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MASSIVE AVIOS SALE: 50% off ALL long-haul flights, 25% off short-haul and it works with a 241

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British Airways has launched what is possibly the biggest Avios flight sale it has ever run.

All long haul flights, in all classes, are half price. Well, half points anyway.

Full details are on this special page of ba.com.

Avios 50% discount sale

This is what you need to know:

  • ALL long-haul redemptions (all routes, all travel classes) are reduced by 50%
  • ALL short-haul redemptions (all routes, both travel classes) are reduced by 25%

Here are the key dates:

  • You must book by 13th October
  • You must travel between now and 30th June 2021
  • Full taxes and charges are due
  • The discount is valid on both one-way and return flights
  • The discount only applies to British Airways flights and not partner airlines

Can this offer be combined with a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 or Lloyds voucher?

YES. Well, with an Amex 241 anyway.

British Airways told me that it doesn’t, but it does!

This may or may be an error. The small print does say that ‘vouchers’ are excluded.

British Airways Gatwick Airport

Should I cancel and rebook existing redemptions?

This is a tricky question.

For existing long haul bookings:

Clearly there are HUGE savings to be made if you cancel existing Avios long-haul redemptions and rebook them. You’d be crazy not to, to be honest, if it meant saving 50,000 to 100,000 Avios per booking.

(Do NOT do this with a Lloyds Avios upgrade voucher. As far as I know, these are still lost if you cancel a redemption flight which uses one.)

You need to be careful, however.

If you have enough Avios to make a fresh booking and didn’t use a 2-4-1 voucher, you don’t have any risk. You can make a new booking and then cancel your original at your convenience.

(Remember that, if you cancel online, you can only receive a Future Travel Voucher. This involves wrapping up the Avios, cash and any companion voucher in a voucher. You do NOT get the Avios, cash or companion voucher back in your accounts but you don’t pay any cancellation fees. Alternatively, you can ring BA, pay the £35 per person cancellation fee and get the Avios, cash and any voucher back directly.)

If you don’t have enough Avios to rebook, or need your 2-4-1 voucher back first, you are in a trickier position.

You need to call BA, trigger a Future Travel Voucher (which usually arrives within a few minutes, but isn’t guaranteed) and then call British Airways to rebook.

You should assume that your original seats will NOT go back into redemption availability. Only do this if you can see enough fresh seats available for the dates you want and you are willing to take the risk of them disappearing before you can rebook.

Half price Avios bookings

For existing short haul bookings:

For short haul, however, I don’t think it is worth the effort. The cancellation fees will outweigh a 25% Avios saving. Cancelling for a Future Travel Voucher and then rebooking to avoid cancellation fees is a bit of a faff for a modest return, even if seats are available.

Is there a special offer to buy Avios if I’m short?

No, unfortunately not. The 50% bonus promotion ended last week and I imagine there is no chance of a new offer before 13th October.

If you are happy to pay full price (1.6p per Avios plus a £15 handling fee), you can buy Avios via this page of ba.com.

Be careful not to get carried away ….

This is an exceptionally good offer. Offering 50% off all long haul flights, to all destination and in all classes, is not something you see every day.

However …. if you end up not flying the tickets you book, you will be paying £35 per person to cancel or taking a Future Travel Voucher, which comes with its own complications when you come to rebook (no name changes etc). Book with care.

Click here to visit the special sale page of ba.com and find out more.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

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Barclaycard Avios card

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 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.

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The Platinum Card from 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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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (712)

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

  • Jamil says:
    9 Oct9 October 08:15

    I looked at a lot of long haul flights and countries that are on the travel corridor so no wonder there is a sale! All of the countries that you can fly to, have quarantine restrictions or are not permitting foregin nationals. Do you think BA will be extend our 241 vouchers? They currently have done it for 6 months.

