Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Tokyo has lower taxes when Avios flight tickets are booked as 2 x one-ways

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Many Head for Points readers will know that not all Governments take the same happy view on airline surcharges that you get in the UK.  Hong Kong and Brazil are two countries which are well known for having restrictions in place on what airlines can add to the base cost of a flight.

What I didn’t realise until this week is that Japan also imposes a cap.

A quick recap on Hong Kong

I’ll quickly recap the Hong Kong situation for anyone not familiar with it.  Airlines are not allowed to levy surcharges on flights FROM Hong Kong when the journey originates there.  This means that if you buy a return flight to Hong Kong starting in the UK, you WILL pay surcharges on both legs.  If book your trip as two one-way flights, the return leg should be free of surcharges.

Here are some example using Avios redemptions booked at ba.com or avios.com:

Return business class flight to Hong Kong on Avios has taxes of £563

One-way business business class flight to Hong Kong on Avios has taxes of £365

One-way business class flight FROM Hong Kong on Avios has taxes of £33

Anyone with a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher is getting a raw deal because those tickets must booked out of the UK.  You are being forced to overpay £165 per person in tax compared to booking each leg separately.

Let’s look at Tokyo

Until a reader pointed it out, I didn’t realise that Tokyo was in a similar position.  Here is the cost of a business class Avios redemption to Tokyo:

Return business class flight to Tokyo on Avios has taxes of £548

One-way business business class flight to Tokyo on Avios has taxes of £365

One-way business class flight FROM Tokyo on Avios has taxes of £114

This means that, if you are not using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, you can save £69 per person by booking an Avios redemption on BA to Japan as 2 x one-way tickets.

PS.  As usual, ba.com shows the incorrect taxes figure when you initially price up a flight online.  You only see the correct number when you click through to the final payment page.  This applies to many Avios flight quotes, not just Hong Kong and Tokyo.

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.

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.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (93)

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

  • Polly says:
    5 Aug5 August 06:37

    You are still winning using a 241 voucher as it’s half the avios you don’t need to collect. TBH, l thought the difference would be much greater. Let’s say an F redemption, saving only £69 pp. but really not having to collect that 2nd lot of avios is less stressful. Ba still get you on the way out. We have just no escape there apart from going Iberia to start with! Which helps.

  • Tilly71 says:
    5 Aug5 August 07:31

    OT:
    JUST upgraded my Amex Gold charge to Platinum online, I got the usual message cannot give you an immediate answer, is this the same message people have been getting when they log in two days later and the online account has updated to Platinum?
    I ask as I have the annual gold charge fee to be paid in 5 x days.
    Thx

    • Polly says:
      5 Aug5 August 07:46

      You probably just made it on time. Mine converted in a couple of days. Just check every day!

      • Tilly71 says:
        5 Aug5 August 08:59

        @Polly
        Thanks for your reply, did you get you 20k MR bonus after spending 1k?

        • Matt says:
          5 Aug5 August 09:26

          I upgraded last month. Instant approval and 20k bonus was paid promptly.

        • Polly says:
          5 Aug5 August 23:52

          Tilly
          20k in immediately l hit the 1k spend. So it is working…good luck

        • Toby says:
          6 Aug6 August 09:50

          Just done the same but no instant 20k after hitting the 1k spend. Will give a couple of days then chase up with AmEx

    • Davef says:
      5 Aug5 August 17:01

      Yes I had the same and it upgraded online later without notification.
      But even if you pay the gold fee they refund it when the charge you the platinum fee.

  • GabeS says:
    5 Aug5 August 08:25

    Hi Genghis
    Can you share some of the tricks to paying the lower taxes when using the 241 return?

    • Jon says:
      5 Aug5 August 08:30

      Start your journey from Inverness or Jersey as they both have lower taxes. Obviously, you have to factor in positioning to Inverness or Jersey but it is often cheaper to do that than pay the extra tax if you start from Heathrow.

  • zark says:
    5 Aug5 August 08:54

    Sorry for being pedantic, but according to the Oxford Dictionary tax is:

    A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government.

    Clearly this is not tax.

    • Matt says:
      5 Aug5 August 09:29

      It’s taxes, APD fees and surcharges isn’t it though?

      • John says:
        5 Aug5 August 09:59

        No, because the actual taxes are the same all the time, except for exemptions like ex-JER and ex-INV, and these are published publicly by the governments of all the countries invovled. Fees paid to airports are not taxes.

        The price differences are all down to the opaque BA random add-ons that are not published anywhere and even if you spent 100 hours searching every possible BA fare (between London and Tokyo – now imagine doing it for 10,000 city pairs) you wouldn’t be able to compile a comprehensive table.

