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British Airways increases Avios Subscription prices – act now for cheaper rates

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Last October, Avios introduced an interesting new product in the form of Avios subscriptions.

By signing up to Avios Subscription, you can receive regular increments of Avios into your Executive Club account on a monthly basis. Rolling monthly packages are available, as are (cheaper) annual pre-paid plans.

The value proposition was very strong – as low as 0.89p when you signed up to an annual commitment.

Avios Subscription

To put this in context, we never saw Avios sold for as little as this even during pandemic-era promotions.

The pricing is now increasing, with Avios warning customers that subscription prices are changing on 1st May.

The cost of one-off non-subscription Avios purchases are also changing.

How does Avios Subscription work?

There are four different plans to pick from, giving you a range of Avios earning opportunities.

You can select from a monthly payment or an annual payment. However, even if you select the annual, up-front payment, your Avios boost will still be posted to your account monthly. You have a choice of four annual plans:

Avios Subscription
  • Voyager: 20,000 Avios (1,667 Avios per month)
  • Traveller: 50,000 Avios (4,167 Avios per month)
  • Explorer: 100,000 Avios (8,334 Avios per month)
  • Adventurer: 200,000 Avios (16,667 Avios per month)

No, the naming doesn’t make much sense to me either, given that ‘Voyager’ sounds more intense than ‘Traveller’!

The rolling monthly subscriptions are available in the same increments, but you are charged a higher monthly fee. The annual plans are discounted to the extent that you effectively get two months free.

You can buy a maximum of 200,000 Avios with Avios Subscription.

How are prices changing from 1st May?

Until now, the Avios subscription offering has been very good value. It allowed you to buy Avios at a rate of 0.89p per point via the annual Adventurer offer – better than the 0.92p per point rate offered during the hugely popular 75% bonus promotion back in 2020.

Unfortunately all good things come to an end. Whilst the offer isn’t completely dead, it is now more marginal and you are taking a bigger gamble by tying your cash up in points.

In the worst case, prices are increasing by 40%. At best, you are looking at an 11% increase.

From 1 MayOld pricing% IncreasePrice per Avios
Voyager Monthly£26£1937%1.56p
Traveller Monthly£55£4522%1.32p
Explorer Monthly£105£8918%1.25p
Adventurer Monthly£199£17911%1.19p
Voyager Yearly£259£18540%1.29p
Traveller Yearly£549£45521%1.10p
Explorer Yearly£1,049£89917%1.05p
Adventurer Yearly£1,989£1,78911%0.99p

Prices for the smaller subscriptions are increasing disproportionately, whilst the Adventurer packages are increasing by ‘just’ 11%.

Your fall back position has also got worse

When Avios Subscription launched, you would still get 0.8p per Avios if you converted them to Nectar points.

This gave you a valuable backstop. If you committed to Avios Subscription at 0.89p, your worse case scenario was cashing out to Nectar at 0.8p. Your downside was limited and your upside was decent.

Since the Nectar devaluation, 1 Avios is now only worth 0.66p of Nectar points. The Avios Subscription dynamic is now a lot of different. If you decide to walk away from Avios your ‘cashing out’ route via Nectar will now see you taking a sharp loss on the 0.99p subscription price, whilst your upside is reduced by the increased cost per point.

Standard ‘buy Avios’ prices are also increasing

It’s not just subscription costs that are being increased.

One-off ‘Buy Avios’ purchases will also change on 1st May with an average increase of 10%:

From 1 MayOld pricing% IncreasePrice per Avios
2,000 Avios£49£474%2.45p
10,000 Avios£195£17511%1.95p
50,000 Avios£899£81510%1.80p
100,000 Avios£1,779£1,61510%1.78p
200,000 Avios£3,539£3,21510%1.76p

Buying Avios outside of bonus promotions has rarely (if ever) offered good value, so you need to take the above values with a pinch of salt.

Broadly speaking, subscription prices are increasing and now more closely match the cost of one-off purchases reducing the value of subscribing to an annual plan.

There is still value to be had, however. At the top end, you are paying £1,989 for 200,000 Avios under an annual Adventurer subscription vs £3,539 for a one-off purchase. You are looking at 0.99p versus 1.76p.

It’s good news if you’re heading to court though ….

Many of our readers have taken British Airways to CEDR arbitration or Money Claim Online over Avios related issues. This usually involves failure to pay out downgrade compensation on Avios bookings.

Because neither CEDR or Money Claim Online can award anything except cash, you are always awarded the cash equivalent of the Avios you are claiming.

This used to be based on 1.6p (BA’s headine sale price) but from 1st May you will be able to ask for 1.76p per Avios.

Avios subscription prices increasing

What is an Avios worth?

Ah, the eternal Head for Points question. For a detailed description of what an Avios is worth, you can read Rob’s breakdown here.

As a quick summary, Rob keeps a spreadsheet of all the Avios he has redeemed for the last nine years, and he has got 1.2p of value per Avios based on his valuation of the flights he took. Rob’s valuation is arguably low as he bases it on how cheaply he thinks he could have got the same trip if he’d booked in a sale or taken an indirect flight on a different airline, and adds in no value for the flexibility offered by Avios tickets.

