Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Avios sale – £1 Reward Flight Saver routes launch and are bookable now

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Today sees the launch of one of the most interesting parts of the 2014 Avios ‘sale’!

(Don’t forget, though, that until noon today – Monday – the previous offer is still running.  Until 12pm, you can still book a hotel in Vienna, Dubrovnik, Prague, Copenhagen, Berlin, Budapest, Istanbul and The Algarve for 50% off!  The 50% discount applies whether you pay by Avios or by cash, and you can stay up to 30th September.  Full details are in this article.)

These flights are already bookable – at least for some routes – as at 8am on Monday!  Until noon on Wednesday, the taxes on Reward Flight Saver tickets will be dropped from £35 to just £1.

The following routes are included:

Amsterdam

Barcelona

Dublin

Jersey

Lisbon

Madrid

Nice

Rome

You will need to fly between 31 January and 31 May.

Only economy seats are available.

One way flights are available for 4,500 Avios plus 50p.

It works OK with UK connections as well, so a one-way Manchester-Heathrow-Amsterdam is still just 4,500 Avios plus 50p.

Remember that avios.com has greater reward availability than ba.com for economy short-haul flights.  (I think avios.com can access G availability, if these things mean anything to you!)  You should therefore look via avios.com and not ba.com, and use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move your points across.

ba.com should only be used for open-jaws (if allowed) or stopovers (if allowed in London on regional departures) which avios.com cannot handle.  The only exception to this is for BA Executive Club Gold card holders, who get additional economy seats made available to them and will therefore be better off looking at ba.com.

Remember, though, that you can only book Reward Flight Saver tickets on avios.com if you have ‘earned’ an Avios point in that scheme in the last 12 months.

There is little point opening an avios.com account today (with the intent to make a transfer of Avios from ba.com) because you will not be able to book Reward Flight Saver tickets. Unless, that is, you spend £31 to buy 1,000 Avios in avios.com to activate the account – although this may make sense if you want to make a number of bookings and can see availability at avios.com which is not at ba.com.

The avios.com flight booking page is here.

If you need to cancel, the standard £25 fee should not apply as long as you cancel online.  You will only lose your £1.  All your Avios points will be returned.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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

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

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

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

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

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

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

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

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 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 sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

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

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

Category

British Airways American Express

Comments (170)

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

  • Lucy says:
    13 Jan13 January 09:31

    I tried to book London to Madrid but coming up £191 for taxes and surcharges is this correct?thans for your help

  • Susan says:
    13 Jan13 January 09:34

    Also allowing January bookings – FCo-EDI 23/1 – 29/1 showing Euro 1 RFS (even better!)

  • craig says:
    13 Jan13 January 09:36

    Aaargh! I just booked flights to Lisbon last night for £35ea redeeming 30,000 avios and a Partner Flight voucher. Do you know if it is possible to cancel this booking without penalty Raffles? Also, would a partner voucher be eligible for this type of offer anyway? I know it would have to be booked through BAEC avios rather than avios.com.

    • Rob says:
      13 Jan13 January 09:46

      It should be possible due to the 24 hour cooling off period, but I don’t know if – cancelling online – this kicks in, or whether you must call. And if you did call, you would pay the ‘offline service fee’ anyway!

      Why not do a dummy cancellation online and see if it deducts the £25 each or not? Just don’t click the final ‘confirm’!

      • Jovan says:
        13 Jan13 January 10:15

        I just tried to cancel a booking made for a colleague – all I get is:

        We are unable to process a refund for you online. Please contact us for all refund enquiries.

        I was about to book few speculative one ways for me, but at £25 cancellation fee there is no point…

        • Waribai says:
          13 Jan13 January 10:29

          If you only booekd it within the last 24 hours it usually cannot be cancelled online. From my experience, it can take up to 72 hours before it is cancellable online. YMMV

        • Andrew says:
          13 Jan13 January 10:44

          I have just tried to cancel a booking I made on the sale (Wife mixed up dates we were free…) – I get the same message.

          Do you think I’m best to try and cancel in the 24 hr cooling off period, or wait a couple of days to see if I can cancel online?

          • Andrew says:
            13 Jan13 January 21:31

            Called them – quite a long wait but then they cancelled (within 24 hours of booking) and refunded both Avios and £1.

            Agent was quite rude and when I tried to make another changed ended up on hold for 30+ mins, but that’s an aside!

