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What are the 2023 peak and off-peak Avios flight dates?

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What are the peak and off-peak dates for redeeming Avios points?  This article looks at the British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus peak and off-peak Avios calendars for 2023.

Remember that these calendars apply to the operating airline and not to where you book your flight.  An Iberia flight uses the Iberia calendar even if you book it via ba.com instead of iberia.com. (You shouldn’t do this, by the way, because taxes are higher if you book Iberia long-haul flights on ba.com instead of iberia.com.)

You can refer to this table at any time by clicking on the ‘Avios’ menu in the menu bar.

Avios peak and off-peak calendar

What if I am booking a partner airline such as Qatar Airways?

You need to remember that partner airlines are charged at peak rates at all times.  This applies to American Airlines, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Finnair etc.

You can see the British Airways partner chart here if you want to know how many Avios are needed for flights on oneworld airlines.

Qatar Airways operates off a totally different chart which is not made public.

Where do the Avios peak and off-peak calendars differ?

I have reproduced the calendars below.  You will note that there are substantial differences between them. Especially when travelling during school holidays on a route served by both by BA and Iberia or Aer Lingus, it may well be cheaper to book away from British Airways.

Aer Lingus is always peak over Christmas, New Year, Easter and the Summer. It is always off-peak at other dates.

British Airways is far more granular with most months seeing a mix of peak and off-peak dates.

There are different peak periods around school holidays. UK bank holidays and half terms tend not to be peak on the Iberia and Aer Lingus calendars.

Of course …. you can only benefit from this if Iberia or Aer Lingus flies to your chosen destination, and you are happy transiting via Madrid or Dublin. Aer Lingus has launched its direct flights from Manchester to New York, Orlando and Barbados (Boston was dropped) and this will provide some good opportunities to save Avios on flights to the US.

It IS now possible to use a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher if you fly with Iberia or Aer Lingus.

The 2023 British Airways peak and off-peak Avios calendar

For 2023:

Click here to subscribe to the calendar on your device.

You can see the British Airways Avios redemption pricing chart here although this doesn’t reflect the recent changes to long haul pricing which give you an option of ‘more Avios, less cash’.

The 2023 Iberia peak and off-peak Avios calendar

For 2023:

Iberia peak offpeak avios redemption calendar 2023

Click here to subscribe to the calendar on your device.

You can see the Iberia reward flight pricing chart here.

The article looks at where you can fly long-haul on Iberia.

The 2023 Aer Lingus peak and off-peak Avios calendar

For 2023:

and for 2024:

Click here to subscribe to the calendars on your device.

You can see the Aer Lingus reward flight pricing chart here.

The article looks at where you can fly long-haul on Aer Lingus.

One caveat …. these tables were put together at different times as the data became available. There is a chance that there have been some changes since.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.5 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories and click here to join the mailing list for our weekly or daily email newsletters.)

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.

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.

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.

Category

Aer Lingus and AerClub, British Airways and Avios, Iberia and Iberia Plus

Comments (34)

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

  • BJ says:
    13 Jan13 January 06:15

    Thanks Rhys, I’m not sure how you compile the data to create these but I always find them very useful. Presumably you will be able to update with 2024 for BA and IB in a few months? IIRC you’ve previously managed to do calendars for following years as early as the spring.

  • lumma says:
    13 Jan13 January 06:43

    Is there any difference with the taxes on Iberia rather than BA.com these days?

    Business taxes and fees Madrid to Mexico City is £268 on British Airways and €302 on Iberia when I checked

    • Rob says:
      13 Jan13 January 08:16

      No, don’t think so. Not sure if availability is better.

      • lumma says:
        13 Jan13 January 09:35

        The routes I’ve looked at for using my 241 (Latin America) all have tons of availability on Iberia from Madrid. Not sure if it’s giving extra availability like the BA routes.

      • Alex says:
        13 Jan13 January 16:20

        It’s just the article says this: “(You shouldn’t do this, by the way, because taxes are higher if you book Iberia long-haul flights on ba.com instead of iberia.com.)”. I assume it’s been passed down through the years as the article’s intro.

        You may want to amend, as I believe we all agree this is no longer the case 🙂

  • vol says:
    13 Jan13 January 06:54

    Thanks for useful calendars

    Just wondering if there was any way to remove the 2022 dates from the download?