If you can buy Avios at a rate of 0.99p, you should still be getting value overall, and Rob’s valuations are always on the conservative side. If you are strategic in your redemptions you should come out on top if you buy Avios at 0.99p.

Those pesky terms and conditions

If you commit to an annual payment plan, you commit to the whole year – you cannot cancel your subscription during the year and get a pro-rated refund

If you sign up to the monthly payment plan, you are committed to at least three months.

After a year, the subscription will auto-renew so you will need to proactively cancel the subscription if you don’t want to continue.

You can buy a maximum of 200,000 Avios in any one calendar year via Avios Subscription. This is in addition to the 200,000 Avios allowance through ‘Buy Avios’.

Full terms and conditions can be found here.

In conclusion ….

The new Avios Subscription plans are no longer the slam dunk they used to be, but you may still find some value in them as a regular way of topping up your balance.

The good news is that you still have a few days to lock in subscriptions at the old pricing. If you subscribe before 1st May, your subscription will stay the same price until the end of your subscription period, letting you lock in for up to a year.

You can sign up to Avios Subscription or find out more here.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

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Capital on Tap Pro Visa

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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

British Airways and Avios

Comments (97)

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

  • Jon says:
    26 Apr26 April 07:20

    I’m quite tempted to do an £899 Explorer Yearly before the price goes up. I take it the Avios are still credited monthly, so I’d have to wait 12 months until I have the full 100,000, but my thinking is that sorts me out for a one-way business class later next year from here in KUL back to London on, say QR (currently showing as 75,000 Avios + £181, or around £2,000 equivalent cash fare also less flexible), or I can get a couple of business class returns KUL-HKG on CX (currently 50,000 Avios + £117 or around £1500 cash, each), or a much higher number of shorthaul economy flights around the region.

    Obviously availability is always a risk, as is an Avios devaluation. But on the other hand, £s in the bank are currently devaluing at what, about 10% a year or so until inflation comes back down…

    Strikes me as probably a good deal. Have I missed anything or got anything wrong? On the above rationale I probably ought to go for the top-end Adventurer Yearly, but not sure I can spare the cash or be willing to risk quite that much…

    • Can says:
      26 Apr26 April 07:24

      I rarely understand why buying Avios to get a 50% saving is often frowned upon here. I didn’t check your Avios rates. But it is a good plan to me.

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
        26 Apr26 April 09:38

        @can What’s generally frowned upon is buying them on a speculative basis with no proper idea about their worth and if you’ll get the value back when you so redeem them.

        I use mine mostly to get £30 off short haul flights for 3k avios so a penny a point and more recently on BA holidays but I get my calculator out first before confirming, my lower limit is the .8p per avios.

    • collarbone666 says:
      26 Apr26 April 07:43

      I’ve recently booked a J return to Brisbane for 180,000 Avios,(booked through BA but flying Qatar), cost of these works out at £1610 based on the yearly plan.The taxes came to £630, total £2240. The current cash cost of the same flight is £7720! I’d say that’s quite a good deal with plenty of scope for devaluations and tax increases.

      • Jon says:
        26 Apr26 April 07:45

        That’s even better than the examples I was looking at! 😉

        • babyg says:
          26 Apr26 April 09:30

          whilst i agree QR to down under are the best Avios redemption around, not sure i used £7.7k as the price for a J flight to Aus/NZ… £4-5k is more normal and there are deals to be had for much lower… Also QR is getting tricky to book on Avios to Aus these days… but yeah i agree this is one of the better uses of avios

  • Vit says:
    26 Apr26 April 08:58

    Rhys / Rob / et al. Any personal insight into this? Feeling like it is one of those marketing strategy where if people don’t buy into it, increase its price.

    I have never thought of this until a few read around the forum and with the fact we will run out of way to increase large junk of avios now. We have upcoming trip to the Far East later this year, South America early next year and about ~300k avios left.

    I am tempted to sign up on the 200k avios. That should allows us (with little one turning 2 summer next year, 150k avios x 3) to get round-trip to BKK via QR, of course, assuming no devaluation. Just want to hear other people thoughts.

    • Rhys says:
      26 Apr26 April 09:01

      If you have specific redemptions in mind then I think it makes sense.

    • Rob says:
      26 Apr26 April 09:31

      There are a number of things recently which give the impression that Avios is under pressure to get its profit margins up.

      • Josh O says:
        26 Apr26 April 09:47

        Are you thinking/suggesting a potential avios devaluation is on its way, or that this is the reason for the increased subscription price? Or maybe something entirely different?!

        • Qrfan says:
          26 Apr26 April 11:29

          Did you miss the devaluation where the cost of redeeming went up by hundreds of pounds? If you’re buying your avios then that is literally the same thing as the avios cost going up.

