to use ‘Avios and Money’ to reduce the number of points you need rather than buying additional Avios.

For example, for a World Traveller Plus return flight to New York, you can use:

• 52,000 Avios plus £377 taxes and charges (the headline list price) or

• 20,800 Avios plus £617 plus taxes and charges

In this example, you are saving 31,200 Avios by spending £240.  This is equivalent of buying 31,200 Avios for 0.77p each which can’t be done that cheaply elsewhere.

Remember that ‘Avios and Money’ is NOT possible using an American Express or Lloyds voucher, or on flights with Japan Airlines or Russian airline S7.

What are the options if you do need to purchase Avios?

Let’s take a look at the options:

1. Buying Avios via ba.com

The official link to buying Avios is here. The standard price is a shocking £31 for 1,000 (there is a flat £15 handling fee which bumps up small purchases) through to £3,215 for the maximum 200,000.

At standard rates, the price is 3.1p when buying 1,000, 2p when buying 5,000 and 1.6p when buying 35,000.

Note that the purchase is handled by an external company and does not appear as ba.com on your card statement. This means that you do NOT receive double Avios points for charging the purchase to a British Airways Premium Plus American Express card.

2.  Buying Avios via Groupon Spain

For the last three years or so, Iberia Plus has been selling Avios via Groupon in Spain!  If you click here you will see the latest version of the offer.  If the offers shows as closed then it is not currently running, but history shows it will be back soon.  It is not running at the moment.

Here are typical prices which are substantially cheaper than buying Avios directly via ba.com:

• 1,000 Iberia Plus Avios for €19 (1.63p)
• 2,000 Iberia Plus Avios for €29 (1.25p)
• 4,000 Iberia Plus Avios for €59 (1.27p)
• 8,000 Iberia Plus Avios for €109 (1.17p)
• 15,000 Iberia Plus Avios for €199 (1.14p)
• 20,000 Iberia Plus Avios for €259 (1.11p)
• 34,000 Iberia Plus Avios for €429 (1.06p)

Whilst these deals were administratively messy when they first appeared, I get fewer complaints these days.  The IT seems to be working better now.  Of course, all of the information is in Spanish but Chrome can translate the page for you.

Once your Avios have arrived at Iberia Plus, you need to use the ‘Combine My Avios‘ feature to move them from Iberia Plus into British Airways Executive Club.  Your Iberia account needs to be 90 days old before you can transfer in or out of it.

‘Combine My Avios’ can be buggy, but this article explains how to get ‘Combine My Avios’ to work if you are struggling.

The Groupon Spain page you need is here.

Very occasionally the same offer runs on Groupon Ireland.  This is preferable as you are dealing with an English-language website and an English-speaking support centre if you have any issues.  If it is currently running, this link will divert you to it.  It is not running as of 12th April.

3. Buying Avios via Iberia Plus

Here is the Iberia page for buying Avios. If you have an active Iberia Plus account (ie the account is over 90 days old and you have earned 1 Avios in it directly, perhaps by crediting a British Airways flight or Amex Membership Rewards point) then you can transfer them to BA using ‘Combine My Avios‘.  This is free.

Iberia has an odd purchase structure. There are 20 price points – you cannot buy the exact number you want.  This means you may end up purchasing a few thousand more than necessary.

It starts at €54 for 2,000 Avios and increases to €3,600 for 200,000 Avios.  You need to do the maths based on the current exchange rate to see if this is better than buying via ba.com.

4. Buying American Express Membership Rewards points

This is a neat little trick for anyone with an American Express Platinum, Gold or Green card.

Whilst this is not described anywhere on the Amex website, you can buy up to 10,000 Membership Rewards points per year for 1.5p each. These can be transferred across to Avios at 1:1 so you effectively buy Avios for 1.5p each.

For relatively modest quantities, this is a cheaper option than buying directly.  The only downside is that it will take 24 hours for American Express to transfer the points across to Avios.

To make a purchase, you need to ring Amex. It may take a while for the agent to work out how to do it as few people ever do this.

5. Buying hotel points in a promotion and transferring them

Many hotel schemes let you buy points and also convert points to Avios.  However, at full price, neither World of Hyatt, Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy, Radisson Rewards or IHG Rewards Club points are cheap enough to be worth considering.  Links to the ‘buy points’ pages of most airline and hotel schemes are here.

Occasionally, however, you get a bonus on converting hotel points to Avios like this one last October.  You can also get regular bonuses for buying hotel points.

If these offers come together at the same time – so you get a bonus when you buy the hotel points and then get a bonus from British Airways when you convert them to Avios – it can mean a good deal.  We always cover these deals when they are running.

Conclusion

For small quantities, buying American Express Membership Rewards points could be the way to go if you have the right payment card.  However, unless you need the points urgently, I would hold out for the next Groupon Spain offer or for a general ‘buy Avios‘ bonus from British Airways.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article explains how to make best use of the 2-4-1 companion voucher that comes with the British Airways American Express credit card.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

It is not an understatement to say that, used properly, the British Airways American Express 2-4-1 Avios companion voucher is the most valuable perk of any loyalty credit card in the UK.

If you want mathematical proof of that, take a look at this HfP article on the best credit card bonuses for long-term spending. The companion voucher from the Premium Plus card should get you at least £750 of value if used ‘properly’, which is 7.5% of the £10,000 you spent on the card to earn it.

Remember that the two BA Amex credit cards come with a sign-up bonus:

• The sign-up bonus on the free card is 5,000 Avios points. Representative APR 22.9% variable.

• The sign-up bonus on the £195 Premium Plus card is 25,000 Avios points. Representative APR 76.0% variable including £195 fee based on a notional £1200 credit limit.

The key thing to know is that, whilst both cards offer a 2-4-1 voucher, it makes no sense to earn the voucher on the free British Airways card. You should focus on the Premium Plus card instead. I will explain why later.

What does the BA Amex 2-4-1 ‘companion voucher’ do?

It allows you to book two Avios redemption seats on British Airways for the points of one.

You can instantly see the savings available here – up to a maximum of 400,000 Avios in the unlikely event you were able to find two First Class return seats to Australia. Even on the worst possible redemption – an off-peak economy return to Paris – you would save 8,000 Avios points.

In reality, most people use them for long haul redemptions in Club World, typically something like New York.  That would save you 100,000 Avios on off-peak dates and 120,000 Avios on peak dates.

Assuming you value an Avios point at 1p, the 2-4-1 voucher would be worth £1,000 to £1,200 for such a trip. This makes it easily the most generous perk of ANY UK credit card. The £195 annual fee for the British Airways Premium Plus card is a small price to pay for this.

Note that taxes and charges are due on BOTH tickets.  Only the Avios element is ‘free’ on the second ticket.

How do I earn a BA Amex companion voucher?

You need to spend either £20,000 (on the British Airways American Express card) or £10,000 (on the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card) on qualifying purchases within a card year. Note this is ‘card year’ and not calendar year. Your card year runs from the date you are approved.

There is a progress bar on your American Express online statement showing how close you are to triggering your voucher.

The voucher will be added to your British Airways Executive Club account within a few days of your spending target being reached.

The voucher on the free credit card is valid for one year. The voucher on the Premium Plus card is valid for two years. This is a very important difference as I will explain later, and the key reason why the Premium Plus card is better.

