Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

NOW CHEAPER: £401 for Club World to New York in November, Christmas, Easter, July, August

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As there was a strong response to the article I ran on Thursday, I wanted to remind you that tomorrow – October 19th – is the last day to make substantial savings if you ‘part pay with Avios’ for a British Airways Club World or First booking.

Amazingly, the price for the Copenhagen to New York deal I discussed has come down even further.  You can now fly to New York for as little as £401.

Full details are on the ‘part pay with Avios’ page at ba.com,

These are the conditions.  You must be flying to:

Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Bangkok, Beijing, Bengaluru, Chengdu Shuangliu, Chicago, Dallas – Forth Worth, Delhi Indira Ghandi International, Dubai, Hong Kong, Houston, Hyderabad, JFK, Kuala Lumpur International, Las Vegas [Vegas is not pricing properly], Los Angeles, Mexico City, Montreal, Mumbai, Newark, Philadelphia International, San Francisco International, Seoul, Shanghai Pudong, Singapore Changi, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington

and

you must book by 19th October

and

you must book in Club World or First

You can then redeem Avios points for the following discounts:

1,500 Avios – £25

4,500 Avios – £75

11,250 Avios – £190

15,000 Avios – £250

30,000 Avios – £500

That is an exceptionally generous 1.66p per Avios point.

Now, here is is the interesting bit.  These offer is available for flights starting in Europe, not just in the UK.

This is deal I mentioned on Thursday – a great price from Copenhagen for flights to New York.  However, when I covered it on Thursday the price was DKK 9,607.  Now it is just DKK 9,125!

The outbound transatlantic flight (ie London to the US) must be flown between:

22 – 30 November

23 December – 2 January

19 March – 3 April

1 July – 31 August

For example:

British Airways Copenhagen New York

Yes, just 9,125 DKK return in Club World.  That is £899!  I can save a further 5,049 DKK by redeeming 30,000 Avios points.

This means that the final cost of my Club World return flight is just 4,076 DKK – or £401.

Not just Copenhagen ….

This deal also works out of Dublin and other places.  For April, for example, Dublin to New York is €1,533 but you save €672 by redeeming 30,000 Avios.  That is a net cost of only €861.

If you planning a long-haul flight for the next few months, you should experiment on ba.com with departures from the following cities:

Copenhagen

Dublin

Stockholm

Amsterdam

Milan Linate 

These are all destinations where BA has recently been offering strong discounts.  The ITA Matrix tool which I discussed here lets you search for prices from every European capital with one click.

You can learn more about ‘part pay with Avios’ at ba.com.  The key point to remember when booking is that all legs of your trip must be on British Airways or American – you cannot mix in flights on other airlines who are not part of the transatlantic joint venture.  If you do include other airlines, eg using Aer Lingus to connect from Dublin instead of BA, you will not be given the option to use ‘part pay with Avios’.

Remember that you need to book by Monday night.


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.

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.

Comments (121)

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

  • James says:

    Seems to work with the TATL legs on AA too. Annoyingly I can’t get it to price on BLL – LCY – JFK.

  • Richard Ford says:

    Just booked for Easter weekend. The price is insane. Thank you Raffles!

  • matt says:

    Wish I hadn’t diversified into virgin miles right now! Gutted.

  • simon says:

    Would you the avios back should you cancel these part avios bookings?

  • Anon says:

    Does this work for one way or is it RTN only fares?

  • Tim C says:

    Do these flights earn full tier points and miles? Maybe a good basis for a tier point run.

  • Lumma says:

    Why couldn’t this have happened after this quarter’s tesco points got credited? 🙁

    • harry says:

      This is why you should think carefully about taking the 130,000 Avios @1p from Iberia opportunities when they come up.

      1p may be more than I am used to paying but it all evens out.

      I reckon I average a fair bit below 0.65p/ Avios.

      But it DOES help to have an extra buffer amount – eg 130,000 @ 1p – when deals like this arise.

  • Wayne says:

    Sorry for the naive question but am new to all of this…if you book a ticket that starts and ends from Copenhagen, do you actually have to go to Copenhagen, could you not just commence the journey from the Heathrow leg, as though you had booked a stopover in Copenhagen? Thanks

    • matt says:

      Nope. If you don’t turn up in CPH for the first leg, your entire itinerary would be cancelled. The same cannot be said about the final LHR to CPH…

    • Sandgrounder says:

      If you miss the first flight, the rest of your journey will be cancelled.

    • Nick says:

      Absolutely not – it’s the basic rule for these fares. Whether you can convince BA to let you get off at Heathrow on the way back is another matter…

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

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