        • baec_newbie says:
          26 Apr26 April 14:35

          An 11% increase after 1.5 years, when inflation has been around 10% per year, doesn’t seem extortionate.

          • Rob says:
            26 Apr26 April 15:13

            IHG reduced the cost of their points a couple of years ago, basically admitting that the value wasn’t there any longer. It’s bizarre how Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt have never put increases through in all these years.

        • Jack says:
          26 Apr26 April 23:06

          this scheme was never really that good for anyone other than BA/IAG Loyalty and these changes just reinforce that view. I do not think any devaluation will be coming any time soon as buying Avios has always not been a good option unless you really need them. The cost of some RFS has gone up as such in time so i guess you could call that a devaluing

  • Mikeact says:
    26 Apr26 April 09:04

    Curve ?

    • Alex G says:
      26 Apr26 April 11:24

      Note the T&Cs.

      15. The transaction currency will be pre-determined based on the registered country of the British Airways Executive Club account.

  • Dave likes Planes says:
    26 Apr26 April 09:21

    Paying for avios has always been a bit of a red line for me.
    I appreciate it is a simplistic* view but the appeal for me in collecting avios is that it gives me something (the opportunity to travel in business) for nothing. I won’t spend extra or choose products on the basis of earning avios and consider any avios I do earn to be a bonus.

    *yes, I know avios can in itself be viewed as currency and that others will view subscriptions etc as worthwhile – it’s just not the game I play.

    • Qrfan says:
      26 Apr26 April 11:28

      That’s a very arbitrary distinction given that most premium cabin redemptions have pretty chunky cash surcharges attached. Even the gold upgrade vouchers are really just a “X% off upgrade” by the time you’ve paid the extra surcharges.

      • Dave likes Planes says:
        26 Apr26 April 15:56

        Yes that’s right – but the cost without avios/companion voucher would make business class unaffordable for me – hence my choice of word being ‘opportunity’. Flying in club is something I like to do if it is within my bounds!

        I just don’t see the point in spending money on something I otherwise wouldn’t to ‘save’ money elsewhere…

    • Alex G says:
      26 Apr26 April 11:30

      I pay for a lot of my Avios.

      A lot of the Avios I collect on my BAPP cost me 0.67p, because if I didn’t use my BAPP I would be be getting 1% cash back from Chase.

      I don’t pay my water charges with my Amex, as Santander give me 2% cach back. Paying with Amex would mean the Avios would be costing 1.33p each. I wouldn’t buy Avios at that price.

      One way of accounting for Avios would be that every one you use with BA costs you 0.67p – the value you could be getting if you converted to Nectar.

      • DaveJ says:
        26 Apr26 April 16:07

        You might not have paid for a business class fare without avios but you probably would have still bought the same items from Sainsbury’s so it does give you an “experience” you might not otherwise have been able to afford

  • babyg says:
    26 Apr26 April 09:27

    As per the article and the T&Cs, you could sign up to the monthly plan and bail after 3 months thereby locking you into the current price, but also giving you an exit if your circumstances change.

    • baec_newbie says:
      26 Apr26 April 14:39

      Not convinced that you would lock in the current price on the monthly plan. You’re also getting a fair discount for the annual plan, albeit you’re losing out on the potential interest the money could have earned and you’re carrying a greater devaluation risk.

      • babyg says:
        26 Apr26 April 21:05

        hadn’t considered they might up the price during the subscription @rob do you know if BA will up the price of your monthly subscription?

        • Rob says:
          26 Apr26 April 21:28

          Good question …

          • WaynedP says:
            26 Apr26 April 22:27

            The answer is crystal clear to me, and appears twice in the article.

            Once in Rhys’s accurate conclusion, and once in the picture of the Avios Subscription landing page.

  • F says:
    26 Apr26 April 09:30

    Anyone else struggling to log in to the actual payment part for this? I log in to BAEC and choose my option then it tells me “We are having technical difficulties verifying your credentials, please try again later”

  • GS says:
    26 Apr26 April 09:34

    “Many of our readers have taken British Airways to CEDR arbitration or Money Claim Online over Avios related issues. This usually involves failure to pay out downgrade compensation on Avios bookings.”
    I went down the CEDR route for 75% reimbursement of a Covid downgrade (Had booked in First, then BA cancelled the flight and stopped operating that cabin, rebooking me into CW as the only option available on that route). Many months later BA refunded the difference in fare although I didn’t request it and had always told them from day 1 I would be bringing a claim. CEDR rejected the claim as it was not downgraded on the day of travel and was cancelled at least 14 days in advance. Is there any point pursuing via MCOL? Or will BA and the court just rest on the CEDR ruling?

    • meta says:
      26 Apr26 April 10:13

      You’ll get it at MCOL. It’s not unusual for CEDR not to follow the law.

  • JC says:
    26 Apr26 April 10:04

    Expect it’s because the dollar’s strengthened since the last pricing. 2575USD is still more than 1989GBP anyway

    • Rhys says:
      26 Apr26 April 10:16

      It’s because the dollar pricing was disproportionately expensive previously.

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

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