How does ‘Part Pay With Avios’ work when booking Flybe flights?

Flybe is now one of the largest regional airlines in Europe.  It operates from over 30 UK and Irish airports, with major hubs at Manchester and Birmingham.  It has even started routes from London Heathrow Terminal 2 as I reviewed here.

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.

You can learn more about earning Avios on Flybe on their website here.

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 an account which operates via avios.com.  As all avios.com accounts are in the process of being closed and migrated to British Airways Executive Club, you will need to give them an Aer Lingus AerClub or Vueling Club number as these two schemes operate off the avios.com platform.  If you still know the number of your closed Avios Travel Rewards Programme account, you can also use this – the points will be automatically sent to your BA account.

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.

In theory, Flybe will be launching its own stand-alone Avios scheme later this year.  It will operate in the same way as AerClub or Vueling Club – you will be able to sign-up and see your balance on the Flybe website but, to redeem points, you will need to log in at avios.com.  You will be able to transfer points to and from BAEC and Iberia Plus.

How to spend Avios on Flybe

There are two ways of redeeming Avios for Flybe flights.

The first option is to redeem via British Airways Executive Club at ba.com.  This works in exactly the same way as a British Airways redemption.  The number of Avios required is based on the distance you are flying, priced from the standard Avios chart in this HfP article.  A short flight will be 4,500 Avios one way plus taxes and charges as all Flybe redemptions are based on ‘peak day’ pricing.

Note that Flybe does not take part in ‘Reward Flight Saver’ so taxes could be sharply higher than you would pay for an equivalent British Airways redemption.

All Flybe redemptions made on ba.com come with a free checked suitcase.  This is not made clear when booking and your eticket will actually say you don’t have a checked luggage allowance.  Trust me, you do.  You can prove this by going on the Flybe website and trying to add a paid suitcase to your existing Avios booking – you will see that one is already showing.

Use your Avios to part-pay for Flybe flights

Flybe also offers ‘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 if you have points sitting in an account which operates off the avios.com platform. This means Avios Travel Rewards Programme (if your account is still open), Aer Lingus AerClub or Vueling Club.  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 which means, if you book your trip as 2 x one-ways, you can actually redeem 9,000 Avios per return flight for a £45 discount.

You can use Avios against the full cost of the ticket if it is cheap enough, INCLUDING TAXES, 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’, based on the cash balance you personally pay

If you want to check out where you can fly to using Flybe, the full route map is here.

Before booking a Flybe flight via ‘part pay with Avios’, do please check on ba.com whether the same flight is bookable as a standard Avios redemption.  It might be better value.

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.

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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:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.