You can only earn one voucher per card year irrespective of how much you spend on the card.

If you upgrade or downgrade your BA Amex during your card year, after triggering your 2-4-1 voucher, the Amex website will mistakenly reset your progress bar.  It will show you working towards another voucher in the same card year.  This is an IT error and you don’t get a second voucher when you hit the threshold.

What small print do I need to know?

This is where some people come unstuck, because they don’t understand the limitations of the voucher.

It can only be used on British Airways services. You can’t use it on Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific etc even though you can book such flights on Avios.

It can’t be used on franchise or codeshare services. This means, for example, you can’t use it on the Comair-operated but BA-branded flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town.

It CAN be used on ‘open jaw’ flights, where you return from a different airport, even though these can’t be booked online and require a call to BA. The only rule is that the distance between your arrival and departure airport must be shorter than either of the two flights. London – Johannesburg, Cape Town – London is fine. London – Moscow and Madrid – London is not.

You need to book AND fly the outbound leg before the expiry date of the voucher. You can fly back at any point.

There are no circumstances under which you can ask BA to extend a 2-4-1 voucher unless there has been a BA-wide issue such as a strike or, at present, coronavirus.

If you need to cancel a flight booked using a 2-4-1 voucher, you get the voucher back. The original expiry date remains the same.

It CAN be used on one-way flights, but only for flights which depart the UK. You cannot book a one-way flight TO the UK with the voucher.

You can fly a different class on the outbound to the return. However, both passengers must travel together in the same class. You cannot fly in First and book your companion in Club World if there is only 1 First reward seat available.

The BA Amex cardholder MUST be one of the two travellers. There is no way to avoid this. If you are in a Household Account, the second passenger must be in the household account or on your ‘Family and Friends’ list.

If you have two vouchers to use, they can be used together for the BA Amex cardholder and three other people. This is what we do for our family of four. This situation would occur if you triggered your voucher for the next card year before you had used the voucher from the previous year.

You cannot use ‘part pay with Avios’ in conjunction with a 2-4-1 voucher. Your booking must be ‘100% Avios’.

‘Gold Upgrade For Two’ vouchers (issued when you earn 2,500 tier points) CAN be used in conjunction with a 2-4-1 voucher.

You cannot change the name of the second traveller after booking.  You would need to cancel the whole booking with no guarantee that the seats would be re-offered for Avios redemption.

You cannot turn an existing Avios redemption into a 2-4-1 redemption with half of the Avios returned to you.

Both passengers must travel together at all times.

Despite what Amex tells you, you do not need to use the card to pay the taxes when you come to redeem your 2-4-1 voucher. You must use an American Express card but it does not have to be a BA one or even a card in your name as Amex does not do name verification.

You will not earn Avios or tier points on your redemption flight in line with standard Avios redemptions.

Your flights will not be cancelled if you cancel your BA Amex card after making your 2-4-1 booking.

What is the best way to secure the flights I want?

British Airways makes two Club World and four World Traveller / Economy seats available on every flight. These become available at midnight 355 days before departure as we covered in this article on ‘when are Avios flights available for booking?’.

More reward seats are usually made available closer to the date of travel – a lot more, on some routes – but if you absolutely must travel on a certain day you need to book 355 days out.  There are NO First Class or World Traveller Plus seats guaranteed to be made available 355 days in advance.

This is the first reason why the voucher on the Premium Plus voucher is FAR more valuable than the voucher on the free card. Because of the two year expiry date, it is easy to use it for a trip 355 days out. You can’t do this with the voucher on the free card – it only has a one year expiry and the seats you want will already be past the 355 day mark.

For a booking 355 days out, you should look to book your outbound flights on the day they become available. Do NOT wait until the return flights come up. You then call British Airways on the day that the return flights becomes available and add it to the booking. You should not be charged a change fee for this.

Most people call the USA BA office at midnight GMT (1am during BST) to secure seats.  Whilst they also appear online at midnight and can be put in your basket, the seats are not yours until you have filled in all of the passenger details and submitted your payment.  It is very likely a call centre agent will have put them on hold in the 2-3 minutes you need to do this.  I recently tried this out as an experiment and this is exactly what happened.

Are there any easy ways of reducing the taxes payable?

Not easily, because you must start a 2-4-1 journey in the UK and thus incur Air Passenger Duty. There are two options though:

Start your trip in Jersey, because Jersey is outside the UK for APD purposes but inside the UK for 2-4-1 purposes. If you fly Jersey – Gatwick – Heathrow – XXXXX your taxes bill will be a lot lower. You cannot stopover in London for more than 24 hours or full APD is charged regardless.

Start your trip in Inverness. There is no APD out of Inverness.

There is also no APD out of Newquay which will add another option when the British Airways services start later in 2020.

In reality, none of these options make a lot sense for the majority of people.

I wrote this article recently about how to save Air Passenger Duty by starting your British Airways flight in Inverness.

Can I travel with an infant or book without my baby being born yet?

Yes. For infant (under 2) bookings you pay 10% of the Avios and 10% of the taxes of an adult passenger.

If your child is not yet born, book for the two adults and then call to add the baby when it has arrived and has a name!  These rules apply to standard Avios redemptions as well.

If I cancel my BA Amex card after earning the voucher, is it lost?

No, although the American Express call centre has a habit of telling people otherwise.

Evidence also shows that, if you cancel a 2-4-1 redemption ticket after cancelling your British Airways American Express card, you still get the voucher back.

If I downgrade from the Premium Plus to the free card after earning my voucher, do I retain the 2-year expiry period?

Yes.

Can I change my class of travel if seats open up after I’ve booked?

Yes. Standard Avios change fees apply of £35 per person, plus of course the additional Avios and any additional taxes due. You may need to call BA to do this – I’m not sure if ba.com can handle this in conjunction with a 2-4-1.

Do you recommend the Premium Plus card over the free BA credit card if I want to use a 2-4-1 voucher?

Yes, absolutely.

There is no logical reason to earn the 2-4-1 voucher on the free British Airways American Express card.  This is why:

As I explained above, the two year validity of the Premium Plus 2-4-1 voucher is hugely valuable compared to the one year validity of the voucher on the free card

You earn an extra 0.5 Avios per £1 for your spending on the Premium Plus card (1.5 per £1 vs 1 per £1 on the free card) as well as double Avios on British Airways spending. This offsets much of the fee.

If you are capable of spending £20,000 on the free card to earn a 2-4-1 voucher, a far better strategy would be for you and your partner to get two Premium Plus cards and spend £10,000 each on those. You end up with two vouchers per year, each valid for 24 months, instead of one voucher per year valid for 12 months.

Alternatively, instead of spending £20,000 on the free card, you could spend £10,000 on the Premium Plus card and use your next £10,000 of spend to hit sign-up bonuses on other credit cards.

Uh oh. I have been working towards a 2-4-1 voucher on the free card and now realise my mistake. Can I upgrade to the Premium Plus card?

Yes, simply call American Express. Your card year remains the same. If you have already spent over £10,000 in this card year, your 2-4-1 voucher will be triggered immediately. You will NOT get a sign-up bonus for upgrading as bonuses are only given if you have not had either BA Amex card in the previous six months.

Is the British Airways American Express Avios 2-4-1 companion voucher for everyone?

No.

