How much money does Avios make and how many are sold each year?

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• VP says:

  14 Apr14 April 12:06

  Nice read indeed. However, really surprised by 2 things.

  1) 101 bn avios and 7.7 mil customers = approx. 13K avios per customer..that is much higher than what I expected !! Granted there would the cc churners and golds flying business but this ratio is very high compared to US airlines. For ex: AA issues around 200-250 bn miles and their customer base is more than 10 times of avios for sure.

  2) 7.7 mil across all airlines is a very small number !! As per the presentation 1 million reside in France and Africa and if we say another 1.2 million in rest of the world excluding UK & Spain
  that’s roughly 5.5 million for population of 100 million (UK & Spain) for national carriers BA, Iberia and Vueling. When you consider that Tesco, Nector, Boots themselves have 10million+ members in UK, 5.5 million does seem very small when you consider Avios has tie ups with all major retailers and you can gain points by shopping online or tesco transfers.

  My conclusions:
  Avios members are definitely more engaged and seem to be more profitable for Avios then some of the bigger airline schemes

  Rob should be hired by Avios as an expert consultant on how to increase penetration of the Avios scheme by making more people aware of its benefits:) [Though I doubt those will be the most profitable members as they would know how to get maximum buck for their avios]

  • Rob says:

    14 Apr14 April 12:24

    Gavin has my number if he needs it. Unfortunately, the failure of BA to support a regional structure makes Avios fairly irrelevant to a lot of people outside the M25. Casual collectors would not earn enough for long haul premium flights and, unsurprisingly, find a direct easyJet flight from their local airport to be more convenient than changing in Heathrow for short-haul (and paying double Avios for the privilege due to the connection). The only real benefit is ‘part pay with Avios’ to discount long haul cash tickets or the non-cash redemptions which don’t get you great value.

    If anything, the fact that there are 4m Avios accounts in the UK is actually an impressive achievement compared to, say, 19m Clubcard accounts.

    • Mikeact says:

      14 Apr14 April 16:03

      I wonder how many are actually ‘new’ Avios members, compared to the ‘old’ Airmiles members that were integrated?

    • Alan says:

      15 Apr15 April 02:22

      Good point, Rob – at times those of us who have been collecting for ages forget that!

  • Callum says:

    15 Apr15 April 02:33

    Everyone eats, the vast majority don’t regularly fly on full service carriers.

  • steve says:

    16 Apr16 April 12:07

    I am surprised by the near 50% increase in members, but only 20% increase in avios issuance (their predictions/hope) Clearly they are hoping for people to only get a tiny amount of avios.(4.9k each) It then leads me to wonder how many expire each year without being used?

    • Rob says:

      16 Apr16 April 13:15

      That is where the profit is!

• Rob says:

  14 Apr14 April 12:27

  Yes, this looks quite interesting – will be digging into it for Shopper Points over the weekend and will run the article here as well if it seems a good deal.

• Scottnothing says:

  14 Apr14 April 13:21

  Just saw this has been flagged on your other post/thread for today. My bad. 🙂

• Genghis says:

  14 Apr14 April 13:41

  There was some discussion about it on shopper points yesterday. Current Eon customers are eligible. However, for me it was quite a bit more expensive (£140 or so for the year) and Liz mentioned it was significantly more expensive (c. £500 pa).

  • Gavin says:

    14 Apr14 April 14:17

    Terrible tariff for me anyway. As much as I would like and need the avios, I have switched to a cheaper deal

  • mark2 says:

    14 Apr14 April 14:53

    My quote is £413.95 more expensive!

    • Ed says:

      14 Apr14 April 15:27

      Depending on your circumstances you could sign up get the £50 cc points and then exit swiftly for £60 cash exit fee. Not the best deal ever, bulgur for some would make sense.

• John Lugo says:

  14 Apr14 April 16:29

  I am pleased that raffles has mentioned the loss of the BA regional connections above, I find this a difficulty having lived in Manchester all my life. Until recently I used all my efforts building up Virgin miles mainly because Virgin flies directly to Orlando and until recently I had a property there and was a frequent traveller. I find the BA 2-4-1 voucher more valuable than the VA upgrade and I am writing this to you now from my suite in the Venetian Las Vegas using my first BA redemption in CW both ways returning from Los Angeles. I plan to use up my Virgin miles on UC trips preferably from Manchester if and when new services come on and concentrate on collecting Avios and hope the BA regional service comes back. I would loudly applaud Virgin if the matched BA 2-4-1 deal.

• Liz says:

  14 Apr14 April 20:24

  EOn confirmed yesterday it is open to existing customers. THe new tariff is cheaper than their standard rate but is much higher than the V19 deal I switched to in Jan – £46 per month more expensive. Unfortunately it is a non starter!

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