British Airways adds £60 – £100+ to the taxes and charges on business class Avios redemptions

British Airways has introduced further stealth price increases in the cost of Avios redemptions as it raises the ‘taxes and fees’ element on Club World seats.

The price increase is not standard across the board. The biggest jump I have found is £113 return, with other routes ‘only’ seeing an increase of £60.

Let’s take a look.

On Friday, Michele at Turning Left for Less flagged that the charges had increased by over £100 on transatlantic routes.

I thought it was worth a closer look, and with the help of some historical pricing data from readers in the forums I’ve managed to put together a more comprehensive picture of what is happening. The bad news is that the increased pricing seems to have occurred across BA’s network, and not just on transatlantic flights.

What is not entirely clear is why this has been done.

Heathrow has increased its passenger charges sharply, with Air Passenger Duty also increasing. British Airways is not pocketing the full amount of the increase in taxes and charges. It may be, for those routes where the increase is around £60, that BA is not taking any of the extra money.

This is not the case of transatlantic routes, however, where there is no justification for £100+ increases in taxes and charges.

How have BA Avios redemption prices changed in 2022?

Here are the taxes and fees charged by British Airways for a number of key routes.

In each case I have used pricing data from across 2021 – dates vary depending on what reader data we could source – and compared it to prices that ba.com is charging now for flights in January 2023.

Bangkok

I originally booked a redemption to Bangkok in February 2021 for travel this month and paid £598 in taxes and fees per person.

Checking the BA website again you’d now be charged £657, an increase of £59:

Dubai

Dubai has increased by £63, an increase of 11% year on year. Taxes and fees are now £605, up from £542 for an example we found in 2021.

Hong Kong

Flights to Hong Kong have increased by a similarly modest amount. Taxes and charges are now £653, an increase of £62 or just over 10% year on year.

Hong Kong is an unusual case. Unless you are using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, it is cheaper to book two one-way tickets than a return due to the extremely low taxes charged on the return sector.

Johannesburg

Johannesburg pricing is the outlier here, with prices hovering around their 2021 rates. If anything, it has decreased by a couple of pounds, with taxes and fees around £647 in 2021 versus £643 now. We can possibly peg this down to currency movements.

Bizarrely, Cape Town redemptions do appear to be higher. Reader George K booked a redemption to Cape Town with £599 charges in 2021 but the route now prices at £663, a similar increase to both Dubai and Hong Kong.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles is now at £789 return. We don’t have a 2021 number for comparison, but we know that Las Vegas is also now £789 versus £672 last year.

Maldives

The Maldives have also seen a £100+ price increase, with the cash element of a redemption totalling £616 in 2021 versus £728 now. That’s an increase of £112 or 18%.

New York

We often benchmark our pricing against New York given how hugely influential the route is for British Airways. This is another big riser, with an increase of £113, or 15%. Charges were £675 in 2021 but are now £788.

It is worth remembering that we have seen cash fares on TAP Portugal as low as £900 recently, and it is not unusual for BA Holidays to sell Club World flights plus three nights in a decent hotel for as low as £1,299 in a sale.

Rio de Janeiro

Let’s take a look at South American flights, with Rio as an example. If you want to enjoy the samba it looks like you’ll be paying £75 more than you would had you booked your flights in 2021, with taxes and charges now at £648 per person versus £573 in 2021. That’s a 13% increase.

San Francisco

Here’s another North American example. Interestingly, it looks like British Airways now charges a flat rate of £788 for all flights to the United States, regardless of whether they are East or West Coast.

You would have paid £676 in late 2021 (Rob paid £661 in early 2021) so that’s another 16% increase or £112 in total.

Singapore

Similar to Hong Kong, taxes and charges to Singapore have increased by a more moderate 10% or £64 in the past year. You are now charged £671:

What about flights starting outside the UK?

Historically, one of the easiest ways to avoid the sky-high British Airways taxes and charges is to start your journey outside the UK.

This is partly because there is no Air Passenger Duty if you transit through the UK rather than starting your journey here. In addition, Inverness and Jersey – the latter technically not in the UK of course – also price cheaper because no APD is due there.

I did a dummy booking to New York, originating in Inverness and connecting in London, and the taxes and charges came to £621. This is substantially less than the £788 charged if you start your journey in London, although of course you need to factor in the cost of getting to Inverness.

What conclusions can we draw from the data?

Having looked at a range of routes from BA’s long haul network there are some clear patterns emerging:

• In all cases except one, British Airways is adding above-inflationary increases.
• The biggest change to redemption pricing has happened on flights to the United States, with rates increasing by £100+ to all the cities we checked. You can now expect to pay c.15% more in taxes and charges than you would have done last year.
• Asia is less severely impacted, with a change of ‘just’ 10% or so.

Conclusion

Are reward flights still good value? That depends on how you value your Avios. If you earn most of your Avios from business travel then you earn them at no cost to you. Of course, you still have the opportunity to cash out for 0.8p per point via Nectar so you need to be aware of the value you get.

It is different for anyone who earns the bulk of their points from credit card spend, for example. This is because you are effectively ‘buying’ the Avios by choosing to use an Avios-earning credit card rather than a cashback card.

It is, with a bit of ingenuity, still possible to find good Avios redemptions. By starting in a neighbouring country, for example, you can combine a long-haul trip with a visit to Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam or another city.

And, of course, you can still use your Avios for low-tax redemptions from Spain with Iberia.

Avios flights are flexible, of course. This has been less important during covid due to BA’s ‘Book With Confidence’ guarantee but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that pulled soon. Don’t underestimate the value of flexibility.

By increasing the taxes and charges on redemption flights BA makes redeeming your Avios on partner airlines more attractive, which tend to charge less. You can now book Avios redemptions on 25 global airlines including Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways and more. You can find out more about redeeming on partner airlines and the Avios partner reward chart here.

If you have any other good examples of price rises, please let us know in the comments.

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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.