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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

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

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.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Comments (712)

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

  • Harry T says:
    6 Oct6 October 13:32

    Can you all please stop calling BAEC? I just want to upgrade some flights outside of this offer period 🙂

  • Optimus Prime says:
    6 Oct6 October 13:45

    Hurry up, the Americans are waking up and they earn points for just breathing…

  • Hardik says:
    6 Oct6 October 13:45

    I have an existing booking using 2-4-1 voucher, how do I cancel and book again? If I click cancel, im getting a voucher. Would voucher work and can I use voucher multiple times given there will be 50% avois left?

    • Nicole says:
      6 Oct6 October 13:51

      I’m on hold with BAEC trying to figure out the same thing. From what I can tell, if you don’t use the full value of a future travel voucher, you get issued with a new voucher for the balance. Just trying to make sure that’s the case with avios, ie you’d have a voucher for just avios rather than having them back in your account.

      • Hardik says:
        6 Oct6 October 13:54

        that is good. And how much time does it take to issue a voucher?

        • Ikaz says:
          6 Oct6 October 14:00

          I cancelled by phone and received the voucher by email in less than 10 minutes.

    • Ikaz says:
      6 Oct6 October 13:57

      I just rebooked a 2for1 booking that was originally 200k avios. Cancelled for Future travel voucher, rebooked same flights (my seats were not added to the avios pool, fortunately they had 2 extra seats on the same flights and nobody booked them before me), they are refunding ~100k avios to my account and also refunding the drop in taxes/fees since I booked

      • Nicole says:
        6 Oct6 October 14:00

        Helpful! Did you do that all over the phone or online? And just to check you didn’t have to pay any cancellation fees as you went for the future travel voucher?

        • Ikaz says:
          6 Oct6 October 14:58

          All on the phone, called once to request voucher, and 2nd time to rebook the same flights. Total time about 1 hour (of which maybe 15 minutes waiting time). I was not charged a penny, even got a refund of BA fees as they have gone down. I can still cancel the new booking for £35 per person if I don’t travel

  • Nadeshka says:
    6 Oct6 October 13:46

    Just “re”booked our Japan trip next year with this. I haven’t actually cancelled our original booking for Early March yet but booked an alternative at end of April because I’m increasingly pessimistic about their borders being open before spring.
    Very pleased, saving 75,000 avios and maybe making it a bit more likely the trip will go ahead. Plus we’ve timed it so it’s over our daughter’s second birthday so she gets a free seat on the return!

  • Ollie says:
    6 Oct6 October 13:57

    Has absolutely every reward flight been taken?
    I tried the award availability searcher to look for Athens, Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul, and Tokyo from now until September 2021, in business or economy, and absolutely no availability showed up. All departing and returning to London.
    Is this true or can the reward flight finder simply not keep up?

    • Tom says:
      6 Oct6 October 14:11

      Yeah it seems like either mass bookings or BA pulled availability for mid next year….

    • Rhys says:
      6 Oct6 October 14:18

      Let’s be honest, BA IT doesn’t have a history of resiliency….

  • Jerry says:
    6 Oct6 October 14:00

    These are the times I’m so glad I subscribe to the daily emails – and get the ‘special’ emails! Would never have seen this until too late. Just booked Japan return May 4th last valid day of extended 241 with 75,000 avios. Let’s see if it goes / we’re allowed in. We should be in Japan on honeymoon now, but 30th Sept departure was cancelled (just as well, we’re not allowed in yet anyway). Also glad took the cash and avios not a FTV so I’m not stuck with a voucher problem.

  • Anna says:
    6 Oct6 October 14:07

    Wondering whether to book Plan B flights for Easter without using a 2 4 1, then if we cancel Plan A that 2 4 1 will have expiry date Jan 2023 so still plenty of time to use it. This is effectively like being given an extra 2 4 1, except even better as the discount also applies to a 3rd traveller!

    • Polly says:
      6 Oct6 October 15:21

      Genius, go for it..we have just got KUL in J now back up, as our HKG were cancelled..don’t know whether to apply the 241 to it or not.

      Fun day for the 50,000 Plus hfpters busy booking, changing, cancelling, keeping BA call centres on their toes…

  • Vit says:
    6 Oct6 October 14:08

    Anyone made only outbound flight booking and called in to add return flight through Call Centre? I wonder if the avios rate is still 50% off or full rate.

    We are planning on outbound INV-TYO to save on surcharge and inbound BKK-ABZ using 2-4-1.

    Appreciate any advices.

    • Nadeshka says:
      6 Oct6 October 14:28

      I did a call centre return booking with 241 and infant and everything was 50% off the 241 avios amount (so 25% of full cost).
      Don’t see why just adding a return leg would be different.

      • Vit says:
        6 Oct6 October 14:30

        Thanks very much Nadeshka. Will give it a go! Struggling to get the return leg from BKK actually. TYO seems okay.

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