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First Class Avios redemptions are now cheaper than mixed First / Club flights!

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One of the oddities about the Avios changes last week, which opened up Reward Flight Saver to Club World and World Traveller Plus, is that First Class redemptions were excluded.

There is no real logic behind this, and it has led to some strange outcomes.

It is now cheaper to book a First / First redemption than a First / Club or Club / First redemption!

First Class Avios redemptions are now cheaper than mixed First / Club flights!

To learn more about using Avios points for BA First Class tickets, read our full guide here.

Here is an example on the New York route.

First Class in both directions:

As there is no RFS, you pay 160,000 Avios + £853 return in taxes and charges. You have options to use fewer Avios and more cash but these are unattractive.

First Class outbound, Club World inbound:

Take a look at what happens if you return in Club World instead of First:

You now require 170,000 Avios + £853. You require an extra 10,000 Avios for swapping your First Class seat for Club Suite!

It is worth noting that it doesn’t matter which leg is in First Class. Whether you do First out and Club back, or Club out and First back, you still see 170,000 Avios + £853.

I won’t try to explain exactly why this happens, but it is based on the pricing option that BA uses for the Club Suite leg.

For comparison, a Club / Club flight would cost 180,000 Avios + £350 under the new Reward Flight Saver structure, or 120,000 Avios + £850 if you choose the nearest alternative option.

First is now better value than it was

Let’s forget about mixing and matching First and Club for now, which we’ve decided you shouldn’t do if First / First is an option because the latter is cheaper.

Looking at New York, if you do First / First then you pay 160,000 Avios + £852 on the dates I chose.

If you do Business / Business, you can pay 120,000 Avios + £850 or 180,000 Avios + £350.

Arguably, First Class redemptions are now better value than they were. Comparing First / First to Business / Business for my example dates to New York:

  • flying First Class both ways only requires 40,000 more Avios in total (20,000 each way) if you choose the £850 taxes and charges option, or
  • flying First Class both ways only requires £498 of additional cash – and 20,000 FEWER Avios – than choosing the new headline Reward Flight Saver price for Club Suite

It’s all very odd and could easily have been avoided if RFS had been extended to First Class. This has also led to issues with GUF (Gold Upgrade Voucher) redemptions as I will cover later in the week.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (110)

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

  • luca says:
    13 Dec13 December 10:58

    The whole redemption system has become one massive f***** mess. Different UX when it feels like it, inconsistent pricing across regions. Years of under-investment in this area.

    • babyg says:
      13 Dec13 December 11:24

      the problem with the mess is nothing has improved.. so you just looking at ways of replicating November pricing really…

  • Doolaree Erkadoo says:
    13 Dec13 December 11:15

    Please help me to use my eVoucher to book for Cyprus, Larnaca Airport

    • Rob says:
      13 Dec13 December 11:52

      Evouchers can now be used online, no need to call. Just search for flights on ba.com and, during the payment process, add the e-voucher number to the box marked ‘Voucher’.

    • Jonathan says:
      13 Dec13 December 12:32

      You can’t use an eVoucher in conjunction with an Avios booking of any kind, so you can’t use them on a award booking, and you can’t apply an eVoucher then use Part Pay with Avios, if you already select Part Pay with Avios then select the amount one of the options to lower the cash fare, this will disable the ability to use an eVoucher

  • SharonC says:
    13 Dec13 December 11:30

    No idea what routes people are seeing all this First class availability on. Been looking for some seats for ages to use up my last “old style” voucher and can’t find anything!

    • Anna says:
      13 Dec13 December 12:07

      Where/when are you looking?

      • SharonC says:
        14 Dec14 December 22:29

        I use SeatSpy and RFF. I’m not interested in the US as I go there on business so am looking at other destinations such as south of the UK or East. Looks like BA are just letting those go to other airlines, but even the, there’s also never any F available on Qatar either, even though they’re flying the A380 again

    • Robert says:
      13 Dec13 December 12:28

      Agree, I’m struggling to find any F availability anywhere too

      • Rich says:
        13 Dec13 December 18:03

        Check out SEA and YVR for March and April – there are loads of F reward seats available.