    • Rhys says:
      13 Jan13 January 09:19

      Not easily, I dont think.

      I actually wanted to make it a subscribable calendar but that doesn’t seem to have happened!

  • BJ says:
    13 Jan13 January 10:56

    Excellent. Looking at these calendars on HFP over recent years has shown how IAG has evolved to increasingly configure them in their own favour.

  • Richard says:
    13 Jan13 January 11:21

    Slightly O/T – following on from the article posted on 8 January on ” How to FULLY pay for Aer Lingus flights – no cash required” – has anyone tried to book one way or return to the US on the Aer Lingus website using this method? When i tried , it was only giving me money off a business class fare with no option to fully pay using Avios.
    After speaking to an agent (Patrick) -he said you have to email AerClub with your request to do this .I emailed twice this week – still waiting for a reply…..
    Anybody else had this problem? Any help/suggestions most welcome 🙂

    • Rob says:
      13 Jan13 January 11:34

      If you have enough Avios in your AerClub account then you’ll get the option to pay in full. It only shows options that you can afford based on your balance.

    • Blair Waldorf Salad says:
      13 Jan13 January 14:07

      The AerClub emailing system is a joke. Antiquated beyond belief. They run a dedicated phone line for AerClub concierge and platinums which circumvents some of the email silliness.

    • Richard says:
      13 Jan13 January 14:48

      Banging my head against the proverbial… – Transferred 100k to AerClub and did a one way dummy booking to Seattle – was only giving me around 500 Euros off the fare. Avios live chat didn’t want to know, Aer Lingus agents not helpful either. One said you have have to email aerclubassist@aerlingus.com for the only way to do this. Emailed twice this week , still waiting for a reply.

      • Rob says:
        13 Jan13 January 14:54

        Isn’t €500 what you’d expect to get for 100,000 Avios? How much did you expect to see?

        Our article the other week said it was around 0.5p per point.

      • Richard says:
        13 Jan13 January 15:44

        Well…. i was looking at the article headline where it said ‘no cash required’ and then the second 2 sentences under that headline ending with ‘ free really means free’.

        • Richard says:
          13 Jan13 January 15:47

          Ah , ok – am i right in saying it’ll cost around 600,000 Avios for o/w business to West Coast?

          • Rob says:
            13 Jan13 January 17:32

            If cash is £3000, yes. But only a crazy person books a one way for cash on a legacy airline because it prices at fully flex. A return is probably £2k.

            Avios always comes up trumps when you want a one way, vs cash.

  • Simon says:
    13 Jan13 January 13:55

    In this you say that Amex 2-4-1vouchers (or 50% discount if travelling solo) can now be used on Iberia and Air Lingus.

    Does anyone know if this is also the case for the Barclays vouchers?

    • Rhys says:
      13 Jan13 January 14:18

      No

    • Rob says:
      13 Jan13 January 14:20

      No, but the Barclays vouchers are ALREADY set up for solo travellers, because you can upgrade 2 x one way flights (ie a return) for one person or 1 x one way flight for a couple.

      • Simon says:
        13 Jan13 January 18:37

        Yes – I use all vouchers as a solo traveller but the addition of Iberia and Air Lingus to the Amex version is very useful.

        Hopefully this will also happen for the Barclays version too

  • Patrick says:
    13 Jan13 January 13:58

    I thought BA and Qatar rewards were the same price nowadays (for Qatar metal flights), whether booked via BA or Qatar. So if Qatar had off peak, BA price would reflect that? Or do Qatar simply not have off peak pricing – just sometimes a flight wants double Avios based on demand?

    • Rob says:
      13 Jan13 January 14:20

      Ignoring Qatar, all partners are priced at the same rate all year.

      Qatar has its own weird pricing which BA copies so, yes, they should match across both sites.

  • SarahO says:
    13 Jan13 January 15:22

    Is there somewhere I can identify the different business class offerings with Iberia and which routes to find them on?

    • lumma says:
      13 Jan13 January 17:35

      Someone might correct me, but I believe all the Iberia long haul business class cabins are pretty much the same these days, all forward facing staggered seats. They don’t have the angle flat seats any more and their new seats with a door haven’t gone long haul yet. Although this is similar to the other seats but with a door.

      I like Iberia, the non sparkling wines are great but the food is pretty poor. Seats are all you need in business.

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