BA Avios - How to get best value

[landandword17]

I use them on Aer Lingus or ex Dublin on BA. Ex Dublin saves hundreds on fees and we fly over the day before on a cheap RyanAir flight. With Aer Lingus you have to call up BA to book but it’s great value. I also used them last year to Hawaii from San Francisco on Alaska. 12,500 and $6 so great use of them.

[Peko]

Originally Posted by fatblokeflorida

Looking at Head For Points, unless I've misunderstood they reckon 25000 Avios is worth roughly £250 so the card seems like a good deal (as long as you pay the balance off in full every month of course). Thanks again

See more...

Yes and no. It’s generally considered (on HfP and by seasoned users of Avios) that you should aim to get at least 1p value per Avios point, which is where the above valuation comes from.

Whether you get this value or not will depend what you use them for, at what time, and what the cash cost of buying the same thing would be. It’s easier to meet/exceed this value for premium cabin flying. For long haul economy or other things like hotels, wine etc, it could well be harder.

It’s also not always easy to make a straight comparison, due to different conditions and benefits on cash tickets vs Avios tickets, and the 2-4-1 voucher needs to be factored in, if applicable, but it’s a decent rule of thumb. It also depends what it “costs” you to obtain the Avios in the first place.

[fatblokeflorida]

Originally Posted by landandword17

I use them on Aer Lingus or ex Dublin on BA. Ex Dublin saves hundreds on fees and we fly over the day before on a cheap RyanAir flight. With Aer Lingus you have to call up BA to book but it’s great value. I also used them last year to Hawaii from San Francisco on Alaska. 12,500 and $6 so great use of them.

See more...

Thanks. Hadn't thought of using them like that

[fatblokeflorida]

Originally Posted by Peko

Yes and no. It’s generally considered (on HfP and by seasoned users of Avios) that you should aim to get at least 1p value per Avios point, which is where the above valuation comes from.

Whether you get this value or not will depend what you use them for, at what time, and what the cash cost of buying the same thing would be. It’s easier to meet/exceed this value for premium cabin flying. For long haul economy or other things like hotels, wine etc, it could well be harder.

It’s also not always easy to make a straight comparison, due to different conditions and benefits on cash tickets vs Avios tickets, and the 2-4-1 voucher needs to be factored in, if applicable, but it’s a decent rule of thumb. It also depends what it “costs” you to obtain the Avios in the first place.

See more...

Thanks. Very helpful

[Tweety1]

Originally Posted by landandword17

I use them on Aer Lingus or ex Dublin on BA. Ex Dublin saves hundreds on fees and we fly over the day before on a cheap RyanAir flight. With Aer Lingus you have to call up BA to book but it’s great value. I also used them last year to Hawaii from San Francisco on Alaska. 12,500 and $6 so great use of them.

See more...

Hi
Just dipping my toe in Avios as alwáys save Virgin (but I do have some avios). I don’t understand what ex Dublin means do you mean departing from Dublin? If so why does it save in fees? Thank you for any advice

[landandword17]

Originally Posted by Tweety1

Hi
Just dipping my toe in Avios as alwáys save Virgin (but I do have some avios). I don’t understand what ex Dublin means do you mean departing from Dublin? If so why does it save in fees? Thank you for any advice

See more...

Yes it saves fees as they do not charge the fuel surcharges if taking off in Ireland. You can also chose American Airlines flights from the UK to avoid the surcharges.

travelupdate/ba-avios-no...inimize-costs/

[fatblokeflorida]

Originally Posted by stanleycamel

A lot depends on how many Avios you have but BA guarantee 4 seats in WT and 2 in Club for using Avios on every flight on the day of release (355 days in advance) and they go fast. It is possible to book the outbound and then add the return when it is released but especially in peak travel dates it can be a risky stratergy. There is no extra availability between using pure Avios or the AX voucher. Avios expire after 3 years of inactivity but this is easy to avoid.

To be honest with the Amex voucher it really isn't the best use of it for WT tickets as you still have to pay the taxes, fees and charges and thel lowest fares especially in the sale often don't cost more. You can use Avios on sale fares by using certain amounts to reduce the cost of the fare. Perhaps what chrisaxl was thinking of about being unable to use Avios with sale fares is that WT is split into a number of fare buckets and it is only the higher levels that allow upgrades to WTP to be used and sale fares are in the lower fare bucket range.

One of the best ways to use Avios is to buy a WTP fare in a sale and upgrade using your Avios to Club. WTP is counted as a half cabin jump so you use fewer Avios.

Re Amex- the free credit card (blue) you have to spend £20k over the year to generate the voucher and it is valid for 1 year. The Premium card(black) is £195 per year, the spend to trigger the voucher is £10k and is valid for 2 years. Although at the moment BA have automatically added a further 6 months to all vouchers including ones which already have flights booked.

You have to travel outbound before the expiry date but can return after - for instance an example of an expiry date of 1 May 2021 you could travel outbound on 30th April back on 14th May or whatever date you want to commit to.

Pure Avios and Amex bookings can be cancelled up to 24 hours before travel for a fee of £35 per person, cannot be changed after outbound travel and can be changed subject to availability for the £35 pp fee.

Bear in mind quite often that you sometimes can get "Bonus" Avios for a new card subject to terms and conditions - Head for Points is a good site to read up about this.

I would recommend having a good look at the BAEC Avios pages and familiarise yourself as good research pays dividends and its worth doing dummy bookings too just to get used to the system.

Hope that helps - there is so much to look at I am bound to have forgotten something

See more...

We only have about 60,000 Avios at the mo but if we get the black card that would increase to 85,000 through the current bonus offer plus say a further 15,000 earned through the qualifying spend so we would be up around 100,000 plus we'd have a companion voucher.

The Reward Flight Calculator within the BAEC Avios pages doesn't seem to be working so assuming there was availability, any idea how many Avios we would need for max 4 upgrades from WTP to Club flying return from LON to one of MIA, MCO or TPA during peak summer holidays?

[stanleycamel]

Originally Posted by fatblokeflorida

We only have about 60,000 Avios at the mo but if we get the black card that would increase to 85,000 through the current bonus offer plus say a further 15,000 earned through the qualifying spend so we would be up around 100,000 plus we'd have a companion voucher.

The Reward Flight Calculator within the BAEC Avios pages doesn't seem to be working so assuming there was availability, any idea how many Avios we would need for max 4 upgrades from WTP to Club flying return from LON to one of MIA, MCO or TPA during peak summer holidays?

See more...

An upgrade from WTP to Club Peak travel dates would be 25000 per person, per sector plus difference in taxes fees and charges from London to Orlando. Hope that helps

[fatblokeflorida]

Originally Posted by stanleycamel

An upgrade from WTP to Club Peak travel dates would be 25000 per person, per sector plus difference in taxes fees and charges from London to Orlando. Hope that helps

See more...

Many thanks

[Tweety1]

Originally Posted by landandword17

Yes it saves fees as they do not charge the fuel surcharges if taking off in Ireland. You can also chose American Airlines flights from the UK to avoid the surcharges.

travelupdate/ba-avios-no...inimize-costs/

See more...

I will have a look, thank you. Do you rate this more than Virgin? (Hopefully they survive as I have lots of miles with them). Do BA have a lot of reward seats? I tried to look to see how many points hotels are but couldn’t see it, however I did see if you spend with hotels.com and booking.com you accrue Avios