  • Nige says:
    9 Oct9 October 08:23

    Just on the £35 fee per person for changes.
    I had 2 Club Europe seats booked for LHR to Rome flying out next week. This was an avios redemption I booked a few days before the sale was announced. I only paid the £2 in taxes/charges.
    With all the rumour going on yesterday about closing airbridges, i feared Italy would go on the list so I jumped the gun and decided to change or holiday destination.
    I managed to cancel my original booked and re booked LHR to Cyprus in Club Europe. I was charged 75,000 avios instead of 100,000 and £32 in total for taxes and charges.
    Somehow I managed to swerve the change fees.

  • Optimus Prime says:
    9 Oct9 October 09:50

    Well, have decided to join the BA lenders. Add me to the list of visitors to Japan in late May-early June 🙋‍♂️

    Most 2-week itineraries recommend 5 days in Tokyo. OH says that’s too much and would rather stay longer in Osaka and Kyoto.

    Any hotel recommendations for Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto? I have a few IHG credit card certificates plus an AMB voucher to burn… I can still transfer Amex MR points to Hilton or Marriott. BTW Conrad Tokyo is asking for 321k points per night for my dates, so I can already rule that one out 🤦‍♂️

    • Jamil says:
      9 Oct9 October 10:17

      I used to live in Japan. There is lots to do in Tokyo. It depends what your interests are really. I could spend hours just browsing the electronic shops!

    • Will says:
      9 Oct9 October 10:31

      Tokyo is far better that Kyoto unless you prefer tourist traps. I’d spend the majority of my time in Tokyo but then I love London so all personal preference.

      • Optimus Prime says:
        9 Oct9 October 10:47

        Yeah, horses for courses, etc… I live in London and love a 5-day trip to New York from time to time!

    • FlyingChris says:
      9 Oct9 October 11:21

      I’d say 5 nights (from 14 days) is too much for Tokyo when there’s so much else to see and Japan’s so easy to get around on the train network. I’d do 3 nights in Tokyo, then get a JR rail pass and explore more of Honshu island (west of Tokyo) by train. Out of Tokyo – Hakone (spa town) is a popular visit on route to Kyoto. We liked Osaka and it’s a good base for nearby destinations on the train (and has an excellent Intercontinental to use your voucher). Bullet trains so convenient you could even do a day trip to Hiroshima from Osaka if you started early. A little bit further off the most common route – our last trip we really enjoyed the ‘Alpine Route’ between Matsumoto and Toyama (a fun one-way day trip travelling through the Northern Japan Alps by cablecars, ropeways and tunnel buses – you can send your luggage on in advance), before heading back down to Osaka via Takayama. Basically everything’s so accessible by train. 🙂

      • FlyingChris says:
        9 Oct9 October 11:44

        One thing we discovered was how easy and common it is to forward your luggage on to future destinations if you want to spend a few days not lugging big suitcases on trains and have it waiting for you in your room at your next big destination. All the hotels use a service called takuhaibin that for about £15 will take your bags across the country to arrive the next day. The concierge does all the paperwork and takes payment. So you can visit places like Hakone etc with an overnight bag, while your luggage meets you in your next bigger city like Kyoto etc.

      • Optimus Prime says:
        9 Oct9 October 11:46

        Thanks for the tips! Actually I’ve just managed to change the outbound flight for free and will be there for 19 nights.

  • Neil says:
    9 Oct9 October 11:37

    Is anyone else struggling to get in touch with BA at the moment. I have called their standard call centre and tried 4 different options to get thought all with the same result….

    “i am sorry but due to reduced capacity and higher than average call volumes, we are unable to take your call right now. Please visit our website or call back later” or words to that effect. No option to hold, just hangs up on you….

    I have just booked Rtn First Class Tickets between LHR-MEX for next June (85k points + £650 tax ….not bad for a £3,000 ticket) . I wanted to fly from MAN but as the internal flight is only Club Europe, when I searched First Class, it showed no Avios availability in First for the LHR-MEX leg.

    is it best for me to book an avios Club Europe flights i want (there is availability) and call up to get them added to my flight? or trying calling up to add the connections over the phone. What is the pricing policy for avios/money to add internal connecting flights? is it different?

    • Jamil says:
      9 Oct9 October 11:44

      Yesterday I was on hold forever to BA and got disconnected. Today I got through twice before 9am! They just have the one freephone number now for all enquiries it seems.

