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Avios sale – 50% off economy flights to certain long-haul destinations

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British Airways has launched a January Avios redemption sale.  It is rather modest in scope – certainly nothing like what we saw last January – but it may work for you.

The following long-haul routes from London Gatwick are discounted by 50% in economy only:

Antigua

Barbados

Dominican Republic

Orlando

Tampa

Mauritius

The discount takes these routes down to 25,000 Avios per person, apart from Mauritius which is 30,000 Avios.

You must book by 4pm on Friday 23 January.  You must travel out by 19 March and return before 2 April 2015.

Taxes and charges are NOT reduced unfortunately and will set you back between £321 and £386 per person.

The one upside of these destinations is that they are available over the end of the peak season and into the shoulder season.  Whilst economy redemptions are usually not great value long-haul, this offer would be OK if a cash ticket would set you back £550 – £600 or so.  That would value your Avios points at 1p each.

Full details can be found here at ba.com.

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 and Avios

Comments (31)

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

  • Rich says:
    17 Jan17 January 08:34

    A friend of mine travelled to Barbados last week and said that F was full, J was full, W was full but economy had only about 35% loading. ……… Not necessarily indicative of what is going on but perhaps a snapshot?

    • Raffles says:
      17 Jan17 January 10:43

      Barbados has never really recovered from the crash. We were there 3 years ago and some beach resorts were shuttered. The Four Seasons may never be finished. I think the Middle East has taken some trade and high oil prices, pushing up air fares, hit the middle market.

    • Zoe says:
      17 Jan17 January 11:41

      We always go during October half term on the last two trips we have had WTP redemption seats on one leg. This year all 3 of us were upgraded at check in at Gatwick (only blue status) on the way out. The year before 3 out of the 4 of us were upgraded coming home.

  • Jeremy i says:
    17 Jan17 January 08:42

    Hey rob, just to let you know this didn’t come through by email this morning for me. Jeremy

  • Dave says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:34

    The link in the email is also wrong.

    • Raffles says:
      17 Jan17 January 10:45

      Worked for me, top offer on the landing page.

    • Henry C says:
      17 Jan17 January 12:32

      I got the email but it was in the old wordpress style (not mailchimp), and the link didn’t work as per Dave.

      • Rob says:
        17 Jan17 January 17:20

        That was because I messed it up via the new system and I cannot send stuff on demand, so all I could do was turn on the old system and repost the article. I can get away with it because the list is 98% the same as it was last Monday – that won’t be an option if I mess up in 2 months time!

  • Dale says:
    17 Jan17 January 18:24

    Anyway….. just a post about the offer as opposed to the email issues – checked random date for Tampa and was 25000 avios + 324 cash – same cash flight was £470. So only about .58p per avios, less the earnings…pretty poor value.

  • Dave says:
    17 Jan17 January 19:24

    @raffles – re dkim/spf – yes indeed mailchimp will DKIM your mail etc as long as your dns is set up correctly. I have never received an email from HFP from any email address other than wordpress.com so I can’t look at the mail headers to confirm but poking on the internet I do not see any SPF records for headforpoints.co.uk (assuming that’s the mailchimp domain)

    dig headforpoints.co.uk txt + short

    If you want any help (no charge) let me know

    http://kb.mailchimp.com/delivery/deliverability-research/set-up-mailchimp-authentication

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 20:58

      That article is what I quoted – MailChimp, as I read it, uses its own DKIM and technically the emails come from them. The ‘from’ address you see is only a dummy, in effect.

  • snail says:
    17 Jan17 January 23:01

    Does anyone know when the next bigish redemption sale will be? I have 2 2for1 lloyds vouchers I need to burn, economy only. And I’m just sat here crying, waiting for something decent to come up like Tel Aviv, so I can cry on the beach.

  • Daryl says:
    18 Jan18 January 22:59

    I’m trying to book 2 f or club tickets to muc for September, I was going to bite the bullet and just get the pe seats that were available but someone on another forum said they areclikely to release more seats after this sale is finished so hold on I may get lucky – does anyone else think this likely? Daryl

  • Daryl says:
    18 Jan18 January 23:02

    Sorry nyc not muc

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