British Airways launches a new 40%-50% ‘buy Avios’ bonus – worth it?

British Airways has launched another ‘buy Avios’ bonus promotion. This is being marketed as a ‘mystery’ bonus, so everyone does not get the same. This makes it a little tricky to write about but we will try.

To reveal your mystery bonus you need to log in here.

Depending on what popped up, you will receive 40% to 50% bonus when you buy Avios before 30th November.

Whilst this isn’t as good as the 75% offer we saw a few months ago, I would be very surprised if we saw another deal as good as that one. BA had never done anything as aggressive in the past.

50% is as good as you can reasonably expect. If you are offered 40% or 45% then you might benefit from waiting until next time unless you are planning to book soon.

There is no minimum purchase.  The bonus kicks in with the smallest 1,000 Avios transaction.  You need to visit ba.com via this page in order to buy.

British Airways has increased the number of Avios you can buy under this deal – the cap is now 200,000 points per year!  This means that, with the bonus, you will receive 300,000 Avios for a whopping £3,215.

This is not necessarily a great idea as the best value is generally obtained by buying a small number of Avios to top off your account.  If you saw me on BBC1’s Rip Off Britain (you can watch the segment here, it is only 3 minutes long) you will know that one of the members of the public I tried to help had bought 100,000 Avios for £1,600 without fully understand the restrictions behind them.

What does it cost?

In general, you will pay as little as 1.07p per Avios under this offer if you are offered 50%.  Based on my spreadsheet of the last 8.2 million Avios I redeemed, I got 1.13p of value.  This is using very conservative valuations for the flights booked, eg I value a Business Class flight to Dubai at £1,500 because even if BA isn’t charging that there is usually a deal with a secondary airline.

I am not a buyer at 1.07p.  However, as my core article on ‘What is an Avios worth?’ shows, it is easy to get a lot more than 1.07p.  My valuation is low because I do a lot of Gold Priority Rewards (using double Avios to force open a seat, mainly due to school holiday restrictions) and don’t always have a BA Amex 2-4-1 voucher to use.  I also tend to use Avios irrespective of the value, because I am sitting on a lot of them.  If you are strategic you should do far better than me.

If you are offered a 40% bonus then you are paying as little as 1.15p. This is less of a deal although, of course, it may still work for you. For small amounts up to 12,500 Avios, it would be cheaper to buy Avios for 1.2p by buying a subscription to The Spectator (click) – you pay almost the same but get 52 magazines on top.

If you are a new reader and want to learn more about how to spend your Avios most efficiently, read our beginner’s guide to redeeming Avios points here. You can learn how to save Avios with the British Airways companion voucher in this article.

The link to buy is here. Check out the size of your bonus and then decide if it is worth jumping in.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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:

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

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.

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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

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.

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