Is ‘Part Pay With Avios’ for British Airways flights worth it in the Nectar era?

Is it still worth using ‘Part Pay With Avios’ when booking British Airways flights, now that Nectar is an option?

‘Part Pay With Avios’ has, apparently, been very successful since it was launched.  It allows you to redeem your points for a discount against a cash ticket, although at the moment you are not allowed to pay the entire price with points. This will change soon ….

British Airways Holidays also embraced ‘Part Pay With Avios’ last year – click to read more.

EDIT: The Avios to Nectar rate was changed in March 2024 and 1 Avios is now only worth 0.5p of Nectar points. This changes a lot of the analysis in this article.

The Avios / Nectar partnership moved the goalposts

In early 2021 Avios and Nectar launched their partnership. The ba.com page to transfer your points to or from Nectar is at this link.

You can transfer Avios into Nectar points at the rate of 300 to 400. As a Nectar point is worth 0.5p when you spend them in Sainsbury’s, Argos, eBay.co.uk etc, it means your Avios now have a floor value of 0.66p (0.5p x 400 / 300).

You can spend all your Avios in Sainsbury’s or Argos by turning them into Nectar points, and get a fixed 0.66p per Avios. This means that you should not be redeeming Avios anywhere else when you get under 0.66p of value.

Unfortunately, redeeming for ‘Part Pay With Avios’ will mean that you will often get less than 0.66p per Avios.

Let’s look at ‘Part Pay With Avios’ for BA flights

Just for clarity, before we get started, remember that ‘Part Pay With Avios’ is NOT the same as ‘Pay with Avios and Money’:

• ‘Part Pay With Avios’ lets you reduce the cash component of a standard cash flight ticket by redeeming some Avios

• ‘Pay with Avios and Money’ lets you reduce the Avios component of an Avios redemption ticket by paying some cash instead

We last looked at ‘Avios and Money’ redemptions in this article.

How to use ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on British Airways

You can find full details of ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on the British Airways site here.

As well as using ‘Part Pay With Avios’ for British Airways flights, it can also be used at ba.com to discount American Airlines flights between the UK and North America.

It can also be used on the majority of British Airways codeshare flights.

Using ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on short haul:

On short haul European flights, you currently receive between 0.44p and 1p per point.  The value gets worse the more points you redeem. 

Here is a typical example for an Economy flight to Hamburg, although the exact numbers may vary by route:

• £6 off for 600 Avios (1p per Avios)
• £10 off for 1,000 Avios (1p per Avios)
• £18 off for 1,980 Avios (0.91 per Avios)
• £26 off for 3,250 Avios (0.80p per Avios)
• £42 off for 6,600 Avios (0.64p per Avios) – slightly worse than Nectar
• £78 off for 16,500 Avios (0.47p per Avios) – much worse than Nectar
• £110 off for 24,600 Avios (0.44p per Avios) – much worse than Nectar

You will NOT be allowed to pay for your entire flight with Avios, although this is due to change during 2024.  In my example above, I was only offered a maximum of a £110 discount on a £230 fare.

Remember that you get 0.66p per Avios by redeeming them via Nectar in Sainsbury’s, in Argos or on eBay.

On this basis, you would be crazy to redeem 16,500 or 24,600 Avios against this booking. You are getting far less than 0.66p for your Avios.

Using ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on long haul:

Here is an example for a £895 long haul Economy flight on British Airways, showing how you could lose out on £183:

• £20 off for 2,000 Avios (1p per Avios)
• £50 off for 7,650 Avios (0.65p per Avios) – worse than Nectar
• £90 off for 17,500 Avios (0.51p per Avios) – much worse than Nectar
• £140 off for 31,000 Avios (0.45p per Avios) – much worse than Nectar
• £190 off for 43,800 Avios (0.43p per Avios) – much worse than Nectar
• £240 off for 55,500 Avios (0.43p per Avios) – much worse than Nectar
• £330 off for 77,000 Avios (0.43p per Avios) – much worse than Nectar

1p per Avios is decent and I would always seriously consider making a 2,000 Avios redemption to reduce the cost of my ticket by £20 if the option was available. 

Below this level, however, there is no point using ‘Part Pay With Avios’. You are getting less – often far less – than the 0.66p per Avios that you get by redeeming via Nectar.

In the last example above, you are £183 worse off by using your Avios for a flight discount. The same 77,000 Avios would convert to Nectar points worth £513.

Is ‘Part Pay With Avios’ ever worthwhile?

Unfortunately the answer is ‘not really’, apart from potentially using 1,000 Avios to save £10 or 2,000 Avios to save £20.

This is not a new discovery. It has nothing to do with the Nectar partnership.

I target a 1p return when I spend my Avios, so almost all of the ‘Part Pay With Avios’ options were bad value in my book.

The only thing that has changed with Nectar is that it has crystalised my opinion as fact.

You no longer need to take it on trust from us that getting 0.43p per Avios – as you get in some examples above – is a bad deal. You can get 0.66p per Avios via Nectar as a guaranteed return so don’t waste your points accepting less.

You can’t even use the excuse any longer that ‘I get all of my Avios points from business travel so I don’t mind what I get for them’. Even if all your Avios are ‘free’ from business travel, it makes no sense to redeem them for less than the 0.66p per point that Nectar offers.

PS. You can also look at this the other way around

Let’s flip the question. Is it worth converting Nectar points to Avios to part-pay for British Airways flights?

1 Nectar point is worth 0.5p when used in Sainsburys or (based on 400 Nectar points = 250 Avios) can be converted into 0.625 Avios.

[Pulls out calculator ….]

Unless you get more than 0.8p per Avios, you should NOT be converting your Nectar points – and as you can see above, ‘Part Pay With Avios’ will NOT get you 0.8p except when using small quantities.

This means that it is NOT worth converting Nectar points into Avios to use them for ‘Part Pay with Avios’, unless it is for a token 1,000 Avios for £10 off (short haul) or 2,000 Avios for £20 off (long haul).

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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.