    • Anna says:
      9 Oct9 October 12:31

      Have you tried using the “stopover” option, i.e. tick the box saying you want a stopover but put in the same day for onward travel (or next next possibly on your return leg). This sometimes let you choose different classes of travel on separate legs, epecially when, as you say, there’s no F cabin on the connecting flight. You can also just choose economy on the domestic leg if you want to save a bit of money (and avios on a RFS).

      • C says:
        9 Oct9 October 12:42

        The stopover function worked for me when I booked in First yesterday

      • Harry T says:
        9 Oct9 October 13:22

        Stopover always works for me when searching First availability . This is a recurring glitch when trying to book First seats.

        • Anna says:
          9 Oct9 October 14:47

          I even had to go through stopover to book MAN-LHR-AUH return the other day even though all legs were in Club. I find BA’s IT does different weird stuff depending on which device I am using. But re Neil above, if you’ve already booked the long haul legs, you may find BA charge you fully for the domestic leg and refuse to link the bookings, if they’re feeling that way out!

      • Neil says:
        9 Oct9 October 14:50

        The stop-over function worked but for some reason only offered Economy on both flights or Business Class on both flights…. First wasn’t available which was frustrating….

    • Keith says:
      9 Oct9 October 23:57

      Just call You First- you’ll get through pretty much straight away and they’ll sort the booking for you ‭0800 408 7667‬

    • barnaby100 says:
      10 Oct10 October 14:24

      Hi, yes I had this, couldn’t get any to book in 1st with a Manchester connection, but all were available from LHR. I just booked from LHR, the Manchester flight are very cheap at the moment but driving to LHR is not much worse than driving to MAN now LBA is gone. I hate MAN.

  • RC says:
    9 Oct9 October 13:18

    Just spent an hour on the phone to BA, the number I used was in an earlier comment, didn’t choose an option but then got transferred to a BAEC rep, and can confidently say that there’s no redemption availability left for Easter 2021 to any destinations worth considering. Wish I had known about this 50% sale earlier, missed it by around 2 weeks, but not worth taking the risk and paying £70 to cancel and then hope I can re-book the same or similar itinerary. Let’s hope they do a better sale over Christmas and I can grab a bargain then!

  • Kunal says:
    9 Oct9 October 15:54

    How can I book an open jaw flight please using this offer and Amex 2-4-1?

    • Rhys says:
      9 Oct9 October 15:59

      Book them separately, call BA to get the Avios of the return refunded

      • C says:
        9 Oct9 October 16:04

        I had trouble doing this earlier today. 2 different agents wouldn’t refund the avios. They said the only option was to cancel it all and rebook. As I was within the 24 hour cooling off period they agreed to cancel the return (with a risk that the seats do not go back into the pot) and they amended the outbound to a return ticket and recalculated the taxes.

        • Rhys says:
          9 Oct9 October 16:18

          This is bizarre and they are wrong – people often book the outbound 355 days in advance and then book the second, and then call to merge!

          • C says:
            9 Oct9 October 16:26

            They said that if the inbound isn’t available at the time of booking the outbound then that is the only circumstance they will do it. They said if the return flight was available at the time of booking the outbound then it must be booked as a return. They both confirmed this with supervisors and when I told them I have done this before they said that it shouldn’t have happened and the agent must have made a mistake. Luckily it only cost me an extra £30pp in taxes but if it was a HKG then it would be significant.

          • Princess says:
            9 Oct9 October 17:03

            I had the same issue 2 days ago, I had 4 inbound from HKG, I had 2 travel voucher (companion voucher attached) , one went ok as the return was previously link to the outbound, the other one it wasn’t and the agent told me she couldn’t link it. Of course everything was booked at the same time so I have no idea who made the mistake. at the end I have had to re-book one set of inbound separate to not pay the recalculated taxes.

