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An interesting trick to cut your ‘taxes and charges’ on British Airways Avios redemptions

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Here is an interesting little quirk which caused great excitement when it hit the US frequent flyer blogs yesterday (the original source was German site YHBU).  This isn’t surprising given that – as I wrote recently – British Airways charges substantially higher taxes and charges on Avios redemptions if you start in the US.

If you live in the UK this news isn’t so exciting, but it is still worth knowing about – if it survives the US publicity it got yesterday.

As we all know, the taxes and charges on British Airways long-haul redemptions in Club World and First Class are around £575 per person.  The taxes and charges for Economy (World Traveller) flights are around £375.

Avios wing 6

This is the quirk:

If you book a British Airways Avios redemption to North America via the Iberia Plus scheme, and you include a leg in Economy, the entire flight prices with the Economy level of ‘carrier imposed surcharge’.

Here’s an example:

Manchester to Boston via Heathrow, booked via ba.com, with all flights in Business:

100,000 Avios + £633

Manchester to Boston via Heathrow (same flights), booked via iberia.com, with the domestic flights in Economy:

108,000 Avios + £393

Unlike the British Airways website, the Iberia site allows you to mix and match seat classes for each flight.

That said …. this isn’t necessarily so easy to pull off.

You need to book via Iberia Plus.  In order to move Avios from British Airways Executive Club to Iberia Plus, your Iberia Plus account needs to be 90 days and to have ‘earned’ 1 Avios.  You can’t open one now and immediately take advantage.

Iberia Plus does not give ‘free’ domestic connections, unlike British Airways Executive Club.  In the example above, you are spending an extra 8,000 Avios in order to save £240.  This is obviously worth it but does reduce the saving.

If you want to use a British Airways Executive Club 2-4-1 voucher, or a Lloyds credit card upgrade voucher, you can’t do this as those cannot be booked via iberia.com

If you live in London, you will need to travel to Manchester or another UK regional airport with BA connections to start your trip.  You MUST do this or the entire flight is cancelled. Coming home, if you are on hand baggage, you could risk skipping the last leg.

In case you’re wondering, there is no benefit in booking a one-way from London to the US and then a one-way from the US to, say, Manchester.  The higher taxes and charges imposed on one-way bookings cancels out your savings.

Iberia allows you cancel British Airways Avios redemptions for a refund of the Avios and taxes.  This is NOT the case with other Avios bookings made via Iberia Plus – if you make a Qatar Airways redemption and cancel it, you lose everything.

Of course, if:

you live near a BA regional airport, and

you don’t plan to use a BA Amex or Lloyds voucher, and

you don’t mind spending 8,000 – 9,000 extra Avios because Iberia Plus doesn’t give free UK domestic connections, and

you want to fly to North America

….. then this may work out well for you.

PS.  Remember that you can save far bigger sums on the taxes and charges on Avios redemptions to North America by booking on Iberia and flying from Madrid.  Details are in this HfP article.  Madrid to New York, return, in Business Class, has taxes and charges of just £159 when you book on Iberia via Iberia Plus.

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

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Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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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

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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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.

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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

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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.

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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, Iberia and Iberia Plus

Comments (55)

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

  • Shoestring says:
    22 Oct22 October 05:38

    Not sure going to Manchester could ever be worth £240 saving.

    • Matt says:
      22 Oct22 October 06:10

      No backlash yet! The north hasn’t arisen yet ????

      • Erico1875 says:
        22 Oct22 October 06:32

        Shift dan t pit dunt finish till 6.30 !

      • Anna says:
        22 Oct22 October 08:11

        I was mildly offended, then I remembered that the monthly mortgage payment on my 4 bedroom house is £550 and immediately felt better.

        • Ian says:
          22 Oct22 October 08:16

          I laughed out loud at that one 🙂

        • TripRep says:
          22 Oct22 October 08:51

          Anna, FaF. Thanks for that one.

          Feel sorry for young folks trying to afford to buy near the capital.

          Of course the other trick here is to fly via Inverness, to avoid all taxes. Plus get to breathe a few good lung fulls of clean air as a bonus.

        • Mike L says:
          22 Oct22 October 09:37

          ????

        • Doug M says:
          22 Oct22 October 10:31

          I’ll leave my opinions on Manchester out of this, but if we’re specifically talking the Airport then £240 to avoid it may well be a price worth paying.

        • sunguy says:
          22 Oct22 October 11:30

          “I’ll leave my opinions on Manchester out of this, but if we’re specifically talking the Airport then £240 to avoid it may well be a price worth paying.”

          +EMA +STN (MAG properties which are just as bad!).

    • David says:
      22 Oct22 October 07:19

      In the spirit of northerner-bashing, are us London-dwellers still subsidising their free domestic connections? For some reason I thought BA now made them pay for the extra flights, but doesn’t sound like it from the article.

      • Genghis says:
        22 Oct22 October 07:46

        Avios price of connections on LH included (not pricy taxes delta). SH not included now.

        • Colin MacKinnon says:
          22 Oct22 October 08:32

          No extra avios, but:

          Money: Extra taxes and fees so much that it is often cheaper to buy a same day change ticket for the return and change time when you land at LHR.

          Convenience: you can’t change the avios domestic flight within 24 hrs. So the last time I flew DEN-LHR-GLA (in F and on a 241) and BA changed the GLA flight time 5 mins so as I would miss the minimum connection time, I had to wait 4 hours in LHR – even though the DEN flight was 60 mins EARLY ! Sorry sir, we can’t move you to the flight we removed you from because you have an avios ticket.

          Convenience: we now fly down the night before because LHR is so busy that a sparrow farts and everything goes down the tubes. So I might make the connection, but my luggage doesn’t!