It is easy to give the impression that the 2-4-1 is the greatest deal in the world. However, you still need to be able to generate a lot of Avios each year to take full advantage of it.

If you want to fly to the New York once a year in Club World on your 2-4-1, you still need to be able to generate 100,000 Avios per year (off-peak) on top of being able to spend the £10,000 on the card.

Of course, the 2-4-1 vouchers are also valid on short-haul flights. However, you are saving fewer Avios with your voucher that way and the £195 Premium Plus card fee may seem poorer value. I have in the past used vouchers to save 18,000 Avios on Club Europe flights and did not feel too bad about it.

The 2-4-1 voucher also implies that you have someone to travel with. If you are a solo traveller, it will not be any use at all.  I wrote this article on the pros and cons of using miles and points as a solo traveller.

You should also remember that Amex cards are not accepted everywhere, so spending £10,000 is not always as easy as it seems – although I run regular articles on Head for Points on ways of generating Amex spend more quickly.

Need more information on the British Airways Amex?

The official terms and conditions for using the voucher can be found via this page at ba.com. It is interesting to note that the T&C’s still refer to the ‘Premium’ version of the card which was scrapped around 10 years ago, and which was a mix of the free and the Premium Plus card.

Further reading

You might find these Head for Points articles useful:

My full review of the free British Airways American Express card 

My full review of the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card 

“Why NO-ONE should spend £20,000 on the free British Airways American Express card” 

“Miles and points for the solo traveller – should you have a different collection strategy?” 

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

Disclaimer: Head for Points is a journalistic website. Nothing here should be construed as financial advice, and it is your own responsibility to ensure that any product is right for your circumstances. Recommendations are based primarily on the ability to earn miles and points. The site discusses products offered by lenders but is not a lender itself. Robert Burgess, trading as Head for Points, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as an independent credit broker.

This article explains how and why you can create a household account in British Airways Executive Club.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

One way of earning a free flight quicker is to pool the Avios points of all the members of your household in one account.  With the closure of the Avios Travel Rewards Programme, there is now only one way of doing this – via a British Airways Executive Club household account.

Why would you want a British Airways Household Account?

The key benefit of a household account is that it lets you pool together points from a number of people. The main reason to do this is if you need to make a redemption which requires more miles than any one person has in their account.

There is a secondary reason too – using a household account is the only way to earn Avios when your children under 18 fly.

There are alternatives to a household account

Before we got into the details, remember that there are other ways of achieving the same goal:

You can pay to transfer miles between accounts (link only works if logged in) – up to 6,000 Avios costs £25, for example. This may be easier than getting a household account and being tied by its restrictions. 

If you are a British Airways Executive Club Gold member, you can transfer 27,000 Avios to anyone else for free, each year.  The cap is 162,000 Avios transferred out per year.

You can book a flight for someone else directly from your Executive Club account.  You don’t need to pool your miles with someone else to be able to redeem for them.

If one person only has a small balance, remember that Avios allows one-way redemptions.  One person could use their small balance to book a one-way flight and the other person book the other leg from their account.

How does a British Airways household account work?

You are NOT fully merging your accounts when you create a household account at ba.com.

Each member retains their individual Avios balance. When you log in, you see both your own balance and the household balance.

When you redeem ….. the points are taken PRO-RATA from the balance of each person

When you earn ….. the points go ONLY onto your personal balance

For example, if you have 9,000 Avios and your partner has 4,500, a redemption for 4,500 Avios will see 3,000 taken from you and 1,500 from your partner.  It is a pro-rata split.  However, if you earn 4,500 Avios from a flight, your balance goes up to 13,500 and your partner remains at 4,500.

How to open, close and add members to a family account

You can form a British Airways household account here. Each member will receive an email which includes a link to click to confirm their membership. Once the account is formed, you can also create accounts for children. The account can have a maximum of seven people in it.

All members must have their BA account registered at the same address although, as British Airways will rarely post you anything (British Airways doesn’t even send plastic status cards any longer) this is not a major impediment.

You can only make one change to the Household Account every six months. This also means you cannot close it for six months after opening it, as this counts as a change.

With a ba.com household account, the ‘Head of the Household’ can also add a further five people as ‘Family & Friends’. These names can be deleted and replaced once they have been on your list for six months. The Household Account can redeem Avios for flights for these five people too but their Avios are not merged with the household account. (You can learn more about British Airways Executive Club ‘Family & Friends’ lists in this article.)

Redeeming Avios whilst in a family account

A British Airways household account lets you redeem for anyone in the household account OR one of the five ‘Family & Friends’ members. You cannot redeem for anyone else.

This could potentially be an issue if your ‘Family & Friends’ list is full and no-one on it has been there for six months and so is eligible for removal.

How to use ‘Combine My Avios’ with a family account

There is an odd quirk with ‘Combine My Avios’ for members of household accounts.  You cannot move Avios from Iberia Plus to anyone who is in a BA household account.

This is not a problem, because you CAN move Avios from a programme running on the avios.com platform (Aer Lingus AerClub, Vueling Club) into a BA household account.

If you have Avios in Iberia Plus which you want to move your BA account, and your BA account is in a household account, this is what you need to do:

• Go to the Aer Lingus website and open an AerClub account

• Log in to avios.com using your AerClub account details

• Use the ‘Combine My Avios’ function on avios.com to pull your points from Iberia Plus into avios.com

• Do a second ‘Combine My Avios’ transaction on avios.com to push your points from avios.com to British Airways Executive Club

Easy ….

This HfP article explains how ‘Combine My Avios’ works in more detail, including the avios.com workaround.

Household accounts and children

One reason to get a British Airways household account is that it allows children to earn Avios points and tier points when they fly.

An under-18 cannot have their own standalone British Airways Executive Club account but they CAN be invited to join a household account.

If you want to earn Avios for your children but do NOT want to be restricted by a household account, consider opening a BA account for, say, a grandparent and putting the children into a household account with them.  You could add yourself to the ‘Friends & Family’ list for that household account in order to redeem tickets for yourself.

Can you use a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher if you are in a Household Account?

Yes.  The Avios you need are taken pro-rata from each member of the Household Account.

However, there is one restriction.  The second traveller MUST be either in the Household Account or on the Friends & Family list of the ‘head’ of the Household Account.

Whilst anyone can be added to a Friends & Family list – they don’t need to share your address – you can only change this list once every six months.  In certain niche scenarios this could be a problem.

Do Households Accounts stop the expiry of your Avios points?

A Household Account CAN help stop Avios expiry but not automatically.

Avios points will expire if there has been three years of no activity – ‘activity’ means either earning or spending – on the account.  This is very unlikely to happen for most HfP readers.

Being in a Household Account does not automatically stop your points expiring, unless one member of the account has British Airways Executive Club elite status.  In this case, all members of the account are protected.

However, because redemptions by a Household Account result in Avios being taken pro-rata from every member, this creates ‘activity’ for everyone and resets the three year clock.

What happens if you close a Household Account?

Nothing happens to the adult members of a Household Account.  Each member retains the Avios balance that it had, individually, inside the Household Account.

Any account opened for a child is closed and the Avios are lost.  A few years ago, British Airways would transfer the Avios of the children to the ‘head’ of the Household Account which clearly had benefits.  This no longer occurs and the Avios are lost.