    • Jonathan says:
      13 Dec13 December 12:40

      When you do a regular search for award availability via BA.com after inputting your desired route and date(s) it’ll never show F availability, like those options don’t exist, okay F (/A) availability is limited to certain routes only…

      • NorthernLass says:
        13 Dec13 December 13:24

        Have you checked on SeatSpy or RFF?
        F to NYC, for example, is showing available in every month until next October. It’s quite hard to be helpful though, without some idea of where/when people want to travel!
        Be aware as well that ba.com will only show 3 classes of cabin per search, so if you want to see F availability you need to select WTP as your minimum requirement.

        • Robert says:
          13 Dec13 December 14:20

          I used to use seatspy and RFF before they became a subscription only service, as I don’t feel I need it enough to pay for it. My travel is for March/April 2023 to use up an old 2-4-1 voucher that’ll expire in April 2023. Would take NYC if it’s F out of JFK, but from comments here I’ll expand my search to Washington, Boston and LAX, as they all make for good 5 day mini hols.

  • Alan T says:
    13 Dec13 December 11:51

    I have a number of CW long haul 2-4-1 redemptions both with old and new vouchers next year, that I was thinking of upgrading the outbound on if F became available?

    But equally, I can make a cash saving by if I rebook the CW to the new pricing, both with old and new vouchers as I have the Avios.

    But do I need to have current reward seat availability showing, or can they just change the booking and I retain my seats?

    • Rob says:
      13 Dec13 December 15:04

      Would need availability – big risk if you cancel and hope the seats go back into an Avios bucket.

      • Alan T says:
        13 Dec13 December 19:36

        Cheers Rob.

        Yeah, too risky. I was content enough when I booked them and the dates are fixed so I’ll just sit and see what happens re. F or additional CW availability as we get nearer.

  • smblcklck says:
    13 Dec13 December 12:12

    @Rob seems like it gets even weirder for old style 241 holders. I was looking at:

    CW both ways: 160000 Avios + £ 700.00
    F / CW split: 148000 Avios + £ 1,693.80
    F / F: 136000 Avios + £ 1,693.80

    I can’t quite get my head around the £1000 tax hike this example but not in yours above.

    • NorthernLass says:
      13 Dec13 December 13:27

      I got this when I did a random search for F out, CW back to BOS.
      Now the RFS pricing is in place, I assume that you could book outbound and inbound separately and not be charged more, as was previously the case from the US.

      • smblcklck says:
        13 Dec13 December 15:13

        Interesting idea, by my maths as two one-ways it comes to:

        First out: 136000 Avios + £ 1,093.82
        CW return: 160000 Avios + £ 350

        Assuming you could get a 241 to apply to this (I’m not sure how to go about that) it comes to 148k + £1443.82 so a £250 quid saving on the return ticket?

        And F attempt to have a return with single tickets makes it considerably less affordable (which, I think, is as expected with RFS)

  • NorthernLass says:
    13 Dec13 December 13:29

    Also worth noting that the quirk that appeared when long haul economy RFS was introduced, still applies to domestic connections, Namely, if you use the “stopover” facility, you can pick a CE connection absolutely free, even if your long haul sector is in WT or WTP. Not a huge deal, but it does mean you’d get lounge access before both domestic legs if you don’t have it via status.

  • Hilda M says:
    13 Dec13 December 13:33

    As someone belonging to the Stuffed#1 class (based in Spain), a data point for use of Gold Upgrade voucher …. Had to phone in to GGL line as kept defaulting to GUF2 rather than GUF1 that I wanted to use. Expertflyer showing A3 but no F on website. As I was booking the daytime JFK LHR flight was happy with CW rather than use a GGL Space Release, 80k Avios & at least 175 euros, with GUF1 for F. So paid 42,500 & 175 euros plus voucher to sit in a Club Suite. Took an age to sort out as 80k automatically deducted and agent had to refund that and then deduct 42,500. Didn’t realize you have to pay the taxes of the class you upgrade to. The GUF1 was issued in February 2019, so good result overall 🙂

  • Felix Lo says:
    13 Dec13 December 19:04

    Another anomaly is HKG pricing since HKG historically did not allow fuel surcharges. Reward saver pricing really screws around with this.

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

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