Avios to launch ‘redeem your points for a discount on a cash ticket’?

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• Zoe says:

  29 Jul29 July 07:53

  From what I remember one of the first questions was how much is 10,000 Avios worth to you. I assumed it was then using that value but to be fair I didn’t work it out.

• Kathy says:

  29 Jul29 July 07:56

  I doubt very much they’ll go back to a true free flight using avios – that’s what they’ve just moved away from! There’s bound to be some form of cash payment involved.

• James68 says:

  29 Jul29 July 08:02

  I’d be very happy if you could redeem any amount of avios for 1p off a cash ticket, especially if you earn something back as well (obviously comparing to the price you’d pay if paying cash in full)

• Nathan Brandon-Bravo says:

  29 Jul29 July 08:35

  This is something I have done with Qantas before which wasn’t to bad.

• James67 says:

  29 Jul29 July 08:42

  Am I missing something here? Is this not just the other side of the ‘part cash and avios’ coin? Surely if this option was retained along with discount on cash tickets they would need to offer very similar values or one or the other would become somewhat redundant? The all avios, or part cash plus avios, must surely remain the more attractive option in most cases I would think because of the ability to change or cancel for relatively small fee. Many of the cash tickets people might end up purchasing would likely have zero or limited flexibility. It is difficult for me to perceive this as anything other than cleverly-disguised potential devaluation from BA.

  • Frenske says:

    29 Jul29 July 09:01

    Part cash and avios is only available on reward flights which have limited availability. This avios-for-money-towards-flights scheme suppose to be for all flights!!!

    • Rob says:

      29 Jul29 July 10:27

      Correct

  • Rob says:

    29 Jul29 July 10:26

    Yes and No.

    Avios redemptions in long-haul Y would become pretty pointless, unless the fuel surcharge was slashed. Better to use Avios to buy a cash ticket and have no availability issues.

    However, for Club World, the number of Avios required would be crazy under this new method – normal redemptions will always be a better deal, except in sales.

• Zoe says:

  29 Jul29 July 08:55

  I think these would be normal cash tickets with their associated availability and flexibility.

• Sinizter says:

  29 Jul29 July 09:15

  I don’t have a positive feeling about this change. This could be the route to a roughly revenue based way of redeeming avios. If this works out, they may remove the ability to redeem for business and first as it currently stands (for fixed avios) and make it purely based on fixed value per avios.

  I don’t see why it would be worth their time maintaining two separate redemption schemes with the requisite admin. In time, one will get chopped and it won’t be this model.

  • James67 says:

    29 Jul29 July 10:00

    Yes, that was what I was thinking but I forgot to add. It feels like revenue-based redemption which might mean, as Raffles and others have discussed, that revenue-based earning and/or elite qualification may be on the way also. All this, combined with recent frequent flyer and hotel devaluations, the credit card news etc points to a bleak future for our hobby. I think we best enjoy whats left of it now that we can because in the future loyalty may not pay, it might simply be best just to seek best value travel and accommodation from multiple vendors on a trip by trip basis. I’m largely doing this already for hotels following recent devaluations at IHG and Hilton.

  • Rob says:

    29 Jul29 July 10:28

    Because it will stop people complaining about availability, and – assuming that the majority of people only redeem for, say, 25 per cent of the cost of a ticket – BA will do nicely out of it.

• ankomonkey says:

  29 Jul29 July 10:13

  It would be pretty sweet to redeem Avios for 99% of a cash flight, pay a very low cash amount and still receive full Avios and tier points. Surely, then, it’s very unlikely BA would allow/offer it.

  • Rob says:

    29 Jul29 July 10:34

    Depends. Singapore Airlines, which has a similar scheme, only gives miles back prorata to the cash portion. Use miles for a 75 per cent discount, only earn 25 per cent of the usual miles.

    As I said, the devil is in the detail.

    If you could redeem unlimited Avios at 0.75p to 1p per Avios, including Club World sale fares, I’d be a very happy man!

    • pauldb says:

      29 Jul29 July 11:13

      I was going to mention that Singapore have recently introduced this. Having played around with a few bookings (BKK-SIN Y, SIN-SYD J) it seems they allow 100% payment with miles. The redemption rate appears pretty uniform but unattractive at about £5 per 1000 miles.

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