Conclusion

British Airways Executive Club household accounts are not for everyone.  Personally, I don’t like them – I want the flexibility to redeem for whoever I like, especially as I often use my Avios for Head for Points trips for the team.  I use other family members to operate a household account for my children.  You can also get much of the flexibility of a HHA by redeeming one leg from one account and the other leg from another account.

If you are keen, though, I hope the summary above has clarified how they work.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

This article explains how the ‘Avios and Money’ feature of British Airways Executive Club works.

Many people don’t realise that it can offer excellent value, letting you ‘buy’ Avios for as little as 0.63p.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

What is ‘Avios and Money’?

‘Avios and Money’ is the feature of the Avios programme that allows you to book a reward seat for up to 65% fewer Avios than the headline mileage price.

British Airways and Iberia Plus will, in effect, ‘sell’ you the extra miles you need during the redemption booking process. This may mean that a redemption you thought you couldn’t reach is in fact bookable.

The official ba.com text on ‘Avios and Money’ is here – scroll down to the bottom where it says ‘Ways To Make Your Avios Stretch Further’.

What are the key facts about ‘Avios and Money’?

There are six key things to know about ‘Avios and Money’ redemptions, which I will expand on below:

Everything you will read below only applies to redemption bookings and not for cash bookings. There is a similar scheme called ‘Part Pay With Avios’ for cash bookings.

‘Avios and Money’ cannot be used with a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher. These bookings can only be made using ‘100% Avios’.

The ‘cost per Avios’ varies depending on the sort of ticket you are booking – not all ‘Avios and Money’ options are a good deal, but it can be exceptionally good value

If you cancel an ‘Avios and Money’ booking, you will get back both the Avios and the additional money – you do not get your refund entirely in Avios based on the full Avios cost of the ticket

You cannot change the operating carrier or route on an ‘Avios and Money’ booking – you would need to cancel the whole booking and rebook.

Two partner airlines – Japan Airlines and S7 (Russian domestic carrier) – are not available with ‘Avios and Money’

‘Avios and Money’ options are shown to you automatically during the booking process, so you can’t miss them. However, it is possible that you don’t do the maths properly and end up doing a bad deal.

‘Avios and Money’ can be an excellent deal

So good, in fact, that it may be worth using ‘Avios and Money’ even if you have enough Avios to book your flight outright.

This is how ‘Avios and Money’ looks on the BA website during the booking process:

The odd combinations of Avios and money shown to you means that you might not realise what a good deal you are being offered.

For long-haul economy / World Traveller redemptions and long-haul World Traveller Plus redemptions, it makes sense to pay more cash and use fewer Avios.  It is the equivalent of ‘buying’ Avios for as little as 0.77p which is as cheap as you will ever see.

(For a discussion on whether this is a good idea on short haul Avios flights, read our article from yesterday explaining how British Airways Reward Flight Saver works.)

Here are some worked examples based on a return flight to New York, off peak:

World Traveller:

26,000 Avios + £231

20,800 Avios + £281 (buying 5,200 Avios for 0.96p)

16,900 Avios + £311 (buying 9,100 Avios for 0.88p)

13,000 Avios + £331 (buying 13,000 Avios for 0.77p)

10,400 Avios + £351 (buying 15,600 Avios for 0.77p)

9,100 Avios + £361 (buying 16,900 Avios for 0.77p)

In the most extreme example, you pay an extra £130 cash in order to use 16,900 fewer Avios.  That means you are effectively buying those 16,900 Avios for 0.77p each.  This is a very good deal.

World Traveller Plus:

52,000 Avios + £377

41,600 Avios + £467 (buying 10,400 Avios for 0.86p)

36,400 Avios + £507 (buying 15,600 Avios for 0.83p)

31,200 Avios + £557 (buying 20,800 Avios for 0.86p)

26,000 Avios + £587 (buying 26,000 Avios for 0.81p)

20,800 Avios + £617 (buying 31,200 Avios for 0.77p)

Again, you are offered the chance to ‘buy’ Avios for 0.77p – up to 31,200 Avios in this case.

This method doesn’t work in Club World however. Take a look:

Club World:

100,000 Avios + £677

90,000 Avios + £917 (buying 10,000 Avios for 2.40p)

75,000 Avios + £1,187 (buying 25,000 Avios for 2.04p)

65,000 Avios + £1,417 (buying 35,000 Avios for 2.11p)

57,500 Avios + £1,517 (buying 42,500 Avios for 1.98p)

50,000 Avios + £1,617 (buying 50,000 Avios for 1.88p)

Club World is ludicrously expensive. There is no reason for anyone to take advantage of this deal. Even in the unthinkable scenario that anyone was willing to pay 2.4p for an Avios they could buy them directly from BA for 1.6p.

Here are two short-haul examples based on flying to Madrid.  Using ‘Avios and Money’ works well on a Club Europe ticket and even better in Euro Traveller.

I have just included the options to use fewer Avios in the examples below. Since British Airways introduced the option for £1 taxes and fees on short haul you can also go in the opposite direction – using more Avios and less cash – but this is a bad deal and not recommended.

Euro Traveller, using Reward Flight Saver:

13,000 Avios + £35

7,800 Avios + £70 (buying 5,200 Avios for 0.67p)

4,300 Avios + £90 (buying 8,700 Avios for 0.63p)

and, a slightly worse deal:

Club Europe, using Reward Flight Saver:

25,500 Avios + £50

18,500 Avios + £115 (buying 7000 Avios for 0.92p)

14,500 Avios + £145 (buying 11,000 Avios for 0.86p)

So, which of these options offers a good deal?

There is, of course, no easy answer to that!  This article attempts to put a figure on how YOU may value an Avios. There is no single answer that suits everyone.

You need to consider that this is the purest ‘no effort required’ method of getting Avios.  It would be totally reasonable for you to say that you would be happy to ‘pay’ 1p per Avios this way whilst you wouldn’t do any Tesco Clubcard points offer unless it came in at under 0.75p per Avios, for example.

‘Avios and Money’ is not available with all partners

‘Avios and Money’ has been expanded since it was initially launched, and now covers most of the oneworld airlines.  The only exceptions are Japan Airlines and Russian domestic airline S7.

You can also use ‘Avios and Money’ on redemptions with Aer Lingus, Alaska Airlines, Comair (South Africa) and SUN-AIR (Scandinavia).

Cancellation terms are slightly different

For reasons I do not fully understand, British Airways has historically had more restrictive change rules in place for ‘Avios and Money’ bookings than for standard redemptions.

You cannot change the operating carrier and you cannot change the route.  You also cannot cancel one leg of a return flight – you need to cancel the entire flight and rebook, subject to availability, the leg you still want.

(These restrictions are not outlined clearly on ba.com, although the Executive Club terms and conditions say: “Route changes are only permitted for Reward bookings which are purchased using Avios points only (other than for the payment of taxes, fees and charges)”)

So …. if you booked American Airlines to New York and wanted to switch to a British Airways flight, it would not be allowed.  With a 100% Avios redemption, it is possible.  Similarly, you could not switch from New York to Boston.

In both cases, you would have to cancel your booking and rebook. This could cause an issue if you only wanted to change one leg of your trip, as there is no guarantee that the other leg would still be available as a reward flight.