      • craig says:
        13 Jan13 January 10:24

        I had to cancel by phone, and because it was within 24hrs I’d have got my full refund of avios, voucher and money.
        However, the voucher would need to have been reissued as a new one (with a different code) and would have taken 7-10 days – so I would have missed the sale prices and, quite possibly, the flights I wanted (I already have a hotel booked). So it’s a non-starter to cancel.
        At the end of the day, I was v.happy with paying £195 for 3 people to have 3 nights in Lisbon yesterday, so although I could have saved even more I still got a good deal.

        • Andrew says:
          13 Jan13 January 10:51

          Just called and they are experiencing high call volumes, so it hung up on me!!

          • craig says:
            13 Jan13 January 11:32

            Yes – I got that the first time, irritating, esp when you only have 24hrs to cancel! However, when I got through the call handler was rather, er, glacial – so if they all go at that speed it’s no wonder it’s so hard to get through.

      • John says:
        13 Jan13 January 19:23

        There is no fee for calling to cancel in the 24h cooling off period, even if you have no status.

    • John says:
      13 Jan13 January 09:47

      I thought it was possible to cancel for free within 24hrs of the original booking? I havent used this functionality myself, but I see it mentioned when I book my flights.

  • Javier says:
    13 Jan13 January 09:38

    For bookings through Avios.com is there a way to cancel online? Or do I need to call them? If so, maybe they would charge £25?

  • Gilly says:
    13 Jan13 January 10:01

    I have just looked for Madrid and it is showing for two adults 30,000 points and £36.00 charge.
    Please advise very new to using my Avios points and have lots of them!!!!

    • Jonny says:
      13 Jan13 January 10:15

      If your return is after 31 May it will charge you the “full price” in charges on the way back – perhaps this is what has happened? i.e. 50p there and £17.50 back each?

    • Rob says:
      13 Jan13 January 10:56

      1 Are you flying back before May 31?
      2 Have you earned 1 Avios in the last 12 months?
      3 Are you looking at Heathrow flights, not London City?
      4 Are you looking at flights OPERATED by BA, not just an Iberia code share?

    • Andrew says:
      13 Jan13 January 14:21

      Same was coming up for me. Looks like potentially a bug – if there was any leg after 31st May then it still charged the regular £35 and the additional £1.

  • nux says:
    13 Jan13 January 10:16

    If you are not seeing the £1 price, but rather much higher cash component is because you have not earned at least 1 avios in avios.com. A transfer from BA to avios.com does not count.

  • mij says:
    13 Jan13 January 10:29

    hello – is the option to combine from baec to avios instant? I know combining from Diamond Club to BAEC is – just need someone to confirm that please.

  • James67 says:
    13 Jan13 January 10:39

    I don’t want to be the party pooper, and I do see how this is a good promotion, especially for those from regions wanting a break in BOTH London and final RFS destination. It is also a good deal for those with a limitted amount of avios and little chance of earning significantly more but this is unlinely to apply to many HfP readers. Unless you are in either of theses categories you could very likely be wasting 9000 avios per return trip that might be much more valuable saved for CE RFS, or mid-longhaul PE UuA or CW or F redemptions. Considering the destinations on offer and the time period they can be booked there are likely very competitive fares available from both London and the regions with either full service airlines or LCC. Thus, before booking this offer readers would be best to check whether any available revenue fares represent better value than the perceived personal cost incurred from redeeming 9000 avios. The answer will be very personal as, Raffles has frequently indicated, it depends how much an avio is woth to you.

    • CV says:
      13 Jan13 January 11:03

      Agree with comments, it’s about budgeting your avios, especially when travelling from the regions via Heathrow and the added time this takes. Flight time from GLA to AMS is not much different than GLA to LHR, making Easyjet a worthwhile consideration, I took this into account when choosing a flight to Madrid, also budget airline costs for 2 pax were going to be about £320 and a couple hours stopover in LHR in the T5 Galleries lounge will make it more enjoyable. In my case I didn’t need to hold on to the avios for future planned spends.

      Same consideration applies to booking hotel rooms using IHG points, I could have my long weekend in Madrid for the £2 flight cost and use points for an IHG hotel. £2 for 2 people for a long weekend in Madrid sounds great to me, but then when I see that Holiday Inn in Madrid can be booked for about 60 euros per night then I think I am best to keep hold of the IHG points and use actual cash, and earn more points.

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