  • Ben says:
    9 Oct9 October 19:40

    Hi
    I’ve been reading the FTV talk. My companion voucher runs out in Jan and I want to go somewhere in Oct.
    can I book the same destination for Jan, then pretty much immediately cancel online to get a voucher – which I can then use to book the Oct date (assuming reward seats are available)?
    Feels a bit naughty but would be good to do?

    • Ben says:
      9 Oct9 October 19:45

      And would I get charged any extra avios as it’s after the sale?

      • Sean says:
        9 Oct9 October 20:03

        yes you would have to pay difference – you get back a voucher with x avios and y pounds you paid. But if BA cancelled … then you may be able to request a later date.

      • Lady London says:
        9 Oct9 October 20:08

        yes your strategy would work as taking an FTC has 2 reasons – avoiding canx/change fees and/or extending a voucher (otherwise wiser to take your cash and/or avios back as a general rule instead of FTV.

        However if you change date etc. after the sale you will have to pay full avios based on what you’re rebooking to.

        Before you decide take s
        a quick look at the posts late yesterday by @BS as theres another idea there – late.yesterdays version of this thread.

        y

        • Ben says:
          9 Oct9 October 20:36

          Hi. Thanks finally found it (booking then changing dates) It seems no one but @bs could manage it though?
          Not sure it is worth booking some flights just to see

          • C says:
            9 Oct9 October 22:34

            I’ve managed it tonight. You need to make sure there are no connecting flights for it to work. I booked a Japan to London flight for March in Business and changed the date to the end of September. £27 taxes and 35k avios for 2. Bargain.

          • Fred says:
            10 Oct10 October 13:24

            except – Japan wont be open to tourists then – and when it does reopen, have you seen their proposed conditions?

          • The Streets says:
            11 Oct11 October 00:01

            It works.. many thanks to BS!

          • Louise K says:
            11 Oct11 October 00:19

            @ the streets – what was your route, out of curiosity?

          • The Streets says:
            11 Oct11 October 10:35

            @Louise I booked to go South Korea for August

        • Globetrotter says:
          10 Oct10 October 16:42

          Hi thx for flagging this. I’d love to find the posts by @BS that you refer to but failing miserably. What was the summary or what time-ish were the posts? (Sorry – and thx)

        • Globetrotter says:
          10 Oct10 October 17:33

          Hi thx for flagging this. I’d love to find the posts by @BS that you refer to but failing miserably. What was the summary or what time-ish were the posts?

          (Sorry – somehow this got posted onto the wrong comment – must have hit wrong “reply” button – eyesight going 🤦)

  • Ben says:
    9 Oct9 October 22:49

    Hmm interesting thanks. Might give it a go tomorrow

    • Ben says:
      9 Oct9 October 23:35

      But we’re you able to change the dates of the flights past the expiry of the companion voucher?

      • C says:
        10 Oct10 October 08:01

        I didn’t use a companion voucher as it was starting from outside the U.K

        • C says:
          10 Oct10 October 08:02

          Oops sorry it was 35k avios per person and £27 taxes each

          • YC says:
            10 Oct10 October 08:20

            Could you do that all online? Or ring up?

          • Lady London says:
            10 Oct10 October 09:00

            no do not ring up on the @BS thing. did you review the comments around that, which alerted you to this point.

          • RC says:
            10 Oct10 October 10:00

            Is this with BA? I’ve also booked japan – London but the cost was 137000 Avios and 1150 gbp in taxes, how did you get it so cheap please?

          • C says:
            10 Oct10 October 14:00

            Yes it’s with BA. I just booked online Tokyo-LHR and it’s low fees and taxes from Japan.

    • Jonathan says:
      11 Oct11 October 16:49

      Not sure if this is dead? Just tried shifting a straightforward ex LHR booking and got all the way to payment screen (extra £27 TFC’s due) then it gave me the “unable to change this booking online, please contact your local BA office”.

      • Rob says:
        11 Oct11 October 17:18

        Both peak (or both off-peak) dates? You can’t do it if you are switching from one to the other.

        • Jonathan says:
          11 Oct11 October 18:59

          Both off-peak. I subsequently managed to change the return leg where there was no additional TFC’s but it now won’t let me do anything to the outbound.

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