You cannot ring up British Airways after you have booked an ‘all Avios’ redemption and ask to switch the mix of ‘Avios and Money’.

Conclusion

Next time you book a short-haul or an economy or World Traveller Plus long-haul Avios redemption, without using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, seriously consider taking advantage of this opportunity. They will be some of the easiest and cheapest Avios you will probably ever ‘purchase’.

‘Avios and Money’ is a surprisingly well-priced (in some circumstances) and useful tool which should be part of your Avios armoury.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article explains how to use Avios points to upgrade British Airways flights.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

I run occasional articles on the vexing question of ‘What is an Avios worth?‘.  The maths shows that using your Avios to upgrade a flight is often the most valuable use of them.

What is best way to upgrade flights using Avios?

In particular, upgrades from World Traveller Plus to Club World are a great way to redeem for people who only earn a relatively small number of Avios per year.

You can’t say the same for upgrades from World Traveller (economy).  As I show below, for the general public buying their own tickets it is possible – due to the fare type – that they will never buy a ticket that is upgradable, let alone find that reward upgrade space is there.  British Airways should not be advertising the ability to upgrade economy tickets as a benefit for the average Avios collector, because it isn’t.

Technically, the process of using Avios to upgrade is now called – fairly logically – ‘Upgrade Using Avios’. However, many people still call it ‘Miles for Upgrade’ or MFU, since that was the name BA used in the past.  Both name refer to the same process.  Here is the official ba.com page explaining how upgrading with Avios works.

What do I need to know if I want to upgrade my flight with Avios?

‘Upgrade Using Avios’ allows you to upgrade a CASH-bought British Airways ticket to the next class of service.  There are a number of rules to get your head around, but in summary:

You can only upgrade by one class (World Traveller to World Traveller Plus, WTP to Club World, Club World to First, Euro Traveller to Club Europe)

Upgrades must be arranged in advance, not at the airport or onboard

You can upgrade either at the time you buy your ticket (log-in to British Airways Executive Club and use the ‘Book and Upgrade’ tool here) or later, via ‘Manage My Booking’ on ba.com

You can only upgrade via British Airways Executive Club, so if your Avios points sit at avios.com or iberia.com you will need to transfer them to BAEC first via ‘Combine My Avios’

You can only upgrade British Airways flights (with some rare exceptions for American or Iberia flights – see below)

You can only upgrade if there is Avios reward availability in the higher class.  This means that your ability to upgrade may vary from day to day depending on whether Avios reward seats are opened up on your flight.

You cannot upgrade the cheapest non-refundable Economy tickets.  Booking classes Q, O and G cannot be upgraded.  This is the biggest downside of the scheme, and the one that hits the ‘casual’ leisure traveller the hardest.  British Airways has made some positive improvements here in the last couple of years, with more tickets types now qualifying, but the cheapest tickets can still not be upgraded. In any event, World Traveller Plus – the next category up – is a small cabin so the opportunity to upgrade will always be limited. You will also need to pay the higher rate of Air Passenger Duty if moving up to WTP.

You can upgrade virtually any World Traveller Plus or Club World ticket

On a multi-flight ticket, you can upgrade legs one at a time as availability comes up.  You do not need to upgrade every flight on your itinerary at once.

You can choose to just upgrade one leg of a ticket.  You may, for example, be happy in World Traveller Plus on a day flight but prefer to upgrade to Club World if the return is overnight.

You earn Avios and tier points for the class you originally booked.  Sometimes, for technical issues, your flight will post with 0 Avios, but a quick call to BA Executive Club will get this fixed.

You can upgrade a ticket issued by a travel agent.  This is great news for anyone who wants to upgrade their work trips.  If ba.com throws up an error message when you try to do this, as it often will, you will need to call.  It is unlikely that package holiday tickets (except for BA Holidays) can be upgraded as these are usually issued as Bulk Tour or Inclusive Tour tickets which are excluded.

How do you upgrade a flight with Avios?

It is a simple process. Go to ba.com, enter ‘Manage My Booking’ and select the relevant flight. At the bottom of the page will be an option entitled ‘Upgrade Using Avios’.

The key point to remember is you can only upgrade a flight if there is Avios reward seat availability in the higher class.  If there are no Club World redemption seats available, for example, you will not be able to upgrade a World Traveller Plus ticket.  Just because there are seats available in Club World for cash does NOT mean that you can upgrade.  You MUST be able to see Avios reward seats.

Do keep checking back as reward availability moves around from day to day. You are especially likely to find seats opening up in the last few days before departure.  You can use the SeatSpy website to set up email alerts to let you know when British Airways open up award seats.

So, what does it cost to upgrade with Avios?

A return upgrade will cost you the difference between the Avios needed for a return flight in the upgraded cabin compared to the cabin in which you are already booked.

This is the current Avios redemption pricing chart:

To San Francisco (Zone 6), for example:

• World Traveller on an off peak day is 32,500 Avios return (the chart above is one-way)
• World Traveller Plus is 65,000 Avios
• Club World is 125,000 Avios
• First Class is 170,000 Avios

A return off-peak upgrade would therefore cost:

• 32,500 Avios from World Traveller to World Traveller Plus
• 60,000 Avios from World Traveller Plus to Club World
• 45,000 Avios from Club World to First

Here is the major irony of this pricing method: upgrading to Club World on off-peak days costs MORE than upgrading on peak days!

Let’s look at the same exercise again using Peak Day pricing. A return upgrade would cost:

• 50,000 Avios from World Traveller to World Traveller Plus
• 50,000 Avios from WTP to Club World
• 50,000 Avios from Club World to First

There will be some additional taxes to pay when you upgrade.  The fuel surcharge is higher for Club World compared to World Traveller Plus.  You will also be asked to pay an additional sum if taxes have gone up between the day you originally booked and the day you do the upgrade.

If you are upgrading from World Traveller (Economy) to World Traveller Plus, you will also need to pay an extra chunk of Air Passenger Duty.  The Government sets two levels of APD – one price for Economy and one price for all other classes.

Are Avios flight upgrades good value?

There is value to be had by using your Avios points to upgrade.

Let’s imagine that the typical price gap between World Traveller Plus and Club World is £1,000.  This means that you would be getting between 1.66p and 2p per Avios point of value using the San Francisco example.  This is a far better return than you get from an ‘all Avios’ redemption.

And, of course, you will earn back a large percentage of the Avios points you spend on the upgrade.  Your underlying flight still qualifies for Avios and tier points.

Can I upgrade flights on other airlines using Avios?

Yes.  You can upgrade American Airlines and Iberia flights using Avios IF you booked the ticket via British Airways.  For economy flights, you need to be holding a fully flexible economy ticket (Y or B class) which means that it is very rare that your ticket will qualify.  Iberia is slowly introducing Premium Economy on long haul.

Iberia does not have First Class so you cannot upgrade from Business.  American Airlines has international First Class on a limited number of routes but you MUST be holding a fully flexible (J, C or D class) ticket.

You cannot upgrade flights with any other airline.

Conclusion

As you can see, ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ offers good value for your points.

It is a shame that discounted Economy tickets do not qualify, although the small number of World Traveller Plus seats available for redemption means that most people would be disappointed anyway.  ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ is also a very efficient way to redeem your Avios if you only collect, say, 50,000 per year.

