British Airways launches an Avios sale – £1 taxes and 50% discounts

I dropped in an additional post yesterday to publicise the ‘flash’ sale that British Airways had launched with no notice and no fanfare.  I have now had some time to write a longer article with a little more detail.

It is a repeat of two separate promotions that BA has successfully run in the last 12 months – reducing taxes to £1 on some Reward Flight Saver short-haul routes and offering a 25%-50% discount on the Avios required for selected long-haul routes.

The sale is also now available at avios.com so there is no longer any need to move your points over from avios.com to ba.com.

The short haul deal covers 10 European routes.  You will pay the usual Avios price but the taxes charge is reduced by £34 to just £1.

The routes are:

• Algiers
• Alicante
• Barcelona
• Faro
• Larnaca
• Malaga
• Malta
• Naples
• Tenerife
• Venice

The list of Avios required for each route is here.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that they are all in the 15,000 to 20,000 Avios per seat band and are generally ‘Winter sun’ routes. This means that these are places which you might actually want to visit in the depths of a UK Winter.

Only economy seats are available.  You need to book your seat before midnight on November 17th and travel before January 31st.

The long haul deal covers 35 routes as you can see here.

The number of Avios required for World Traveller (ie economy) seats is reduced by HALF on 30 routes and by a quarter on the remaining five. The taxes figure is unchanged.

This is not as good a deal as the short haul offer.  Long haul flights are generally cheaper during the Winter and economy Avios redemptions can often be terrible value, with the taxes figure only £100 or so lower than buying a cash ticket directly.

Having said that, there are some good destinations here.  Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Johannesburg (surprised to see this in their peak season), Kuwait, Rio, Riyadh, San Diego, Singapore etc are all guaranteed to be more pleasant than the UK in November.  It is difficult to argue that Cairo and Tel Aviv are not a good deal for 12,500 Avios points return.

As usual with these deals, if it works for you then you have got a bargain and qudos to BA for putting in some attractive options.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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 Mastercard

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

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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.