British Airways offering Avios points as a flight refund option – is it worth it?

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

• ankomonkey says:

  20 May20 May 20:50

  Aren’t Qatar and Turkish offering miles from their respective loyalty schemes as a refund option too? And started offering it before BA.

  • Rhys says:

    20 May20 May 21:03

    Yep, we wrote about it (Qatar)

  • paul says:

    20 May20 May 21:04

    Qatar are offering miles but I have had something of a result with an ex EU departure that they cancelled. They have agreed to let me start and end in LHR and if my destination isn’t open by the travel date then I can still cancel for a full refund, switch to somewhere within 5000 by December 31st or hold the ticket for 2 years to use LHR. This did costs me £100 each in additional UK APD but by any measure I am around £2.8 – £3 up on the deal.

    This is how you gain loyalty not via the penny pinching exploits of BA

    • Lady London says:

      20 May20 May 21:14

      Good deal. Did you get it in writing?

    • Polly says:

      21 May21 May 00:20

      Hoping to move our start point, but think it’s only within same country. Would have been nice to get it moved from BEL to LHR.

      • Lady London says:

        21 May21 May 12:35

        someone got them to do that early.

        recently someone reported on here it cost thrm £198 in taxes extra but they did it.

        Eurostar to BRU for 2 might cost less?

• George Baird says:

  21 May21 May 06:20

  Yet again a brilliant report .Had no idea this was available. Keep up the good work .Read your bulletin every day

• Charlie says:

  21 May21 May 06:25

  OT but any bright ideas on how to get a refund on an Avios (241) booking they’ve cancelled. Only option online is to take a voucher (which there is zero incentive to do!) and I can’t get through on the phone – sit on hold forever then just get cut off!

  It really angers me that they’ve removed the option to cancel avios bookings, which were always cancellable before, and that they’re trying to railroad you into taking a voucher. In fact, the MMB page states “There’s no extra cost for any changes and we offer a refund if you cancel your booking.” but there’s no refund option, just take a voucher!

  • Anna says:

    21 May21 May 07:32

    At the moment the only option is to phone. It is getting beyond a joke that they still haven’t fixed the IT – you can’t even get an Avios refund on a RFS booking which surely wouldn’t hurt BA that much?

    • Lady London says:

      21 May21 May 12:39

      I really, really hope the regulator canes BA on the systematic actions they have persistently taken which have removed the right to a refund to their “man in the street” customers i.e. all normal customers.

  • Charlie says:

    22 May22 May 04:18

    Update – I managed to succeed via twitter

• Erico1875 says:

  21 May21 May 08:02

  Using XE.com for exchange rate, the Economist Canada digital offer works out at 0.768p per Avios.

  • ChrisA says:

    21 May21 May 09:59

    Malay address wouldn’t be far off this too – 0.81p per avios for the 15k with Economist.

  • GaryC says:

    21 May21 May 15:09

    I don’t see a devaluation on the cards, at least not within a period of at least 12 months. There’s simply too much opportunity for negative PR and sentiment from flying customers, their most important stakeholder group over the coming years as they try to rebuild loads. In some ways it’s a reverse of the period we’ve been in until now, with very high load factors and demand for product making it easier to reduce the customer experience, but harder to make the far-reaching changes to staff contracts they’re trying to push through.

    That said I’m still not a buyer at 0.8p/avios right now. I’m sitting on a lot of them already as a result of some big family cancelled trips, so my exposure is probably already too high. And even if BA don’t go bust (which I think they won’t), get radically restructured by the government taking a stake (possibly, but on the balance of probability perhaps unlikely), the combination of lockdowns (now and future), quarantines, dubious management of the pandemic in countries I would want to visit, and uncertainties around medical cover and applicability of travel insurance, means the future of air travel remains too uncertain for too long in my view, to want to exchange the flexibility of cash for vouchers that I only get value from if redeemed in one particular way.

    • GaryC says:

      21 May21 May 15:10

      Ooops, clicked reply on the wrong post!

    • Harry T says:

      21 May21 May 18:48

      @Gary C
      Great comment; appreciated.

• Steve says:

  21 May21 May 08:14

  Devaluation incoming in 3… 2… 1…

  • Rhys says:

    21 May21 May 08:22

    I doubt it. BA normally issues millions of Avios a day. With so few people flying it will be close to zero.

  • ysun says:

    21 May21 May 08:49

    Agreed. BA is in need of cash desperately, and would like to exchange miles for the cash you own, and then will for sure devalue the miles to minimize their debt to you. This article is really misleading

    • Rob says:

      21 May21 May 09:23

      What? BA has just had a massive sale in which it sold Avios for 0.92p, in which MANY HFP readers were happy to participate. It is now ‘selling’ Avios for 0.8p but somehow that is a bad deal?

