(This is Lesson 4 in the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series, aimed at answering the eternal question – ‘What is the best Avios redemption?’. Links to the three earlier articles on upgrading with Avios, redeeming on Aer Lingus and redeeming for hotel rooms can be found here.)
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. This allows anyone who has earned 1 Avios in the last year to book a short-haul Economy reward flight for £30 (€35) in taxes and charges, or £40 (€45) for Club Europe.
Historically, short haul redemptions were a waste of time unless you needed the flexibility or were travelling at short notice. Lufthansa’s Miles & More scheme is the perfect example of this – it is very easy to find M&M European 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 BA never got this bad, you were still looking at c £100 of taxes for a short-haul flight to Europe which, when added to the 9,000+ miles required, made the redemption very, very bad value.
Now everything has changed. At 9,000 miles plus £30, a Reward Flight Saver redemption is probably the most valuable redemption you can get! A flight to Germany in economy will be around £125 these days, so you would be getting over 1p per Avios of value. If I can get 0.75p on a long-haul J or F redemption then I consider it OK.
Club Europe can also be good value, especially if you have no status – upgrading just the outbound of a trip to Germany would be an extra 4,500 miles (one way) and £5. That’s a bargain for access to the Heathrow lounges and the Club Europe service, such as it is.
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.
RFS is available on redemptions under 2,000 miles
You need the same mileage as per a standard redemptions – 4500 Avios each-way up to 650 miles, 7500 Avios up to 1150 miles, 10000 Avios up to 2000 miles. You must double this for return flights, and double it again for business class.
You will see RFS pricing automatically when you book your redemption
As long as you have earned 1 Avios during the last 12 months, you will see RFS pricing automatically when you search for Avios seats on ba.com, iberia.com or avios.com. You must have earned your 1 Avios in the relevant scheme – you must have earned 1 Avios in Iberia Plus, for example, to book RFS seats at iberia.com.
RFS redemptions are only available on British Airways and Iberia flights
You cannot, for example, get RFS pricing on Finnair’s Manchester to Helsinki route. This will require full taxes to be paid. However, flying on BA from Manchester-London-Helsinki does qualify for RFS.
Domestic connections are available for free, both in the UK and Spain
You will still pay 9,000 Avios plus £30 to fly Manchester – London – Berlin, so regional flyers are not penalised. Since Spanish connections are also included for free, you can also do London – Madrid – Seville for 15,000 Avios plus £30 in Economy.
You can get RFS pricing on Iberia subsidiary Vueling
Vueling currently operates the following routes, some only in Summer, from the UK:
- Edinburgh to Barcelona
- Cardiff to Barcelona, Alicante, Malaga, Majorca
These are all bookable as Reward Flight Saver fares, costing just 15,000 Avios plus Euro 35 return. However, they can only be booked via Iberia Plus. You will need to transfer BAEC or avios.com Avios into Iberia Plus to book these seats, and you need to be an Iberia Plus member for 90 days before you can transfer into Iberia Plus.
You can get RFS redemptions from South Africa on BA franchise Comair
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 slightly higher than BA’s at £42 for Economy and £50 for Business.
You can get RFS redemptions on BA’s Moscow flights, which use long-haul aircraft
The London to Moscow route is the only sub-2000 mile route from London which uses long-haul aircraft. This means that you can use RFS to experience the Club World flat bed seat or even BA’s First Class service. However, remember that you need a visa to visit Moscow which can be expensive and time consuming to obtain.
You can get RFS redemptions on BA’s ‘Fifth Freedom’ 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. BA uses these so called ‘Fifth Freedom’ rights to sell tickets on flights which neither begin nor end in the UK.
Here are a few British Airways ‘Fifth Freedom’ short routes:
- ANU (Antigua, see photo below) – GND (Grenada) (70 minutes)
- ANU (Antigua) – SKB (St Kitts) (30 minutes)
- ANU (Antigua) – TAB (Trinidad & Tobago) (85 minutes)
- AUH (Abu Dhabi) – MCT (Muscat) (65 minutes)
- BAH (Bahrain) – DOH (Doha) (55 minutes)
- GCM (Grand Cayman) – NAS (Nassau) (90 minutes)
- NAS (Nassau) – PLS (Turks & Caicos) (85 minutes)
- POS (Port of Spain) – UVF (St Lucia) (60 minutes)
All of these routes are available as Reward Flight Saver. Club World is 18,000 Avios + £40 return, First Class (where available) is 27,000 Avios + £45. 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.
