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Wobbles in Crawley? Unprecedented 50% bonus for buying Avios launches tomorrow

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British Airways will launch a 50% bonus tomorrow for anyone who buys Avios points.

50% is an unprecedented discount as a quick search through the last three years of Head for Points will show you.

It still isn’t a fantastic deal, of course.

Avios wing 15

The maximum number of Avios you can buy per year is 35,000 which during this promotion will increase to 52,500.  These will cost you £575 which is 1.09p per point.  You will pay more for smaller quantities.

As I showed in my article on Friday on my own Avios redemptions over the past year, the average value I got from redeeming over 1 million points was 1.0p.  I am certainly not a buyer at 1.09p.

On the other hand, consider these factors:

They are ‘easy’ Avios.  Pull out the credit card and you’re done.  No Tesco trip required, no flying, no credit card to apply for or spend target to hit.

If you are only topping up your account before a big redemption, it doesn’t much matter hat you pay for the final few thousand you need.

By buying Avios for cash, you could use your American Express Membership Rewards points or Tesco Clubcard points for another redemption which may get you better value than 1.09p.

As the cost of long-haul redemptions in premium classes goes up by 25% to 50% on April 28th, you could argue that the cost of points should come down in price!  It isn’t that simple, of course, since Eurotraveller / World Traveller redemptions actually get cheaper on off-peak dates.

Is Avios starting to worry about the impact of the changes?

The Avios changes have an unintended consequence for BA.

Anyone who does not read Head for Points – and so is not clued up on how to get the best deals – and who collects Avios purely from Tesco, credit cards and other partners will be considering whether they should continue after April 28th.  This is especially true if they live in the regions and no longer get free domestic connections on short-haul.  Many people will – not illogically – decide that other credit cards and other Tesco Clubcard deals now offer better value given their circumstances.

And yet …. Avios is reliant on Tesco, American Express etc for its ‘real’ revenue.  BA may make an internal transfer to pretend that it is paying Avios Group for the points generated from flying.  In reality, it is only moving money from one IAG bank account to another.  It needs third-party partner revenue.  I was told recently that Tesco brings in £4m per year.

The odds look better than they have for a while that we will see a Tesco Clubcard and / or an American Express Membership Rewards conversion bonus over the next few months.

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 (131)

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

  • John from Aberdeen says:
    22 Feb22 February 17:51

    Brilliant response plooop. Couldn’t have put it better myself. Re the post querying jumping ship to VA bottom line is that (in my case) if I felt that there would be genuine more redemption availability for more points I would stick with BA and pay higher points. I suspect the more seat availability promised will be provided on domestic routes from the regions. There is no way that BA would restructure BAEC in a way that offers more value to the majority of members. No way. Slightly un patriotic but the sooner the other middle eastern airlines move into routes to North America from uk the better. If you have to pay hard cash I would rather go for, as plooop perhaps would say, a non shite airline.

  • Joe says:
    22 Feb22 February 18:19

    I am tempted at this price to lock in a couple of partner redemptions on CX, for example. Although that may be because I am not aware of how competitively I could get these if I started collected miles on another OW airline.

  • DocV says:
    22 Feb22 February 21:55

    What are they thinking on Avios and On business deval. As a small business owner BA is basically saying to thousands of us – bugger off. Unbelievable really why they would do that . That’s the last nail in coffin for me !

  • Mark says:
    22 Feb22 February 23:41

    Interesting the level of negativity that comes from focusing on the devaluation. To my mind the best approach with these things is simply to reassess strategy and act accordingly. In our case that will probably mean more flights with other airlines but certainly not our abandoning the scheme.

    There are in fact scenarios where buying miles may be more attractive in the posted evaluation work. As an example we have done several UuA flights in Club World over the past couple of years. We have a trip booked to Miami at the start of November at a cost of £1250 plus an approx net 12k avios. Under the new rules that would increase to around 50k avios which makes it a non-starter.

    However for 85k avios and minimal taxes/fees we would be able to fly from Madrid on those dates with Iberia. Even assuming that it will cost £250 on top for taxes, fees and a revenue return to Madrid that is still far better value than a BA UuA if we had the extra avios….. Buying the extra 73k at 1.09p to save £1000 in that scenario would make sense against what we had booked under the old rules. Buying an extra 35k avios to save £1000 under the new rules would certainly be a no-brainer and definitely worth the Madrid detour.

  • Smid says:
    23 Feb23 February 09:17

    Any idea when it runs out. I’ve about 47K, it might just fit nicely into getting that 2 for 1 locked sometime next year, to be rebooked closer to the time…

    Anyone have any idea if the upgrade to First will stay the same for a 2 for 1 club flight booked pre 28th of April?

  • linda says:
    23 Feb23 February 10:06

    Does this offer only apply to BAEC as it not on the Avios site?

  • Dan says:
    23 Feb23 February 10:19

    Has anyone got a URL they can share for this sale? I can’t seem to find any links when loved into BAEC

  • Iain2012 says:
    23 Feb23 February 11:39

    Dan – login to the executive club and click purchase avios.

    Interestingly you can cancel the purchase up to 14 days after the purchase which gives some flexibility if you don’t manage to redeem

    You have the right to cancel contracts for the purchase of Avios points within 14 days of purchase provided the Avios points have not been used. To exercise the right to cancel the purchase of the Avios points, you must make the request in writing (including by email) or by telephone to the Executive Club in their country (contact details can be found on ba.com). You may use the cancellation template below but this is not obligatory. If you cancel, we will reimburse to you all payment received from you without undue delay and no later than 14 days after the day on which we were informed about your decision to cancel this contract.

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

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