          Convenience: BA IT so crappy that the “free” flight can add £250 to the ticket price to get the return domestic you want compared to others on offer that day. Yet the difference in fares for cash bookings on the same day is less than £30!

          Other than Denver, we usually now fly Easyjet to Madrid and start from there.

  • Marcw says:
    22 Oct22 October 05:44

    This has been the case for ages. The key is that IbPlus alows mixed class bookings.

  • Alex W says:
    22 Oct22 October 06:36

    Dublin to the US on Aer Lingus also saves on fees.

  • Brian says:
    22 Oct22 October 06:58

    That explains why it was so much cheaper to book with Iberia when I was flying from JFK to Vienna via Heathrow. Definitely one to consider if you have to get to a European airport, rather than a UK regional one.

  • David says:
    22 Oct22 October 07:20

    £1306 for only one seat?! Is that ex-US?

    • Matt says:
      22 Oct22 October 07:56

      I think they mean for 2 persons

      • Jill (Kinkell) says:
        22 Oct22 October 08:12

        I booked using 241 from INV to IAD and return from ATL (CE and F) for next Sept and my fees and taxes ….oh, sorry @Neal. Carrier imposed charges,….were £865. No APD from Inverness, but nevertheless, I hope the agent didn’t get her sums wrong!

  • Callum says:
    22 Oct22 October 07:55

    Does it definitely not work with BA?

    I add an ET leg to my CW flights to avoid the APD (booked via Avios), and I thought that reduced the carrier surcharge too. Maybe I just miscalculated though.

    • Pgw says:
      22 Oct22 October 08:02

      I’m sure I’ve made a mixed class award MAN-LHR-USA. I had to call but unless things have changed very recently I think it can be done to avoid taxes. Of course I had to forgo the 35 minutes of sheer luxury in the CE domestic legs!

      • Anna says:
        22 Oct22 October 08:16

        You can split travel classes by using the stopover facility during an online booking, but I’ve never checked whether it affects the taxes.

  • Londoner says:
    22 Oct22 October 08:35

    I gave you a heads up on this several months ago, you could’ve been the first one with this Rob.
    Taxes went from around 447 gbp to 150 gbp or so for a CW redemption OAK to CPH via LGW if the LON-CPH part was in economy. That’s a pretty good saving for sitting back a few rows for 2 hours.

  • Chima says:
    22 Oct22 October 08:39

    Just a question. Do you think BA Amex 2-4-1 booking is possible via the Iberia website? Starting point from Manchester is still a UK starting point. Any ideas as to how this done? Someone has suggested using the stopover facility. Could I do that with 2-4-1 booking even if I have to call?

    • Genghis says:
      22 Oct22 October 08:43

      No

    • Rob says:
      22 Oct22 October 09:13

      Can’t be done.

    • Liz says:
      22 Oct22 October 09:39

      Your 241 voucher is in your BAEC account and not your Iberia account.

    • Mark says:
      22 Oct22 October 10:26

      Remember though that booking with Iberia can work out substantially cheaper, to the point where it’s almost as cheap as using a 2for1 with BA even if you start at Heathrow. we used our 90K Iberia promotion avios on a booking yesterday, LHR-MAD, MAD-ORD and LAX-MAD-LHR.

      In total for 2 of us with all legs in business class it came to £480 plus 206K avios, off-peak. The equivalent with BA using a 2for1 would have come to approx. £1150 plus 112.5K avios, off-peak. Ignoring where the bulk of the avios came from, and valuing them at 1p each the effective cost of the Iberia flights come to an extra £265 for two of us, but:

      *No need to spend £10K on a BAPP, or pay the annual fee (£195)
      *No seat selection charges which could add ~£400 to the BA booking
      *Direct aisle access to all seats

      OK, it does take longer to get there and we will need a night’s accommodation in Madrid for the outbound so all-in-all I’d say it’s about even.

      If you’re starting from a regional airport that offers direct flights to Madrid and you want to fly somewhere on Iberia’s long haul network then it’s likely to work out somewhat cheaper. You can even use part miles, part cash if you don’t have all the required avios, albeit you generally end up paying a bit more than 1p/avios (the best I saw was £20 for a reduction of 1,900 avios on the outbound to Madrid).

      • Mark says:
        22 Oct22 October 10:56

        In fact with some dummy bookings it looks like the BA charges would have been more like £1270 for the open jaw…and I realised I slightly over-calculated the Iberia avios which was actual 204K. So effective extra cost only £125 for two of us.

      • fbrj says:
        22 Oct22 October 21:27

        I stumbled across the savings by accident and have booked something similar. We have friends outside Boston and want to experience “The Fall” in New England next year.

        In the Iberia promotion last year I got 90,000 avios and my wife 9000. After some transferring from BAEC to Iberia on both our accounts I booked: MAD-BOS *2 for 68000 avios and £186 and my wife has booked LHR-MAD for 13000 avios and £65 on IB. We are going a couple of days early to spend some time in Madrid on the way out..

        I have yet to book BOS-MAD-LHR * 2 which will cost 81000 avios and £152. Being on 1 PNR it gets round the luggage interlining problem.

        Total cost – assuming 100,000 avios cost £200 in the promotion and the rest of the avios at 1p each – then LHR-MAD-BOS return was £632/each. J to/from MAD-BOS and Y to/from MAD-LHR. J all the way cash is approx £2500/each

        • Mark2 says:
          22 Oct22 October 22:03

          Just on the Fall in Boston: we were there last week and it was only just beginning.

        • fbrj says:
          23 Oct23 October 15:30

          Mark2 – yes thanks for that – we have been studying the “Fall Maps” with keen interest! We will be heading North initially and later returning to the Boston area.

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