Iberia’s route network adds a couple of extra RFS destinations
Iberia operates two routes, both ex-Madrid, which offer a RFS opportunity not offered by BA. These are Dakar in Senegal and Nouakchott in Mauritania. Neither of these are likely to be top of any tourist itinerary, although obviously the routes will be of interest to those in the UK with family in the region.
Booking at ba.com, Madrid to Dakar prices out (return) at 20,000 Avios plus £30 in Economy or 40,000 Avios plus £40 in Business. Madrid to Nouakchott is the same as long as you book the non-stop service. A Reward Flight Saver flight from the UK to Madrid to connect with these services would cost 15,000 Avios plus £30 in Economy.
You can get RFS redemptions on BA franchisee Sun-Air of Scandinavia
Sun-Air runs a small network of flights from Scandinavia, flying BA-branded aircraft under a franchise agreement.
There two routes from the UK regions into Scandinavia. From Manchester, it flies to Billund in Denmark up to three time per day. Billund is the home of Legoland! It also flies from Manchester to Aarhus and Gothenburg. This is one flight with a stop in Gothenburg on the way.
All 3 routes are available as RFS for 9,000 Avios plus £30 in Economy. You can also fly from London, with a plane change in Manchester, for the same amount (although BA has its own Gothenburg service anyway).
Some readers may be wondering where Lesson 3 in this series went! I decided that my recent post on redeeming Avios for hotel stays should be part of Avios Redemption University, so that post has been retitled and slightly re-edited to become Lesson 3! Click on ‘Avios Redemption University’ under the ‘Categories’ menu on the right to see all the entries.
LON-MAD is 15000 avios r/t for a RFS.
Oops, sorry! Corrected.
It was actually the LHR-MAD-SVQ I was referring to. At first I thought you’d found a loophole in that LHR-MAD-X would count as zone 1 if LHR-X was < 650 miles, but the only airport I can find to satisfy that is BIO, and LHR-MAD-BIO is also 15000, though I'm not sure it's possible to book. The only way I could confirm it was to do a PCPM booking which cost something like 1200 euro plus 15000 avios. Bizarre, but confirmed no loophole
The relative quality of BA’s lounges at LHR can create a bit of an asymmetry in the CE product. Fortunately, you can book business out of London and economy back.
Can you have free connecting flights in BOTH the UK and Spain? Eg Manchester – London – Madrid – Seville. I couldn’t make it work when I tried…..
ba.com does not like Avios bookings involving more than 1 connection. You should check availability online for each leg and then ring up to book, pleading for mercy on the £15 booking fee because ba.com can’t handle it.
I wonder if its possible to use the ba amex 241 voucher with a RFS flight (first to moscow)?
Yes, no problem, you can mix a 241 and RFS.
Is there any way to use avios for internal flights in the USA? Will you be covering this at some point? Thanks!
Yes, its very easy – you can redeem on American Airlines or Alaska. Both of these are bookable directly on ba.com for simple flights. This post http://headforpoints.com/2012/11/24/using-avios-for-almost-tax-free-flights-around-the-us/ shows some potential routings which offer excellent value for Avios compared to cash fares, but there are thousands of other options because of American’s huge route network.
It is not possible to book Alaska flights on BA.com – these have to be booked via the call centre with mixed results on booking fees being applied.
Yes, sorry, I made the same mistake last time I wrote about Alaska. Best bet is to check availability on the Avios site first and then call BA.
Brilliant, thanks for the replies!
Raffles,
Another fine blog, thanks for the information. Tell me, when did it become possible to use BA Avios to ‘pay’ for internal flights with AA? I made US internal flights in August on AA and paid with cash. I was fairly sure I’d looked into all the options, but didn’t notice the facility to use my BAEC a/c to use Avios for AA internal flights.
Its always been possible, literally for a decade, via British Airways Executive Club. As of last month they also now show directly on ba.com without messing around with the ‘partners’ button. NYC to Boston is 4,500 Avios plus a whopping £1.50 of taxes one way, for example.
You couldn’t do it with the old Air Miles scheme, and even now if your miles sit in avios.com you need to move them to BA to book.
Australian domestic redemptions on Qantas often come out similar. I rang the BA call centre about one which wasn’t working online, and they went off to double check as they couldn’t believe the taxes were that low!
Firstly, if you have dissolved an Avios Household account in the last year and allocated one or more former members zero of the joint balance, they cannot book RFS despite their own Avios earnings – they must pay the full taxes & fees. I found a quick phone call with a request to add one Avios point to the account fixed this.
Second is that the distances for UK airports start in London, not at the regional airport which is a free connection and zero distance for Avios purposes.
