Avios sale – 40% discount on Eurostar tickets now bookable

At noon today, the last offer in the 2014 Avios sale launched.

Todays offer – which will run until midday on Monday – is a discount on Eurostar redemptions.

Here is a summary of the terms and conditions, which to be honest I think are very reasonable:

You can book to Paris, Brussels and Lille

Both 100% Avios and ‘part cash, part Avios’ bookings are reduced, but not ‘full cash’ bookings

All trips must be return, not one-way

Standard Premier tickets are reduced by 40%

Standard tickets are reduced by 33%

Bookings must be made by noon on Monday

You must travel between 3rd February and 14th May

Black-out dates are 14/02/14 – 24/02/14 and 04/04/14 – 21/04/14

Tickets are non-changeable and non-refundable once booked

This offer is ONLY available via avios.com, as British Airways Executive Club does not offer Eurostar as a redemption option.  If you want to book Eurostar seats, you will need to move your Avios from BA to avios.com via ‘Combine My Avios’.

Back in September, Nick Burch wrote a series of articles on Eurostar redemptions for Head for Points (see here, here and here).  The text below is taken from his article on redeeming Avios points for Eurostar tickets.

How to book

It is not possible to book Eurostar tickets from avios.com online.

When you want to book, you’ll need to ring the 0844 number listed on the avios.com Eurostar page and pay your phone company a small fortune (especially from a mobile) for the privilege. Alternately, head over to saynoto0870.com and find one of the “real” phone numbers for avios and call them on that! The menus are fairly clear on what to go for, and you’ll normally be through to a person in a minute or two.

But before you do that ….

Go to the main Eurostar website, and search for regular cash tickets for the day(s) of interest. You MUST book a return ticket starting from the UK – it isn’t possible to book a one-way or a continent-originating Eurostar ticket through Avios.

(You can, though, book a through-train which connects to a TGV or Thalys train.  Nice, for example, is possible, as is Marseille, Lyon etc.)

Look up the times, work out when you want to go, and use the section below to figure a rough price.   The standard rules to remember are:

• You can book for multiple people as long as you’re one of the travellers
• You can only book in Standard or Standard Premier, not Business Premier
• You can book mixed classes
• You can only book non-flexible, non-changeable tickets

With your ideal trains selected, and your Avios transfered over if needed, give them a call and get a price.

A rough guide to prices

The avios.com Eurostar page lists starting prices for the various journeys that Eurostar offer. They also give some ideas of the different part-cash, part-Avios rates available, which can offer the best value. However, all the numbers on the website are *from* prices, and the final amount of Avios you need can, and often is, higher.

The cheapest cash tickets for a standard class return are £69, and the cheapest Standard Premier ones are £159. That’s for a journey from London, Ashford or Ebbsfleet to Lille, Brussels or Paris – it’s all the same starting price. Journeys on the Winter weekend ski trains start at £149 return, and the Summer Saturday services to the south of France are much the same.

Here are the headline Avios prices (these prices do NOT reflect the 40% discount which should be on offer this weekend):

Standard class return Lille / Paris / Brussels:

£69 or 9,000 Avios or 7,000 Avios + £20 or 2,000 Avios + £50

Standard Premier return Lille / Paris / Brussels:

£159 or 20,000 Avios or 12,000 Avios + £50 or 2,000 Avios + £120

Standard class return Alps / Avignon:

£149 or 25,000 Avios or 15,000 Avios + £60 or 2,000 Avios + £140

Standard Premier return Alps / Avignon:

£229 or 38,500 Avios or 15,000 Avios + £150 or 2,000 Avios + £220

The headline *from* Avios prices are only available when the cheapest headline cash fares are available. Once those sell out, the Avios price rises too. You’ll also notice that the cash + Avios rates don’t scale directly with the Avios, and so can offer better rates.

As you will see below, I ran some experiments and the cheapest *from* Avios prices offer the best value for money.  It starts to slip slightly (but not hugely) as the cash price for the Eurostar ticket increases. 

On both the standard class and Standard Premier returns, at the lowest Avios rates you’re only getting about 0.8p / Avios in value.  On a part Avios, part cash booking for when the cash price is lowest, you can get about 0.9p / Avios in value on cash + Avios booking. Once the price has started increasing, it drops to about 0.6p/Avios.  (Raffles note:  you will obviously do a lot better than this if you can book a sale seat.)

Looking at some real numbers, as I found from a long phone call with Avios.com asking for lots of different options, I managed to draw up this table:

• Eurostar price || Avios rate || Equiv || Cash+Avios || Equiv
• £69  ||  9,000 Avios || 0.8p / Avios ||  7,000 + £20 || 0.7p / Avios
• £110 || 18,500 Avios || 0.6p / Avios || 11,000 + £50 || 0.5p / Avios
• £120 || 20,000 Avios || 0.6p / Avios || 12,000 + £55 || 0.5p / Avios
• £159 || 20,000 Avios || 0.8p / Avios || 12,000 + £50 || 0.9p / Avios
• £174 || 29,000 Avios || 0.6p / Avios || 17,500 + £75 || 0.6p / Avios

I believe the cash + Avios value on higher cash components are better value, but there was only so long I could spend on the phone asking for different pricing options ….

Roughly speaking, once the very cheapest tickets have sold out on the Eurostar website, count on getting about 0.6p per Avios in value, which isn’t amazing. 

How easy is it to get the £69 return tickets, and hence the 9,000 Avios price?

A week out and you’ve basically no hope, even on the less popular London to Lille trains (Paris seems to be the most popular, then Brussels, then Lille). Two weeks out mid-week and there are some, three weeks out and you can find the odd weekend one.

If you book 2-3 months out (booking horizon is 180 days) you ought to be able to get pretty much the train you want! Eurostar do offer a “Flexible Dates” search, which shows the cheapest price each day for a month, which can be a big help in finding them.”

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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:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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