BA sale Part 1: ‘Part Pay With Avios’ at 1p is back, Club Europe from £52 return

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• Zoe says:

  17 Jun17 June 06:35

  My husband got stuffed by part pay with Avios when his PA took the option on a couple of work flights to Manchester. Saving of £100 but would have cost us almost £400 to buy them back. Impossible for the Exec club to unwind (although I suspected they might have found a work around if he had been Gold). If we had noticed within 48 hours a fix would have been possible. Even more annoying given the paltry earning rates on LHR / MAN flights.

  • John says:

    17 Jun17 June 08:18

    Err, no, your husband got stuffed by his PA stealing from him unless he authorised the PA to use his avios.

    If you book a refundable ticket I believe the avios are refundable with the cash

• harry says:

  17 Jun17 June 06:35

  Those Avios points do actually have a value 🙂

  • John says:

    17 Jun17 June 08:20

    I was going to say, CE for £52 would be amazing, but it actually costs £142 with my 0.6p valuation.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      17 Jun17 June 13:45

      Pretty low value when BA themselves have offered 1p or more numerous times over the past 6-12 months

  • Bob says:

    17 Jun17 June 17:08

    I was thinking the same thing – I guess Raffles gets a lot more free avios through referrals than we ever will! 🙂

• Hingeless says:

  17 Jun17 June 07:03

  This is a interesting deal

  I have just looked at a flight I need to book:

  SYD-SIN-SYD Y Class with Gold Card

  Booked as a peak day reward the cost is 40k avios + £206

  Booked as a cash ticket using part pay with avios the costs is £300 + Zero Avios ! (as it costs 11k avios but you also earn 11k avios with gold card !), The saving is about £70

  The question is do i just pay £370 and save the 11k avios

  • harry says:

    17 Jun17 June 07:13

    40K = £94 cash saved
    0.235p/ Avios

    If you’re that Chinese billionaire with the squillions of Avios, fine 🙂

    • Hingeless says:

      17 Jun17 June 07:23

      I wouldn’t spend the 40k avios

      The question to myself : is is it worth spending 11k avios to save £70? (current airline miles = 600k)

      • harry says:

        17 Jun17 June 07:50

        [You can disregard the fact that you’ll get back 11K as a Gold – it’s immaterial to your decision.]

        11K = £70 saving = 6.36p

        Lowish but not so bad, if you ever buy/ ‘buy’ Avios at more than this, then you’d want to preserve your Avios. If you have loads in the bank, not much in it. I personally would look to get better value.

        • John says:

          17 Jun17 June 08:28

          No, it isn’t immaterial to the decision at all.

          Using a 1p valuation:
          rev: cash £370, earn 11kA worth £110. Total cost £260
          ppa: £300 + 11kA, earn 11kA. Total cost £300
          awd: £206 + 40kA worth £400, earn 0A. Total cost £606
          Winner: revenue flight

          Using a 0.6p valuation:
          rev: cash £370, earn 11kA worth £66. Total cost £304
          ppa: £300 + 11kA, earn 11kA. Total cost £300
          awd: £206 + 40kA worth £240, earn 0A. Total cost £446
          Winner: part pay with avios

        • harry says:

          17 Jun17 June 09:42

          [Let’s ignore the 40K version.]

          The 11K earned as Gold is immaterial because in both possibilities/ scenarios (regardless of value attributed to Avios), the OP will end up earning the same amount of Avios, worth the same.

          In each value attributed to Avios (1p & 0.6p) we are comparing 2 equations with various values for a, b & c – but d is always the same value in both possibilities:
          a (cash out) + b (Avios used) = (c (total cost) + d (Avios earned)
          when d is the same in both possibilities, it can be struck out.

          ie 1p valuation:
          1. a £370 + b £0 = £370 + d
          vs
          2. a £300 + b 11K Avios @ 1p = c £410 + d

          and 0.6p valuation:
          1. a £370 + b £0 = £370 + d
          vs
          2. a £300 + b £66 = £366 + d

    • Worzel says:

      17 Jun17 June 07:29

      Well done for doing the number crunching Squills.

      I was going to suggest stepping outside (with a coin in hand), wait for wind to settle, flip coin, and job done. 🙂 .

  • Barry cutters says:

    17 Jun17 June 07:25

    Book the cash ticket.

    • Lady London says:

      17 Jun17 June 11:23

      +1. In 3 out of 4 of your possible cases cash as good as wins.

      Unless you think Avios are a declining asset and you need the ones you’ve got, or unless you’re a Chinese billionaire with squillions of Avios, or unless you have magic machine that earns you squillions of Avios, on this one I’d go all cash.

      • Lady London says:

        17 Jun17 June 11:24

        PS if you can start your ticket or the return half of your ticket out of Hong Kong rather than Singapore, I suspect you might benefit from considerably less tax due to the virtually non-tax regime there.

