How to earn Avios points when booking a package holiday via avios.com

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• Lloyd says:

  30 Oct30 October 07:21

  Never knew that! Will def take a look?

  Anyone know whether the prices are normally the same or is the avios.com price higher (so in effect you pay for the avios through the back door)?

  • Phillip says:

    30 Oct30 October 07:28

    If you are looking for simple flight and hotel bookings, you will find major mark ups by these companies. If you are looking for something more bespoke or specialised, such as skiing holidays (Inghams/Thompson), or a safari holiday for example (Kuoni), then you can get some great deals.

  • squills says:

    30 Oct30 October 07:29

    Deffo need to check that. Eg the 10% off flying BA on BMI Amex card membership route = higher BA fare vs mkt, ie a complete con. Cheats.

    Likely you’ll save more by shopping around than by getting Avios thru this route,

  • RICO says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:02

    The Avios starting price is normaly the tour operators standard price.

    This usally includes late booking discounts and open special offers but will exclude internet/direct only discount or where they offer discounts only through their in house high street travel agent.

    Often if they offer low deposits this is only for direct customers.

    90% of the time it is straight forward judgement between the Avios Earned and credit card fee saved vs the tour operators internet / in house sales discount lost.

    Other than the list above it is worth remembering that you can also book on the phone UK breaks (Warners, Butlins, Hoseason, Cottages for You) and Ferries, Cruise companies, Disney Paris and Eurostar. I don’t think the earn rate is the same for all the products.

• squills says:

  30 Oct30 October 07:23

  JP Sartre said ‘hell is other people’ (OK I know he didn’t) and that’s what you get on these organised holidays.

  Other people.

  Hell.

  • Lady London says:

    30 Oct30 October 14:23

    So, Squills, other than that, you don’t mind other people on your holidays?
    🙂

    • squills says:

      30 Oct30 October 22:31

      Well, point being you’re stuck with them for the duration 😉

      Apologies all, I was tense, had a big submission to make, just met the deadline today.

• Phillip says:

  30 Oct30 October 07:26

  All the above mentioned companies tend to give avios.com a commission of between 10-20%, so well worth some bargaining. Most of them, like Mark Warner, Inghams etc, have online booking systems so you can get an idea of what’s available before booking. And as they are all package companies, they always offer last minute deals. For ski holidays, additional extras such as ski hire tend to also earn Avios.

• Polly says:

  30 Oct30 October 07:40

  I found their hotel prices way higher than booking.com for instance, but didn’t know they can price match . I actually asked them to do that last year, they refused, so I didn’t book through them in the end. Obviously now they realise that people want price matching. Good news if we can get those extra avios that way.

  • squills says:

    30 Oct30 October 07:43

    If they price match & award Avios, you’re OK. Won’t hold my breath.

• Duncan S says:

  30 Oct30 October 08:03

  Having just booked a £4,500 cruise I wish I knew this a month or two ago! The extra 45,000 Avios would have been very welcome…

  • xcalx says:

    30 Oct30 October 13:01

    I would never dream of booking a cruise with any UK based TA. I always use an online US agency and have saved thousands over the years.

    I leave on 1st of Nov for a 14 night TA . When I booked the pricing was US £380 pp against UK £1589pp
    This cruise is followed by a 7night Caribbean US £230pp against UK £780pp.

    Its knowing when and who to book with

    • xcalx says:

      30 Oct30 October 13:50

      Here is an example of same ship,cruise cabin and date( live pricing as of 10 mins ago) of the savings that can be found. copied and pasted from both sites

      UK online booking with cruise company

      2 x Pax
      8 Day to Southern Caribbean
      Save 5% by booking Online
      Your Price:
      £1,168.98

      If booked with online US agency
      Passenger Fare Taxes/Fees Total
      #1) $199.00 $87.98 $286.98 USD
      #2) $199.00 $87.98 $286.98 USD

      Subtotal: $398.00 $175.96 $573.96 USD

      Grand Total: $573.96 USD

      • Heather says:

        30 Oct30 October 14:14

        Can you share your US TA please?

        • Craig V says:

          30 Oct30 October 15:24

          I use VacationsToGo. Beware some of the add-ons, but usually its way cheaper than UK agents especially for last minute. Always got the best deals for Windstar. Sales guy Steve Rios very helpful:

• squills says:

  30 Oct30 October 08:07

  Raffles, all your tips in the article are valid apart from the fact you don’t mention the headline price will be awful, if price match doesn’t apply 😉

  Pay through the nose for a holiday from hell with new non-friends you don’t like?

  No thank you!

  • Steve says:

    30 Oct30 October 10:19

    Missing PTS?

  • trickster says:

    30 Oct30 October 13:34

    That’s a somewhat unnecessary snobbish attitude, which I notice you felt the need to post twice. For many, booking a package holiday is the right thing to do, so this could be an added benefit.

    From my experience last year, they would not price match Thomson direct, and the difference was not worth the extra Avios at the time. They may have changed though

• TheChiefExecutive says:

  30 Oct30 October 08:07

  I’ve done this a few times and agree it is an excellent avios earning opportunity. I’m in the process of doing it again, so a couple of observations about the post. These notes only apply to Thomson as that’s what I’ve been looking at.
  1. The Avios price is approx between 4% and 5% more expensive than the discounted Thomson web price. Avios know this, they won’t price match (in my experience, how ever hard you try). As they correctly point out Thomson charge a credit charge surcharge and they don’t (as you say they also take Amex which Thomson don’t).

  2. I’ve paid in the past with a BA Amex. It didn’t class as BA spend. This time I plan to use a Gold preferred Rewards Amex (first year) and expect to get double points on a travel spend. The spend will also trigger the sign up bonus.

  3. One last thing. If you book inside of 14 days of deaprture Thomson require Avios to add a £30 late booking fee (which they don’t seem to do for their web customers)

  • Duncan S says:

    30 Oct30 October 08:11

    Sounds like the offer might be too good to be true then…

    I know cruise operators basically fix prices these days and there’s very little wiggle room, so hopefully at least for cruise bookings the prices will be the same as booking direct/though a TA.

    Thankfully I’ve found a TA that, for my loyalty, doesn’t charge me for Amex now anyway, but for 10 extra points per pound it would be worth trying Avios.

    • thechiefexecutive says:

      30 Oct30 October 08:38

      Why not try a dummy Cruise booking and price compare (if you can bear the disappointment) at least you’ll know for next time). On the Thomson package I’m looking at the Thomson web price is £798 and the Avios price is £822 each. So the Avios awarded is 16,440. The cost of those Avios is £48.

• craig Paolozzi says:

  30 Oct30 October 09:15

  Just done dummy booking and comes out the same price for a holiday in corfu considering Thomson would of charged me 45 quid for using amex card

  So I’ll earn 17k avios from avios and further 3k from.amex as still within my first year so should get travel bonus

  Sounds great deal to me

  • Phillip says:

    30 Oct30 October 10:07

    Travel bonus and outbound spend bonus is a permanent benefit of the Amex MR Gold card, not just for the first year.

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