PS. It is also possible to use American Airlines miles to upgrade British Airways flights, under certain circumstances.  Click the link for our last article on this.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

This article explains everything you need to know about booking short-haul Reward Flight Saver redemptions on British Airways with Avios.

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

When British Airways created Avios in November 2011, the one change that came totally out of the blue – and in a very positive way – was the introduction of Reward Flight Saver.  Reward Flight Saver allows anyone who has earned one Avios in the last year to book a short-haul Economy reward flight with a subsidised level of taxes and charges.

Looking across all frequent flyer schemes EXCEPT Avios, short haul redemptions are a waste of time unless you need flexibility or are travelling at short notice.  Lufthansa’s Miles & More scheme is the perfect example of this – it is easy to find awards where the taxes actually come to MORE than the price of buying a cash ticket.  This is because Lufthansa artificially pushes down the taxes on cash tickets if a competitor on a route is charging less.

Whilst British Airways had never got this bad, you were still looking at £100 of taxes for a short-haul flight to Europe before 2011.  Added to the 9,000+ miles required, it made the redemption very, very bad value.

With Reward Flight Saver, the dynamic changed completely.  A Reward Flight Saver redemption is one of the most valuable Avios redemptions you can get and you can easily reach my target of 1p per Avios.

Should we be sceptical about the value of short haul redemptions?

Reward Flight Saver short haul Avios flights are one of the best ways to use your points.  That said, short haul air fares in Europe are only heading one way – and that is down.

The ‘elephant in the room’, which I never hear discussed by loyalty executives, is that your air miles are being constantly devalued by the fall in the cash alternative.  The industry is always trying to think of ways of devaluing your points from their side, ignoring the fact that value is already being chipped away every time fares are reduced.

Given how cash fares are falling, frequent flyer mile redemptions should be dropping in miles cost – not going up.  I recently reviewed a £5 all-in Ryanair flight to Porto and it was perfectly acceptable.

What changed with Reward Flight Saver in 2019?

British Airways made a fundamental change to Reward Flight Saver in 2019.

In theory these changes are still being called a ‘trial’ but there is no sign of them reversing.

Historically, the taxes and charges element of Reward Flight Saver was fixed.  You paid £35 for a return Euro Traveller economy flight and £50 for a return Club Europe flight.

Things changed last year when British Airways introduced even lower taxes and fees on shorthaul in return for more Avios.  You can read this in-depth HFP article about the launch of £1 taxes and charges on Avios Reward Flight Saver.

The ‘trial’ gives you the option to reduce the taxes and fees portion of the fare to £1 (50p one-way).  Here is an example in Economy to Nice:

As you can see, the ‘old’ Reward Flight Saver option is still there – 8000 Avios (the off-peak price) + £31.  In fact, it has got cheaper by £4.

You need to do the maths to see which option is best.  On the whole, you will find the traditional Reward Flight Saver option is the best value if you consider your Avios worth 1p or more each.

Taking the example above, the ‘15,000 Avios + £1’ option requires you to pay 7,000 additional Avios to save £30 if you compare it to the ‘8,000 Avios + £31’ option.  This means you are getting under 0.5p per Avios!  It is a bad deal.

If you earn your Avios from work at no cost, you may appreciate the option to spend a few more Avios in order to save a few quid.  If you earn your Avios mainly from credit card spend, Tesco Clubcard conversions etc then you do NOT want to be accepting 0.5p per point.

The new £1 deal offers additional flexibility that you did not have before and that, in our view, is a good thing.  It doesn’t mean you should book it though!

Using a British Airways Amex 2-4-1 voucher with Reward Flight Saver

Here’s an extra quirk.  If you are using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher, you will NOT see the new £1 taxes pricing.

You will only be offered the standard £35 per person taxes option in Economy and £50 per person in Business.

All you need to know about Reward Flight Saver

Here are the key points you need to know about Reward Flight Saver (‘RFS’). The official ba.com description of RFS can be found by scrolling down this ba.com page.

Reward Flight Saver redemptions are only available on British Airways flights

Reward Flight Saver is not available any other BA or avios.com partner unless the partner is a BA franchise (eg SUN-AIR, Comair). You cannot, for example, get RFS pricing on Finnair‘s Manchester to Helsinki route.

Iberia does not have Reward Flight Saver so you need to pay standard taxes and charges on their flights from the UK to Spain, or elsewhere on the Iberia short haul network.  You also cannot get Reward Flight Saver on BA’s sister airlines Aer Lingus, Vueling, LEVEL, Iberia Express or Air Nostrum.

Reward Flight Saver makes Club Europe good value, at least from London

Whilst a lot of people don’t believe that Club Europe offers great value for cash, unless you are chasing British Airways Executive Club tier points, I believe that Club Europe redemptions using Reward Flight Saver can be good value, especially if you have no status.

This is especially true if you just upgrade the outbound leg, due to the decent British Airways lounges in Heathrow and Gatwick.  The modest additional Avios needed gets you access to the lounges, fast track security, priority boarding, an empty middle seat, a full bar including champagne and a meal.

Think twice about booking Club Europe from London City Airport.  City Airport does not have a lounge and the Embraer aircraft used are 2 x 2 seating in both classes so there is no empty middle seat.  Priority Boarding isn’t worth much either due to the high percentage of passengers at City who have British Airways status and can also board in the first group.  Economy passengers from London City still get free snacks and drinks too.

Reward Flight Saver is available on redemptions under 2,000 miles

The ‘base level’ of Avios points required for one-way RFS redemptions is:

• 4000 / 4500 Avios off-peak / peak each-way up to 650 miles
• 6500 / 7500 Avios off-peak / peak up to 1150 miles
• 8500 / 10000 Avios off-peak / peak up to 2000 miles

You must double this for return flights.

Club Europe costs exactly double Avios on peak dates and slightly less than double, oddly, on off-peak dates.

If you choose to pay just £1 in taxes, the number of Avios required will jump by roughly 7,000 return in Economy / Euro Traveller and 10,000 return in Business / Club Europe.

The 2020 calendar of peak and off-peak Avios dates for British Airways can be found here.  The 2021 calendar of peak and off-peak Avios dates for British Airways flights is here.

You will see Reward Flight Saver pricing automatically when you search

As long as you have earned one Avios during the previous 12 months, you will see Reward Flight Saver pricing automatically when you search for Avios seats on British Airways on ba.com or avios.com.

Remember – you MUST have earned one Avios point during the last 12 months to see Reward Flight Saver pricing.  I often receive emails from people who think RFS has been scrapped, often when using a family member account, because no activity has gone through it in the previous year.

Domestic UK connections are not free

This was the biggest hit from the April 2015 Avios changes to anyone who lives outside the South East.

It used to cost the same 9,000 Avios + £35 to fly Manchester – London – Berlin as it cost to fly London – Berlin. This is no longer the case.

The domestic leg is now charged at 9,000 Avios + £35 return on a peak day. The Manchester to Berlin example would now cost 18,000 Avios + £70 in economy. When you factor in the hassle required to change planes at Heathrow, it is very unlikely that you would want to do this.

You can get RFS redemptions from South Africa on BA franchise Comair but at a high price

Comair has a decent network, flying in BA-branded aircraft, around Africa. This may come in handy if, for example, you need to get to Cape Town but can only get a redemption seat from London to Johannesburg. Comair also flies from Johannesburg to Mauritius.  Comair has different charges for RFS redemptions which are substantially higher than BA’s at £80 return for Economy and £140 return for Business.  Add in the number of Avios required and a cash ticket is likely to be better value.