• Boi says:

  17 Jun17 June 08:01

  Pity ex-eu part pay not as good

  • Rob says:

    17 Jun17 June 08:59

    Yes, I noticed that. Frustrating as I need to decide whether to book a return for cash (and get the enhanced PPWA) or out on Avios and return on cash (with such a poor PPWA rate it isn’t worth it).

    • Lady London says:

      17 Jun17 June 11:22

      BA also loads cash single fares by relatively large amounts, as compared to the leg cost for each on a return btw.

• Marc says:

  17 Jun17 June 09:07

  Hi all! I’ve got one question: if a buy a cash ticket and benefit from 1p per Avios, can I later on change the FFP number, to e.g. Qatar PC, Airberlin or IbPlus?

  • Rob says:

    17 Jun17 June 12:39

    Yes, totally fine

• James67 says:

  17 Jun17 June 09:49

  There are a coupl of elephants in this post Rob and going forward I think you should always take care to highlight them in relevant articles because generally you have been very good at highlighting downsides here on HFP. The first is that many people are paying close to or more than 1p for avios they collect as evident from HFP comments. Thus, part pay at 1p/avios is not a good deal for such people, it may even represent a loss for some. Secondly, there is nothing crazy or amazing about £52 CE return if it requires a copayment of 15000 avios regardless of what people value their avios at or paid for them because CE is only really of value if you need tier points. Otherwise the onboard product and service is simply rubbish, and lounge access can be easily attained for free or cash. Much better to save the avios and buy a cheao economy return on BA or another airline including LCC.

  • Lady London says:

    17 Jun17 June 11:28

    +1 I was tempted, but I don’t need tier points and there is no other reason to fly Club Europe especially if you’re not earning the 2x or whatever it is now in Avios, for being Gold. As I don’t have a magic machine for creating Avios those 15,000 are much better worth hanging on to for a one way to the US on Air Berlin or something.

    Of course I’m a fool because Avios ARE a declining asset. Sooner or later BA will devalue them again. So if I was intelligent I’d be much better off spending them 🙂

  • Rob says:

    17 Jun17 June 12:39

    All accepted, but:

    a) I expect people to have a rough idea of their ‘input cost’ and therefore know what makes a sensible spend rate

    b) The bulk of the HFP readership – admittedly not reflected in the comments which is a group of roughly 100 of the 20,000 daily HFP readers – is made up of heavy business travellers who don’t pay anything for most of their Avios

    • James67 says:

      17 Jun17 June 14:46

      a) I hope you’re right, although, I’ve made some bad judgements myself at times to be honest. However, the one I thought was my worst of all proved to be a real peach in the end which just goes to show how fluid the miles game can be. Sometimes we get lucky and sometimes not.

      b) Interesting information, a little disappointing that a larger proportion don’t share the benefits of their experience with us. That said, in the days when i was shuttling back and forward to SFO twice a month I never really paid much attention to the likes of FT and ended up with a United gold mine which could so easily have been a BMI diamond mine had I been wiser.

    • Paul L says:

      17 Jun17 June 18:26

      B) +1 although the annoying thing when we go states is their ridiculous constant sign up bonuses and the wide range of credit cards they have…

• Paul L says:

  17 Jun17 June 10:39

  Great post Rob and very timely for me. Was about to book 2 x economy rfs to spain in holiday time and was going to be about 14,000 avios + £30 ish pp (slightly less if booked 2 x 1 way). Now for £399 and using 30,000 to save £300 for CE – no brainer! Great find.

• FlightDoctor says:

  17 Jun17 June 11:01

  Slightly OT but my wife and 3 kids (all under 10yrs) will achieve Bronze status later this summer after two excellent ex-EU deals we secured thanks to HFP! They will all be sitting at 560 TPs with another 6 months to run on the cards before points are reset. I’m Gold through work travel.
  My question is whether it is worth us paying for a part-pay deal in CE (as above) to secure Silvers for the family, as we are only 40 TPs adrift? We don’t have any plans to travel overseas before summer 2017 and will probably try to secure an ex-EU deal in business anyway (so many of the Silver perks will be irrelevant such as lounge access). I’m not sure whether the extra bonus Avios earned with Silver would compensate with spending 37,500 to get a cheap TP run in CE. What would people do in my situation?

  • Lady London says:

    17 Jun17 June 11:34

    If you’re not flying in the next year then the only value I can see of buying flights to secure the extra 40 tier points to make Silver, would be if your Executive Club renewal date works to give you something close to 2 years of Silver. Otherwise even though 40 tier points is “so near and not so far” and not much outlay to get it, personally I’d think about not bothering. There are currently some other privileges with Silver. But if you’re not flying then they won’t matter to you.

    If you are still very early in your membership year (not calendar year) at the time you make Silver, you will be Silver for the rest of that membership year and also till the end of the following membership year. In that case if you’re flying in the following year, and only if you are, then the extra outlay could just about be worth it.

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