‘Part Pay With Avios’ now available on Flybe – at a poor rate

Flybe is, impressively, now the largest regional airline in Europe.  It now operates from 40 UK airports and is the largest scheduled airline by air traffic movements at Belfast City, Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Isle of Man, Jersey, Manchester, Newquay and Southampton.

Back in 2014, Flybe abandoned its own reward scheme and adopted Avios as its reward currency.  A lot of people still do not seem to know that this feature exists, especially when it comes to redeeming Avios points on Flybe.

Earning Avios on Flybe cash tickets can be surprisingly good these days compared to taking a British Airways Euro Traveller flight.  On routes where Flybe and BA compete at London City, you are likely to earn more Avios taking Flybe.

The cheaper ‘Just Fly’ and ‘Get More’ ticket types on Flybe earn 2 per £1 / €1 spent.  ‘All In’ flexible tickets earn 4 per £1 / €1.  As well as the base fare, you can also earn Avios on whatever you pay for hold luggage, standard and extra leg room, preassigned seating and Flybe Flex.  However, you will not earn anything on ‘Government charges’, primarily APD.

There are a couple of oddities to earning Avios on Flybe cash tickets:

You will only receive your points when you have flown your return journey.  The outbound points will not be posted after the flight.  If you miss one flight on your itinerary, you will forfeit your Avios points for the entire trip.

You can only credit a Flybe flight to avios.com.  This means that earning Avios on Flybe is restricted to residents of the UK, Isle of Man and Channel Islands because those are the restrictions on who can have an avios.com account.  You also need to be over 18 to earn Avios from a Flybe flight.

The only exception is if you have booked a British Airways codeshare with Flybe under a BA flight number.  You can credit such flights to British Airways Executive Club.

Use your Avios to part-pay for Flybe flights

Flybe announced yesterday that it is now offering ‘part-pay with Avios’ on its flights.

Full details can be found on this page of the Flybe website.

Whilst I always welcome additional opportunities to use Avios points, it is difficult to get excited about this option. 

The minimum redemption is 1,500 Avios which will get you £7.50 off your ticket.  The maximum redemption is 4,500 Avios which will save you £22.50.  That works out at 0.5p per Avios point which is about as poor as you can get.

These redemptions can only be made from an avios.com account and not a ba.com account.  You can use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move your points across to avios.com in order to do this.

There are three upsides as far as I can see:

The cap of 4,500 Avios is per LEG.  This means that you can actually use up to 9,000 Avios on a return flight, saving up to £45.  (A connecting flight only counts as one leg, so A-to-B-to-C is one leg although A-to-B-to-A is two legs.)

You can use Avios against the full cost of the ticket if it is cheap enough, albeit not for ancillary purchases such as car hire or travel insurance

You will continue to earn Avios back on your ticket, even if it was bought using ‘part-pay with Avios’

If you want to check out where you can fly to using Flybe, the full route map is here.  They even fly to Barra in the Outer Hebrides where the planes land on the beach – this is one of those trips that I keep intending to do just to be able to share the experience on HFP but I never get around to it.  Maybe next year …..

If you want to learn more about SPENDING your Avios points on Flybe, you should read this ‘Avios Redemption University’ article here.

You can read more about ‘part-pay with Avios’ on the Flybe site here.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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 Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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

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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) 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.