You can get Reward Flight Saver redemptions on BA’s Moscow flights, which often use long-haul aircraft

The London to Moscow route is the only sub-2000 mile route from London which uses long-haul aircraft – although not on all flights. This means that you can use Reward Flight Saver to experience the Club World flat bed seat or, depending on aircraft, even BA’s First Class service.  Remember that you need a visa to visit Moscow which can be expensive and time consuming to obtain.

British Airways also runs a long-haul aircraft on one daily flight from Heathrow to Madrid for cargo reasons.  This is a great way to try a Club World flat bed for a couple of hours.

You can get Reward Flight Saver redemptions on BA’s ‘Fifth Freedom’ Caribbean routes

A ‘Fifth Freedom’ flight is one where the plane stops en-route to its final destination to drop off passengers, and also takes on new passengers at the intermediate stop.  British Airways uses these so called ‘Fifth Freedom’ rights to sell tickets on flights which neither begin nor end in the UK.

When we last wrote about British Airways ‘Fifth Freedom’ routes in September 2019, this was the list:

• UVF (St Lucia) – GND (Grenada) (50 minutes, Wed)
• UVF (St Lucia) – POS (Port of Spain) (65 minutes, Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri, Sun)
• ANU (Antigua) – SKB (St Kitts) (45 minutes, Wed and Sat)
• ANU (Antigua) – PLS (Turks & Caicos) (2hr 5 min, Thu and Sun)
• ANU (Antigua) – TOB (Tobago) (85 minutes, Tue, Fri)
• GCM (Grand Cayman) – NAS (Nassau) (95 minutes, Mon, Thu, Fri, Sat)

Club World is 15,500 to 18,000 Avios + £50 return.  Turks & Caicos is a longer flight and costs 25,500 – 30,000 Avios + £50 in Club World, return, depending on date.  You can reduce the taxes to £1 by spending additional Avios.

If you have never tried BA’s Club World or First Class service, then this is a cheap way to do so if you are in the region – and possible turn your holiday into a ‘two centre’ one at the same time. You can learn more about British Airways ‘Fifth Freedom’ routes in this HFP article.

You can get Reward Flight Saver redemptions on BA franchise SUN-AIR of Scandinavia

SUN-AIR runs a small network of flights from Scandinavia, flying BA-branded aircraft under a franchise agreement.

There are two routes from the UK into Scandinavia:

• From Manchester, it flies to Billund in Denmark. Billund is the home of Legoland!
• From London City it flies to Billund

All routes are available as Reward Flight Saver for 9,000 Avios plus £35 in Economy on a peak date. You can also use Reward Flight Saver on non-UK Sun-Air routes, such as Dusseldorf to Billund.

I hope this article clarifies some of the questions you may have had about British Airways Reward Flight Saver redemptions using Avios.  The official Reward Flight Saver page on ba.com is here if you want to find out more.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.

How do you book flights using Avios points?  How do you book flights with partner airlines?  And is it worth redeeming Avios for hotels, wine, car hire or experiences? 

The “Avios Redemption University” series is a good starting point for beginners, although I hope everyone will learn something from it.  Click here to see the other “Avios Redemption University” articles.

This series of articles covers some of the different ways of using your Avios. In particular, they highlight deals which offer surprisingly good value for your points such as redeeming on ‘low tax’ airlines.

How do you book flights with Avios?

In this introductory article, I want to run through the key principles of how to redeem your Avios points for flights.  Fundamentally, it is as simple as going to the ‘Book A Flight With Avios’ page on ba.com and putting in the dates you want to fly.  In reality there is a lot more to it.

You can use the ‘Combine Your Avios’ function on ba.com to move your Avios from British Airways, avios.com (for Aer Lingus and Vueling) and Iberia into one account – transfers are free and instantaneous. 

One of the quirks of the Avios scheme is that you may be better off booking via a different portal instead.  Sometimes avios.com or iberia.com will offer you a better deal.  I will explain why below and in more detail in future articles in this series.

There are many other nuances you need to understand.  Much of it will come from experience, but here are some of the key points.  The other articles in this series will go into these topics in more detail.

How do I know how many Avios are needed for a flight?

Following the last revamp of the British Airways website, you can no longer see a simple chart of how much an Avios redemption flight costs. You are expected to plug your route into this ba.com calculator.  Unfortunately, it is current unavailable and has been for some months.

Luckily we have a copy of the chart below.

The basis of Avios pricing is this simple grid, which prices British Airways flights based on the one-way distance flown. This is the pricing chart introduced in April 2015, and applies to British Airways and Aer Lingus flights.  It also applies to most Iberia flights – we will look at the differences in another article:

There are exceptions to these zones, with some routes such as Cape Town being put into a cheaper zone than their distance would suggest.

How many Avios are needed for flights on partner airlines?

Flights on British Airways partners are priced differently.  For flights on Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, S7, Sri Lankan and Royal Jordanian Airlines, this chart applies:

As you can see above, short domestic flights in the US are priced differently.  This HfP article looks at Avios pricing for US domestic flights.

All dates are peak dates when pricing partner airline flights.

How can I work out the length of a flight?

If you want to find out the distance between two airports, the best route is Great Circle Mapper (gcmap.com).  Type in the airport codes, eg LHR-JFK, and click ‘Distance’.

You don’t need to do this, however.  There is a calculator on ba.com which will tell you miles required for any direct redemption flight, although it is currently unavailable.

We have an alternative though.  You can find the Avios needed for any British Airways route by using the chart in this HfP article.

What are the peak and off-peak Avios dates?

Redemption costs on British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus vary depending on whether you fly on a peak or off-peak day.

BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus do NOT have the same peak and off-peak dates.

The list of British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia peak and off-peak dates for 2021 can be found in this article. 

You can save a lot of points if you apply these calendars smartly. Compared with British Airways, Aer Lingus does not have an October and February peak season during the UK half terms.  There is also no peak season towards the end of May / early June.  Redeeming via Dublin on Aer Lingus could save you a lot of Avios during these periods, although Aer Lingus has a very limited long-haul network.

Flights with any airline other than British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia do not have peak or off-peak dates.  All partner flights are priced from the separate chart above which is valid 365 days per year.

To add extra confusion …. there is a multi-partner Avios reward chart

There is a third British Airways Avios redemption pricing chart for trips which use two or more oneworld carriers apart from British Airways.

This chart is rarely used but you can find it on ba.com here. A flight such as London – Doha (Qatar Airways) – Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific) would price off this chart.

I discuss some uses of the Avios multi-partner reward chart in this article.  There is real value in it if you are heading to Australasia for example.

How is Avios pricing calculated for connecting flights?

Pricing is based on EACH individual flight, not the distance between origin and destination.

The only exception is when booking a UK domestic connection to/from London to connect to a long-haul flight.  No additional Avios are required for this.

The Avios charged for a particular route can therefore vary depending on how you fly there.

