Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Huge number of Business Class Avios seats to Montreal and Toronto bookable

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

For reasons I’m not quite sure about – potentially due to extra flights being loaded into the British Airways system – huge amounts of Avios availability is currently showing for flights to Canada.

This doesn’t apply to Vancouver, but the floodgates are open for Montreal and Toronto.

Take a look at the screenshots below. These are taken from SeatSpy which is our preferred tool for tracking award availability and receiving notifications of seat releases.

Avios redemptions to Montreal

Here is Montreal for two people travelling in Business Class. The availability is from November, which is when the Winter flying season starts.

As you can see, there is even a lot available for travel over Christmas and New Year:

Here is Toronto. This is tighter over Christmas and New Year, but apart from that ….

Avios availability to Toronto

There is nothing available in First Class on either route.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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:

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

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

25,000 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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a 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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

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.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

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

40,000 points sign-up bonus 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.

Comments (15)

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

  • Nick says:

    There’s nothing available in first class on either route because it’s not offered on those flights in the first place. You have to go via NYC, BOS or ORD to get F to eastern Canada now.

  • Phil says:

    Nothing to do with potential travellers such as myself thinking that with random testing on arrival with the prospect of being shoved into quarantine as well as having to wear a mask at the airports and whilst on the inbound is somewhat of an unsavoury prospect

    At Toronto when we boarded the plane a few weeks ago
    ( we had flown to Chicago and crossed at Niagara and thought that because of being in canada 2 days the risk of quarantine was worth it,and tested before we entered to have the contingency of entering Canada and going straight to Toronto same day as you have 24 hours to do a test)
    Everyone had masks on and did not take them off initially
    A splendid British Airways posh sounding captain made an amusing anouncement
    “Ladies and gentlemen the doors are now closed. This means that we are under british jurisdiction and therefore you do not need to wear masks”
    The Cabin manager wore his for another couple of hours but then discarded it as he probably did not want to be the only masked person

    • Nigel says:

      I think you’ll find Canada’s random testing on arrival stopped last month…

    • K23 says:

      Really amusing story about masks. You seem like a fun person.

  • David S says:

    We just cancelled our Avois flight to Vancouver a week or so ago. Simply unaffordable at present to both stay somewhere nice and tour around

    • AspirationalFlyer says:

      I know what you mean!
      I’m booked for August and even fairly basic hotels are £300 per night. Perhaps this confirms exactly why points are useful.

      • Rob says:

        I’d just be buying a few Hyatt points and redeeming, given that Hyatt still has capped redemption prices and ‘last room availability’ for rewards.

  • Harry T says:

    Completely flabbergasted by how much better value it is to use a 241 on this route exDUB rather than exNCL. Does anyone know what happens to the taxes and charges if you depart from DUB but return to NCL?

    • AJA says:

      I think it would still be cheaper as APD is only charged on departures from the UK and not on arrivals. And I guess Dublin doesn’t have quite the same other surcharges

    • iEimis says:

      Can 2-4-1 be used for flights not originating in UK? Or is it only for the ‘new style’ vouchers issued from Sept 2021 onwards?

    • ChrisC says:

      I thought start and end points had to be the same though?

      You could do a couple of dummy bookings to find out!

    • drdan says:

      I have done DUB-LHR-SIN-SYD in business for circa £300 pp out and SYD-SIN-LHR only return for about the same adding it a couple of weeks later to a new 2-4-1.

  • Aliks says:

    We are heading for Montreal next Wednesday, and spending a couple of weeks going up and down the cities on the St Lawrence river.

    Hotels are indeed expensive, but we booked well ahead of time and seem to have decent deals. Or maybe the pound has recovered a bit.

    We are hiring a car to drive around the Charlesvoix region between Quebec City and the Saguenay river – anyone have a recommendation on best restaurants in that area?

  • sohan says:

    Thanks for this, got a week at half term in business both ways. Appreciate the tip as had been having difficulty finding 4 seats to anywhere!

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.