Finally, Larnaca is just over 2,000 miles from London but was slipped into Zone 3 to avoid a further messy division of Cyprus (!) and/or London (Heathrow/Gatwick).
Raffles is it possible to do MAN-LHR-MAD-AGP? So my question being can you have a free connection in UK and also in Spain?
The rules say you can, but I have never done and honestly can’t say I know anyone who has.
Does a transfer to IB class as an earning to see RFS now ?
If the question is “Does combine my Avios” count as earning Avios in another scheme, then no, it does not. Earned Avios in one scheme cannot be transferred except as unearned points.
“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. This allows anyone who has earned 1 Avios in the last year to book a short-haul Economy reward flight for £30 (€35) in taxes and charges, or £40 (€45) for Club Europe.”
You should remember Raffles that this was also in the context of Airmiles collectors now having to pay cash and miles despite having their Airmiles value steadily reduced over a decade or so to paying around double the Airmiles they used to “in order to pay for the increased fees and taxes”. The amalgamation with the BAEC was extremely harsh and disadvantageous for Airmiles folk.
It was not at all a positive move for Airmiles collectors. It was a horrible compromise between the two schemes where Airmiles collectors lost out in a big way. Yes, BAEC members got this benefit and I was, and am, a member of both. Please have some sensitivity to those who really lost out. They had enough Airmiles to pay for that trip of a lifetime, only to find that the so called ‘taxes and fees’ with Avios are more than the inclusive fare on most other airlines. It was a very nasty compromise for Airmiles collectors.
Fair point. I only had a very small Air Miles balance at the time of the switch, so for me it was all positive. I accept that a lot of people did feel that they had lost out.
Although, for non-London members, it was less clear cut as the regional supplement went, albeit non-BA redemption options also went.
Raffles
I am not sure I completely agree with your comment that “Club Europe can also be good value, especially if you have no status – upgrading just the outbound of a trip to Germany would be an extra 4,500 miles (one way) and £5. ”
As I understand, only economy bookings in the expensive Y, B and H classes are eligible for upgrading. The vast majority of economy passengers which booked in lower classes which cannot be upgraded this way. For these passengers, they should consider taking advantage of the Proactive Online Upgrade option.
Let’s use the example of someone booking a return flight from LHR to DUS, leaving on 12 March 2013 and returning on 16 March 2013. For this purpose, we shall assume a value of 1p per Avios. I appreciate that you may place a different valuation for each Avios.
1. RFS for CE is 18,000 miles + £40. Effective cost: £180 (18,000 avios @ 1p each) + £40 = £220.
2. Cash booking in restricted economy (selling class G) = £118 and then take advantange of Proactive Online Upgrade at the “usual” price of £79 each way. Total cost = £276. You will earn at least 1,500 Avios, therefore reducing the effective cost by £15. The £79 upgrade fare each way is based on past experience but is, of course, not guaranteed.
3. Cash booking in full fare economy (selling class H) = £468. To upgrade to CE with cash, the fare diffential to pay is £113 i.e. total cost of £581.
4. Cash booking in full fare economy (selling class H) = £468. To upgrade to CE with Avios, 9,000 miles (worth £90) plus £10 i.e. total cost of £568. This still represents a savings of £13 over no. 3 but I wouldn’t have thought it is especially “good value” if you value each Avios at more than 1p each.
For completeness, 1 and 2 are obviously not comparable to 3 and 4 since a full fare economy ticket will have more flexibility for changes.
Sir Stamford
I worded my original point badly. When I said it was good value to upgrade, I simply meant booking a CE redemption at 9,000 Avios one-way versus a EuroTraveller at 4,500. The extra 4,500 Avios is clearly excellent value if you don’t otherwise have lounge access.
Your points are all totally correct with regards using Avios to literally upgrade an economy CASH ticket to Club Europe.
Just tried to book LHR-LPA via MAD and the engine charges me 30,000 miles and £60 a ticket. Is that a bug then?
You can also use RFS on Comair
Example: single JNB-MRU is 1904 miles for 10k avios + £21
Bargain
Something I noticed when redeeming Avios via avios.com – certainly for Euro Traveller flights, the redeemed flights still qualify for the normal tier point and Avios earning. Club Europe and World Traveller have not earned in the past, so I don’t know if there is a “rule” about what might or might not earn, or whether it is simply luck depending on which Fare Class the ticket falls into once booked.
This is a hangover to the old Air Miles days, when they would redeem into revenue buckets. This still seems to happen occasionally although I don’t know why.