• London to Muscat on British Airways is non-stop and 3,600 miles, so costs 13,000 miles in Economy one-way off-peak and 20,000 miles on a peak day

• London to Muscat on Qatar Airways involves a change in Doha. London to Doha is 3,200 miles and Doha to Muscat is 437 miles. This means your flight will cost (20,750 + 6,000=) 26,750 Avios, one way.  All dates are peak dates when flying on Qatar Airways or other partners.

Be careful here.  Do not necessarily think that the British Airways direct flight to Muscat is cheaper because it requires fewer Avios.  You may find that the taxes are lower on partner airlines, making the partner option better value overall.

How to use ‘Avios and Money’

If you don’t have enough Avios for your flight, British Airways runs a scheme called ‘Avios and Money’ which allows you to use fewer Avios to book your flight in return for paying a cash fee.  We explain how ‘Avios and Money’ redemptions work in this ‘University’ article.

In some cases, it makes sense to use ‘Avios and Money’ even if you have enough Avios because the cash option is so cheap.  I explained why ‘Avios and Money’ can often be a great deal in this article.

What taxes and charges are due?

The cost of your reward flight will also include a charge for ‘taxes and charges’.  This is mainly a British Airways ‘carrier surcharge’, which goes directly into BA’s pocket, and the UK Government’s Air Passenger Duty.

The charge vary amongst airlines.  Further articles in this series will focus on low tax options with Aer Lingus and Iberia.

Let’s go back to my example above.  London to Muscat on British Airways, return, has a taxes and charges total of £258 in Economy.

This is bad value, unless you need the flexibility to cancel that an Avios ticket offers.  You can often pick up an economy flight to the Middle East for around £350 return on BA or one of the Middle Eastern airlines.

Unless you fly on Aer Lingus or Iberia, starting your trip outside the UK, these taxes clearly make Economy redemptions in long haul poor value for money unless you are travelling at peak times such as school holidays.

This is why Head for Points usually recommends redeeming in Business or First Class on British Airways.  The taxes will be around £550 per person return (£650 for US flights) but this is still a fraction of the usual cash price of your seat.

Taxes and surcharges on European flights are capped at £35 for Economy and £50 for Business on British Airways flights. This makes short-haul redemptions good value in either class.  The next article in this series looks at Reward Flight Saver in more detail.

Using Avios points to upgrade flights

You can also use Avios points to upgrade a flight by one class on BA, Iberia and American Airlines.   We explain how to use Avios points to upgrade British Airways flights in this article.

The key points to know are:

• You cannot upgrade from the cheapest non-refundable Economy tickets

• You CAN upgrade from the cheapest World Traveller Plus or Club World fares to Club World or First Class respectively

• The cost of an upgrade is the difference between an Avios redemption in the class booked and a redemption in the next highest class

• You can upgrade at the time of booking or later, it makes no difference

• You can only upgrade if there are Avios redemption seats available in the higher class

For example, upgrading a return World Traveller Plus ticket to New York will cost 48,000 Avios off peak and 40,000 Avios on a peak day.

(That is not a typo.  An idiosyncrasy of the Avios reward chart is that Club World upgrades from World Traveller Plus are cheaper on peak dates and more expensive on off-peak dates!)

How did I calculate this? A Zone 5 Club World redemption is 50,000 Avios one-way off-peak. A Zone 5 World Traveller Plus redemption is 26,000 Avios one-way off-peak. The cost of the upgrade is therefore (50,000 – 26,000 x 2 for a return =) 48,000 Avios.

You will still earn Avios and tier points for the original cash ticket you booked which reduces the net cost of the upgrade.

Which airlines can I redeem on?

A full list of the 27 (!) airlines which let you redeem Avios points can be found here.

This list is constantly changing. LATAM left oneworld in 2020 and Air Italy. On the positive side, Royal Air Maroc joined in 2020 and Alaska Airlines will join in 2021.

Redeeming Avios on ba.com:

British Airways Executive Club lets you redeem for all 14 airlines in the oneworld alliance plus Aer Lingus, Comair (South Africa) and Alaska Airlines .

Aer Lingus redemptions CANNOT be booked online at ba.com and there is no 100% certain way of checking availability before you call. Anecdotal evidence says that there is less availability than you can book online – with far higher taxes – via the avios.com website. A later article in this series will discuss Aer Lingus in more detail.

If you have British Airways Executive Club Gold status, you will find more economy availability on British Airways flights on ba.com than avios.com. This is because BA opens up additional economy reward seats to its Gold members.

A British Airways Gold member can also get an Avios seat on ANY BA flight if they are willing to pay double Avios.  These are called Gold Priority Rewards and I explain how to book them here.

Redeeming Avios on avios.com:

You may at times want to book on avios.com.  Whilst they do NOT offer oneworld alliance partners except for Iberia and American Airlines, they do offer seats for online booking on Aer Lingus.

Taxes are higher and availability have historically been worse on Aer Lingus when booking online via avios.com instead of over the telephone via British Airways Executive Club.  I have had variable reports on this over the last 12 months, however, so you may want to get a taxes quote via both sources.

Redeeming Avios on iberia.com:

Long-haul redemptions on Iberia have SUBSTANTIALLY lower taxes when booked at iberia.com. You will save at least £300 per person. I discuss how to redeem Avios points on Iberia flights in this article.

Iberia Plus also has access to flights from Vueling, LEVEL, Iberia Express and others which you cannot book at ba.com.

Key facts to know when redeeming Avios

Availability opens up 355 days prior to departure for British Airways and most other airlines.

At least four economy and two business class seats will be available immediately on BA flights. There is no guarantee of World Traveller Plus or First Class seats being available at 355 days out. Further seats will usually open up at random in the months approaching departure, depending on sales of cash tickets.

If you want a ‘high demand’ route such as Sydney or Cape Town in Club World and want to travel on a BA plane in order to use a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, you should be prepared to book the outbound flight as soon as it becomes available.

This means at midnight (1am BST) via an open BA call centre (US, Japan) 355 days before departure – it will also drop onto the website at midnight but a telephone agent will have reserved the seats before you can make payment online. When the return becomes available a few days later, you need to call BA and have it added to your existing outbound ticket.

Avios redemption tickets can be changed or cancelled for a £35 per ticket fee, deducted from the refund of your taxes. All cash and Avios are returned, the Avios usually come back instantly.  This article explains the Avios cancellation rules and fees.

You can change the return even after you have flown the outbound, subject to Avios seats being available. You cannot cancel a return flight once you have flown the outbound.

Infants (under 2) who do not need a seat pay 10% of the standard Avios and 10% of the standard taxes

You can fly into one airport and out of another without penalty as long as you follow the rules on how to book an Avios open-jaw flight in this article. These redemptions can only be booked over the telephone, unless you book them as two one-way redemptions.

It is OK to mix airlines when booking a redemption – you can fly British Airways to Doha and then Qatar Airways on to Mumbai, for example, on the same ticket.

Flights on airlines other than BA, Aer Lingus and Iberia will be charged at the peak rate on all dates

The ba.com website often struggles to offer all possible options when looking for redemptions to North America which involve a connection in the US. A good tip is to search via the American Airlines website at aa.com – you don’t need an account with them. Any reward seats which show as ‘sAAver’ flights on aa.com can be booked using Avios points – if you cannot get ba.com to bring up the flights then you need to call BA.

Want to learn more about how to maximise your Avios redemptions?

You can see the full list of all 15 articles in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series here.

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 Mastercard

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

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.