      I am 99% certain that IAG’s internal account model treats an Avios at 0.5p, since that is was they must pay out if you redeem for wine or hotels. I get a feeling that IAG Loyalty pays the group airlines 0.5p on flight redemptions too.

      This would ONLY be dilutive if you were getting Avios for less than 0.5p, which you’re not. If you accept 100,000 Avios Avios at 0.8p for an £800 refund, IAG will take £300 into profit, immediately, and provision £500 for when those Avios are spent. No devaluation required.

    • Nick says:

      21 May21 May 09:24

      No, it’s nothing more than an effort to stop cash leaving the Group. More customers (double) are taking cash refunds rather than vouchers, and this is a way to try to make it seem more generous not to take a refund. Far fewer Avios are being issued than usual – obviously fewer people are flying, and spend on Amex/similar must be down too if you think about all of Rob’s recent articles on this – so it’s not as if the market is being flooded with excess supply. If anything redemptions will become more generous as they try to tempt people back on board.

• Harry says:

  21 May21 May 10:17

  has anyone managed to get through to BA to get a refund instead of a voucher for a cancelled flight ?
  My flight was due on the 9th of June. I wonder if I can’t get a refund would I automatically get one on the 9th if I do not accept a voucher ?

  • Rob says:

    21 May21 May 10:24

    It seems that nothing happens until you actually ring them up. The refund is not automatically triggered.

    • Harry says:

      21 May21 May 11:05

      thanks,they certainly want to make it difficult to get a refund !

      • vinz says:

        21 May21 May 12:42

        If you can’t get through try again at another time. In different occasions I had to wait 10/20 minutes, others no wait at all. It’s completely random, so do not despair, just try at different times of the day.

  • Joseph says:

    21 May21 May 10:55

    Hi I called around 5am one morning (the joys of insomnia)!) and spoke to a very helpful operator . Called me back 2 hours later (as the refund dept was closed apparently until 9 am) and the refund was in my bank 48 hours later. Trick is not to press the button for a refund as that leads to a standard message but press the option for ‘anything else’.

    • Harry says:

      21 May21 May 11:04

      Will try that, thanks for the tip

  • Alex Sm says:

    22 May22 May 00:55

    I called their office in the Netherlands and my call was answered in 7 mins and the refund was processed after another 3 minutes of a converstaion with a lady with a slightly husky voice. Simples! Even got a small profit because of FX fluctuations

  • Charlie says:

    22 May22 May 04:16

    I failed on the phone, but got quite a quick response via Twitter. Sad that we have to resort to social media but I have the avios and 241 back in my account and the refund on taxes should be on it’s way

  • Dawn says:

    22 May22 May 13:22

    I rang them as my Turkey flight was moved again and I could not get anything to open on the site. Got through on the first attempt at 0800. I asked about the rules for a voucher and the rep said I couldn’t have a voucher, that the only option was a refund! I chose to move the date to July but was surprised I wasn’t allowed the voucher option at all – I just wanted to know if I used the voucher later in the year but didn’t use the full value if I could use it for something else in the future.

• Gary says:

  21 May21 May 12:42

  How do BA process refunds for pre booked Avios flights?
  E.g. I have a cancelled flight, that I booked for 38K Avio and £1. If I go for the Voucher refund option, do they simply return my Avios and issue a voucher for £1? Or do they convert the Avios to some form of voucher?

  • Rob says:

    21 May21 May 12:45

    The voucher is for 38k Avios AND £1.

• Stephen W says:

  21 May21 May 12:50

  One thing that needs to be considered in this value proposition is the opportunity cost of flying on avios instead of a cash ticket. You will not be earning avios (or tier points) when you redeem the avios. You would have if you had received cash and bought a ticket with it.

  • KP says:

    21 May21 May 13:29

    a good point, which many often forget. Additionally if you’re Ba Gold/OW Emerald…you get bonus avios which you are effectively forfeiting.

  • Rob says:

    21 May21 May 14:13

    That is true – indeed is always true when you have these discussions – but as Avios earned varies by class and status, and tier points are either hugely valuable or not valuable at all, it is too complex to factor in.

  • Lady London says:

    21 May21 May 16:53

    And this is also an advantage of booking a revenue ticket and using part pay with avios as the underlying ticket still earns avios in this case. Whereas, avios and avios-with-money tickets dont.

    When things start moving again it’s likely BA will have unused seat capacity still. They might turn out to adjust the reducfion in cash you get by part paying with avios, favorably. They might not publicise it widely (a typical thing they might put in the newsletter to Golds but not to Bronzes) even though if you checked the value on the ticket you’re buying for part paying with avios, you might still benefit from a reduction that’s better than the usual 2/3rds of value someone might get on PPA).

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