Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

£266 Los Angeles returns available on British Airways in the New Year

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If you like the idea of getting away from a cold English Winter to the sunnier climes of Los Angeles, help may be at hand.

British Airways is, yet again, quietly easing out excess capacity by selling heavily discounted tickets from outside the UK.

Copenhagen is the best starting point as far as I can tell with flights from £266 return.  Plus, of course, the cost of getting to Copenhagen – your flight will be cancelled if you miss the first leg.

Ludicrously, you will earn back half the cost in miles.  American Airlines still gives 1 mile per mile flown on cheap economy tickets so this trip would earn you 12,080 American Airlines miles – even more if you have BA status.

Don’t credit the flight to BA.  It only awards 25% of flown miles for long-haul cheap economy tickets.

There are some similar deals of other European cities, but not as cheap.  They tended to come out at around £350 (eg Dublin, Rome, Madrid).  Copenhagen seems by far the cheapest.  Have a play around at ba.com and see what you can find.

January and February have the best availability.

If you just fly London to Los Angeles on the dates in my example above, it will cost you £560 – more than double.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 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

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.

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

Huge 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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

20,000 points (ONLY TO 9TH DECEMBER) Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

30,000 points (TO 9TH DECEMBER) 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.

Comments (72)

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

  • David says:

    Flights from Amsterdam are always very cheap eg emirates business returns to BKK £1100. I noticed something very odd today BA first class returns significantly cheaper than club has anyone else seen this.

    • RIccati says:

      Shouldn’t come as surprise — Club will be filled by business customers.

  • Joe says:

    How this site makes me spend money. Originally looked to book a weekend in February for the birthday of my spouse but then we decided we wanted to go for longer. At Easter, found that we could get returns for around £300 through got and cph but they disappeared overnight. In the end opted for dub-Lhr-SFO out and lax-jfk-bhx back going out day before good Friday and coming back the Friday after Easter, came to £400 each which I think is ok considering it’s over Easter weekend and should earn 95tp and £100 worth of avios as a silver (also don’t have the stress of adding the extra leg on the way back as we can just get the train back from bhx). Thanks guys….

  • Graeme says:

    Thanks for posting this. Looking for a kid-free getaway to the US west coast to celebrate my 40th in Feb and trying to make this work on a budget!

    We live in the hinterland (in BA’s eyes anyway) so disappointed to see the super-cheap fares ending in EDI/GLA mentioned above have gone (I think) . So now looking at the route below now but ditching the LHR-GOT leg. At £217 it’s a steal and I can get a pretty good connection with Norwegian into Oslo with an o/night in LHR.

    Oslo to LHR 11 Feb 20:30-21:50
    LHR to LAX 12 Feb 13:30 -16:45
    LAS to LHR (via DFW) 11:15 18 Feb – 09:35 19 Feb
    LHT to GOT 20 Feb  07:35- 10:35

    Can anyone tell me if….. a) I’ll be able to take off my bags at LHR on the return as not booked to GOT until following day… and b) If I’m able to book a reward flight for 19/02 back up to EDI (without triggering any problems having two booking to two different destinations). Thanks in advance for any help!

    • Rob says:

      a) should be able to talk your way around it but no promises. Price up Cambridge to Gothenburg as the final leg (although it may send the price crazy)
      b) not a problem, it is normal for heavy business travellers to be booked on various flights at the same time to cover eventualities

      • Graeme says:

        Thanks. Cambridge did send the price screwy. 🙂 Played about again with flight combos and got a route ending in EDI (all else same) for £274. Happy with that, no worry about last leg and no need to ‘waste’ 9k miles.

        Only downside is that it’s not BA tin over the pond. Haven’t flown AA Y in a decade – I hope it has improved!

        • Joe says:

          As long as it’s a 772 or 773 it’ll be fine, I think they even started serving free alcohol again (although it might be limited to wine and beer, no spirits).

    • Polly says:

      Graeme, are you not able to terminate your flight in the UK as Joe is doing. This is one ticket that seems to allow it, save you adding that last leg and missing it?

      • Graeme says:

        Yes. Got flight that terminates in EDI, my home airport. £269 after FX fees so happy with that. I take it EX-EU fares usually need to terminate outside UK?

        • Rob says:

          Last leg can just be to London but price goes up (not hugely, often)

  • Cloud Runner says:

    So, week in LA now booked for early Feb, serving as a base for the fab AA ex-LAX pricing to PTY viz. LAX-CLT-MCO-MIA-PTY and back in First ( except the PTY legs in Biz) with a full day in Panama to visit the Canal and buy a hat 🙂

    Thanks again Raffles !!

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