What is the best value Avios flight per mile?

What is the best value Avios redemption per mile flown?  Or, put another way, what’s the furthest you can fly for the fewest Avios?

After October’s article on which routes are the best British Airways redemptions on an ‘Avios per minute of flying time’ basis (link), we were left wondering whether the league table would change when calculated per mile.

With the help of Andrew, a reader who kindly did much of the ground work for us, we have put together a list of the flying distance of each long and mid haul British Airways route and compared it with the Avios required for a Club World off-peak redemption.

Distances are measured using the ‘great circle route’ ie. the most direct path between origination and destination.

If you ever need to work out the distance between two cities, we recommend Great Circle Mapper at gcmap.com.  Use airport codes in the search box, eg LHR-CPT for London Heathrow to Cape Town, and click ‘Distance’.  Andrew used the data from BA’s High Life magazine.

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of the value of different routes, although you should remember that ‘value’ is subjective.  If you don’t want to fly to Kuwait, for example, it doesn’t matter how ‘cheap’ a redemption would be!

As we always say, the ‘best’ Avios redemption is one that takes you to somewhere you really want to go.  With the exception of South Africa, both the ‘best value’ top four and ‘worst value’ bottom four destinations are unlikely to be top of your bucket list.

There are various reasons why a list of ‘best Avios redemption per mile flown’ will NOT be the same as ‘best Avios redemption by minute of travel time’:

stopovers on some routes have a big impact, padding out travel time hugely

some flights are forced to fly circuitous routes due to political issues about overflying certain countries, so the flight time is disproportionately long compared to distance

some routes have ‘padded’ flight times to minimise the impact of prevailing winds on connections and landing slots

The winner based on ‘Avios needed per mile flown’ is Cape Town.  10 Avios will get you one mile in a Club World flat bed on that route.

It was in the top ten of the ‘Avios per minute’ chart but has now climbed to the very top of the list. This is great news since Cape Town – in addition to being great value – is also a fantastic city to visit! Cape Town is one of the destinations in BA’s route map that should technically be priced in a higher Avios category but isn’t, so it makes sense that it should be excellent value.

Most of the top fifteen remain the same when calculated by mile or by minute. Abuja, Jeddah, Kuwait, Moscow, Johannesburg, Mexico City, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose (CR), San Francisco, San Jose (CA) and Sydney all perform well.

The biggest climber is Bangalore, which climbed 38 places and is the 25th most value-for-Avios route based on distance travelled. It was 63rd on a per-minute basis! The biggest loser is Dammam, which dropped over 60 places to almost the last spot – the stopover in Bahrain made it a long flight but, purely on distance, it is a bad Avios deal, as are most Middle Eastern destinations.

Other interesting differences are Tokyo, which jumped 34 places to 18th best; Singapore which jumped 37 to 35th place and New York which fell 24 places to 68th.

Take a look and see what you think. The table shows you the Avios per mile you need to redeem to get a Club World redemption.

If you want to compare these results to ‘best Avios redemption by minute of flying time’, you can find those results here.

I also recommend this HfP article which shows every British Airways route and the Avios required to fly it.  

Destination	Avios for CW return off-peak	Miles flown (each way)	Avios needed per mile flown
Cape Town	125,000	6,010	10.40
Abuja	62,500	2,960	10.56
Durban	125,000	5,903	10.59
Jeddah	62,500	2,945	10.61
Kuwait	62,500	2,900	10.78
Moscow	34,000	1,560	10.90
Johannesburg	125,000	5,635	11.09
Mexico City	125,000	5,530	11.30
San Diego	125,000	5,470	11.43
Los Angeles	125,000	5,455	11.46
San Jose (CR)	125,000	5,425	11.52
San Francisco	125,000	5,360	11.66
San Jose (CA)	125,000	5,360	11.66
Sydney	250,000	10,665	11.72
Male	125,000	5,295	11.80
Phoenix	125,000	5,255	11.89
Lima	150,000	6,305	11.90
Las Vegas	125,000	5,230	11.95
Tokyo	150,000	6,220	12.06
Santiago	175,000	7,249	12.07
Chennai	125,000	5,115	12.22
Grand Cayman	125,000	5,085	12.29
Seychelles (Mahe)	125,000	5,076	12.31
Beijing	125,000	5,065	12.34
Mauritius	150,000	6,055	12.39
Bangalore	125,000	5,000	12.50
Hong Kong	150,000	5,965	12.57
Cancun	125,000	4,965	12.59
Chicago	100,000	3,955	12.64
Bangkok	150,000	5,930	12.65
Buenos Aires	175,000	6,915	12.65
Osaka	150,000	5,909	12.69
Austin	125,000	4,910	12.73
Sao Paulo	150,000	5,890	12.73
Singapore	175,000	6,755	12.95
Turks and Caicos	125,000	4,820	12.97
Houston	125,000	4,820	12.97
Hyderabad	125,000	4,795	13.03
Rio de Janeiro	150,000	5,745	13.05
Seattle	125,000	4,785	13.06
Shanghai	150,000	5,720	13.11
Dallas	125,000	4,745	13.17
Seoul	150,000	5,650	13.27
Vancouver	125,000	4,705	13.28
Islamabad	100,000	3,750	13.33
Kuala Lumpur	175,000	6,555	13.35
Kingston	125,000	4,680	13.35
Pittsburgh	100,000	3,715	13.46
New Orleans	125,000	4,617	13.54
Washington DC	100,000	3,675	13.61
Amman	62,500	2,290	13.65
Muscat	100,000	3,660	13.66
Baltimore	100,000	3,625	13.79
Tobago	125,000	4,495	13.90
Mumbai	125,000	4,465	14.00
Port of Spain	125,000	4,455	14.03
Miami	125,000	4,435	14.09
Philadelphia	100,000	3,545	14.10
Toronto	100,000	3,545	14.10
Tel Aviv	62,500	2,215	14.11
Tampa	125,000	4,425	14.12
Cairo	62,500	2,195	14.24
Grenada	125,000	4,360	14.33
Orlando	125,000	4,355	14.35
Calgary	125,000	4,355	14.35
Beirut	62,500	2,165	14.43
Nassau	125,000	4,330	14.43
New York	100,000	3,450	14.49
Bermuda	100,000	3,440	14.53
Punta Cana	125,000	4,290	14.57
Abu Dhabi	100,000	3,425	14.60
Dubai	100,000	3,405	14.68
Nairobi	125,000	4,250	14.71
St Lucia	125,000	4,220	14.81
Atlanta	125,000	4,200	14.88
Bridgetown	125,000	4,195	14.90
Nashville	125,000	4,176	14.97
New Delhi	125,000	4,165	15.01
St Kitts	125,000	4,140	15.10
Boston	100,000	3,260	15.34
Charleston	125,000	4,075	15.34
Antigua	125,000	4,075	15.34
Montreal	100,000	3,240	15.43
Doha	100,000	3,240	15.43
Accra	100,000	3,170	15.77
Bahrain	100,000	3,150	15.87
Dammam	100,000	3,124	16.00
Lagos	100,000	3,115	16.05
Riyadh	100,000	3,065	16.31

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

There are two official British Airways American Express cards:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

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

If you have a small business, we especially recommend Capital On Cap’s Visa card which comes with a generous bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)