        • Lady London says:
          5 Aug5 August 12:16

          Most of the BA so-called “taxes and charges” are in fact a “Co-Pay”. Most of the time, except for the heinous cost of APD on ex-UK tickets, most of the “taxes and charges” you must pay to British Airways goes straight into British Airways’s pocket. This in addition to the avios you contribute.

          British Airways was sued in the USA for calling this “greed money” a “fuel charge” recently. IRL fuel surcharges IRL had gone away more than a decade previous. And there was British Airways still saying the money that went straight into their pocket as well as avios or cash for air tickets was a “fuel surcharge”.

          This went to court in the USA. It was finally settled out of court with a ridiculous deal that let BA buy their way out of the suit by issuing avios to passengers who had paid said “fuel surcharge” money, provided those passengers make a claim claim a tiny amount of the avios British Airways printed/made available as the settlement.

          Avios as we are all about to find out quite soon, is a currency that British Airways can reduce the value of any time time simply by changing the terms of how they are earned or spent – they’re in control.

        • Alex Smotrov says:
          5 Aug5 August 21:10

          I’m not the biggest fan of BA, as it is largely a travesty of an airline, and my 2-4-1 First+PE trip to Singapore is likely to be the last big trip with BA. But, for what it’s worth… These Americans should better sue their own hotels for charging ridiculous and de-facto compulsory “resort fees and charges”…

  • Michael C says:
    5 Aug5 August 08:58

    Justtt about HKG-related: I’m looking to do Penang-HKG with avios in April ’19. It’s on CathayDragon, but the BA site is not giving me any availability on any day ever: is this something I might be able to do by ringing BA?

    • John says:
      5 Aug5 August 10:00

      Only if there is actually availability – try AA, Asia Miles and awardnexus etc

    • GB74 says:
      5 Aug5 August 10:41

      We booked this flight using Avios in May for next Easter – however as of 22nd June CX has pretty much wiped out all partner award availability. For example, 350 days out you’d see pretty much 6 biz reward seats on every HKG- MAN flight – now nothing.

      They still seem to make seats available close in – approx. 3 weeks out. Qantas seems to be the best site to search.

  • Matthew says:
    5 Aug5 August 09:29

    Semi O/T, I’ve tried about 4 or 5 times to book BA award seats today for next year and despite them being available, it keeps coming back with an error. Has anyone else had the same issue?

    Thanks 🙂

    • Anna says:
      5 Aug5 August 09:48

      It has been a bit glitchy this weekend, I had to put one booking through twice before it was accepted. Sometimes changing browser or device can make a difference.

  • PhilW says:
    5 Aug5 August 09:35

    O/T re the BA 241, I know that if I hit the trigger early on the card the voucher issues immediately, but you can’t start collecting for the next voucher until the anniversary of the card. If I cancel the card and am referred after 6 months does the clock start again or will I still need to wait until the anniversary of the original card?

    • Rob says:
      5 Aug5 August 09:46

      Starts again.

      • PhilW says:
        5 Aug5 August 10:48

        Does that mean I could actually have 3 or 4 active 241’s in my ba account or can I still only have a max of 2?

        • Genghis says:
          5 Aug5 August 12:41

          You can have more than two. I’ve seen 3. Also no need to wait 6 months if don’t want sign up bonus so could have many more than four, in theory…

        • rts says:
          5 Aug5 August 14:39

          I have had 3 active vouchers.

  • John G says:
    5 Aug5 August 09:51

    I’m very confused. BA say they don’t have a fuel surcharge. They have a carrier imposed surcharge which is not a fuel surcharge. Why then are BA not applying this in territories where fuel surcharges are banned? Is this BA admitting that their surcharge is indeed a fuel surcharge?

    • John says:
      5 Aug5 August 10:04

      BA can choose to not apply surcharges when they don’t want to, and they aren’t admitting anything by doing so. Perhaps they just don’t want to be challenged on it now that they lost that class action in the US

    • Nick says:
      5 Aug5 August 10:15

      If you want to get into the detail, HK doesn’t actually restrict ‘fuel surcharges’, this is just what people write about because it’s easier for clumps to understand. HK actually restricts what is called in the industry ‘YQ’ (and related ‘YR’) charges… which is what BA applies as the ‘add-on’ you mention. Therefore it is very much included in the restriction. Whatever you or BA call it (carrier charge, fuel charge, i-love-chimpanzees charge) it’s the process of adding and collecting it that’s the link here.

    • Lady London says:
      5 Aug5 August 20:59

      🙂
      Nice one, @John G

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