British Airways has launched a new ‘double Avios’ offer for the rest of 2019.
This could prove lucrative but, as often with these offers, has the potential to backfire due to intriguing small print.
The sign up page for the offer is here. You must register to take part.
The offer is simple on the face of it:
You earn double base Avios (excluding cabin and status bonuses) on your next six one-way British Airways flights
After completing your 6th sector, you get an additional bonus of 2019 Avios
The offer runs until the end of 2019 but flights must be booked by 19th April
All routes and all cabins are included
It only applies to new bookings made after you register
Looking at the small print, the offer is also valid on American Airlines, Iberia and Finnair flights when travelling between Europe and North America on a BA flight number. Don’t be fooled by the comment at the top of the landing page that AA, Iberia and Finnair flights to North Ameria count – the terms and conditions say they do not, unless there is a BA flight number on your boarding pass.
The offer is also valid on Comair-operated BA services in Southern Africa.
However, apart from the exceptions above, no other BA codeshare or franchise flight will count. You won’t get double Avios on, for example, a Bangkok Airways, Qatar Airways, Vueling or Flybe flight with a BA flight number.
Here’s the snag with ‘double Avios’ though ….
You only get double Avios on your first six segments (ie six one-way flights) after registration.
If you have a number of long-haul flights coming up before the end of the year, you don’t want to use up your six flight allowance too quickly. This means, bizarrely, you may want to consider moving some short-haul flights away from British Airways or delay registration. This will preserve your six flight ‘double Avios’ allowance for long-haul flights which will be far more lucrative.
You can register for double Avios here. You MUST register to receive your bonus.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
Typical. Booked 2 x Long Hauls last week for later this year.
Yes. Pissed off to say the least. Esp with amex churning restrictions, double would be very useful. I have also booked 2 long haul return in CW for 3pax!!! Lots of free avios lost. @Rob, any way around this?
Hi Rob – does this offer apply to the first six flights flown that are booked after registering, or the first six flight bookings after registering (regardless of which order those bookings are flown)?
Cheers
Reading it, it seems to be the first six flights flown
T&Cs say that ‘the number of Avios awarded will be calculated before any cabin and Tier bonuses are applied’. Does it mean that if I book a CW seat, the bonus Avios will be awarded for the WT Avios only? Or how does it work?
Or can I rely on the Avios flight calculator to understand how many bonus Avios I get by looking at the ‘Business lowest’ level on ‘Blue’ tier?
Basically the bonus is the number of miles you fly (subject to the minimum amounts).
Say your CW flight is 2500 miles, then you would get 2500 base avios and 2500 bonus avios from this promotion. CW booking classes I and R give you a cabin bonus of 50% (1250 avios) and booking classes J, C and D give you a cabin bonus of 150% (3750 avios).
If you are gold you get a tier bonus of 100% (2500 avios) and if you are silver you get a tier bonus of 50% (1250 avios).
So the calculator would say that the CW flight in booking class C as a Blue gives you 6250 avios. But it is not the case that you get 12500 avios from this promo, you’ll only get 8750.
Also it’s a bit different for economy
Thanks for a detailed reply. While looking into it came across this tool https://www.owenrudge.net/utils/bacalc/? which answers the question too, hopefully will be useful to others
Yes – much less lucrative than I thought it was going to be when it first appeared. Still worth having though!
If you book flight&hotel or flight&car hire booking will the bonus be on the total Avios you’d earn which is higher for holiday bookings or just the Avios for the flight itself?
The T&C’s say that a return flight (two sectors) counts as one ‘Qualifying flight’ so could do 6 return trips and get double avios on all 12 sectors.
OT: Is there any card i can use to pay on the tax free childcare site; so I can earn points. Curve does not work.
Unless you can use the Virgin Mastercard, a Miles earning visa or Amex, probably not.
I have seen other people say they top up Revolut using Viggin/IHG and then pay it off.
Yep, Revolut works.
Anyone know what the secret bonus is for flying six sectors?
What secret bonus? As per Rob’s article “After completing your 6th sector, you get an additional bonus of 2019 Avios”
2019 avios
Looking at the definition of Qualifying Flight in the T&Cs and was intrigued by point (ii)
Could this open up getting points on a CX or MH flight to Asia if booked as a flight + hotel package (and in the current luxury holiday sale), or would point (iii) effectively wipe this out? What’s the point of saying ANY flight booked as a package if it’s then going to be restricted.
A Qualifying Flight is
(i) a BA prefix on any selling class (excluding Reward flights or upgrades using Avios) or cabin on any BA operated service, or
(ii) any flight included as part of a British Airways Holiday package, and
(iii) a BA prefix on a transatlantic flight operated by British Airways (BA), American Airlines (AA), Iberia (IB) or Finnair (AY) between Europe and North America.
Sorry, might be a dump question but if I book the ticket via another website (travel agent(, after registering for this offer on BA.
Would the tickets still get me double avios?
Yep!