How ba.com overcharges you on Avios redemptions from Brazil

This is the third part of our series on how British Airways is mispricing tickets.

We have already looked at how inactive Avios members are offered lower prices on redemptions and how the BA app changes flight pricing depending on what class you originally looked at.

Today I want to look to Avios redemption pricing from Brazil.

First, a quick reminder about Hong Kong

It is fairly well known that there are no surcharges on Avios tickets from Hong Kong, when the trip starts in Hong Kong. This is why, if you are booking an Avios flight to Hong Kong without a BA American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher, you should book it as 2 x one-way flights.

The taxes and charges on a Club World redemption to Hong Kong are, for a return flight, £591.

This compares to £393 for a one-way flight to Hong Kong and a nominal £33 for a one-way flight from Hong Kong. The total is £426 and you save £165 per person.

The British Airways website handles such bookings correctly.

ba.com does not handle Brazil bookings correctly

Brazil has similar rules banning charges. ba.com does NOT handle these correctly.

When you try to book a one-way redemption from Sao Paulo, you see this:

This is the correct pricing for a one-way Club World flight to London.

Click through to payment, however, and it adjusts to this:

….. and this is the price you must pay to complete your booking.

Luckily, there is a fix available

It’s possible that you don’t like the idea of paying an extra £188 to British Airways unnecessarily – and indeed legally questionable given Brazilian legislation.

(As I said in my article last week, however, when dealing with BA it is always best to follow the maxim of “never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence”.)

There is an easy way to pay just £7 – complete your booking on avios.com.

To do this, you will need to open an Aer Lingus AerClub or Vueling Club account, for free, to allow you to log in to the avios.com website. From there, you can use ‘Combine My Avios’ to pull your Avios across from British Airways Executive Club. This article explains how ‘Combine My Avios’ works.

Try to book the identical flight from Sao Paulo on avios.com and this is what you get – the expected £7 of taxes and charges:

BA / Avios can price it correctly when they want.

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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.