Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

BA Euroflyer confirmed as not qualifying for ‘double Avios’ Gold Priority Rewards

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

If you have British Airways Executive Club Gold status, the ‘Gold Priority Reward’ was one of the most valuable but least known perks.

Most of the value in it disappeared when the ‘£1 taxes and charges’ Avios redemptions were launched. On top of this, after a period of contradictory behaviour by phone agents, it is now confirmed that BA Euroflyer services have joined BA Cityflyer as being blocked from Gold Priority Rewards.

Let”s go back to first principles however ….

British Airways Gold Priority Rewards Avios

What is an Avios ‘Gold Priority Reward’?

Very simply, a British Airways Executive Club Gold member can book a seat on ANY British Airways flight using Avios.  The catch is that you have to use DOUBLE the normal amount.

You cannot use an American Express 2-4-1 voucher, a Barclays Avios upgrade voucher (albeit the T&C do not exclude this) or a Gold Upgrade for One or Gold Upgrade for Two voucher.

Your flight must be booked more than 30 days before departure.

Your flight must be booked via a BA call centre.

There is some further information on the BA Gold benefits page here.

There was one other rule with BA Cityflyer

There was one other rule, which is only vaguely covered in the T&C by the line ‘Only available on British Airways marketed and operated flights.’

You can’t use a Gold Priority Reward on a BA Cityflyer service. This means all of the short-haul services from London City Airport.  This is because, technically, BA Cityflyer is a separate business inside British Airways and not treated as part of the ‘mainline’ operation. 

But what about BA Euroflyer?

BA Euroflyer is the new British Airways short haul operation from London Gatwick. Whilst, to the naked eye, it looks identical to the London Heathrow short haul operation, it is run as a stand-alone business.

The key difference is in pay and conditions of cabin crew, which are poorer than those enjoyed at Heathrow and have reportedly led to high rates of staff attrition.

When BA Euroflyer launched, you could book Gold Priority Rewards on its flights. Not all agents would do it, but enough would. When we last wrote about Gold Priority Rewards in May we said – based on reader feedback – that they could be booked on BA Euroflyer and that you should call back if you got an unhelpful agent.

Something has now changed, potentially in the guidance given to agents rather than the policy itself.

It is now not possible to book BA Euroflyer services as a Gold Priority Reward. BA HQ has confirmed this to me.

Using Gold Priority Reward on BA Euroflyer

That said, you’re not missing much now

A few years ago, British Airways added the option to use lots more Avios but pay only £1 of taxes for short haul flights. This is the default pricing option that ba.com now gives you.

This is usually a bad deal. My personal view is that British Airways made a mistake here, because most people are more Avios constrained than they are cash constrained. There is no point saying how wonderful it is to pay just £1 in taxes and charges when the Avios component is ludicrous.

Using the Hamburg as an example, you can – for Economy – choose to pay for a peak return flight:

  • 19,500 Avios + £1 or
  • 10,500 Avios + £35 (this is old taxes and charges figure)

…. or various other options.

Gold Priority Rewards price off the £1 rate. This means, if we stick with the Hamburg example, a Gold Priority Reward in Economy would cost you 39,000 Avios + £1 per person.

You can’t use a British Airways American Express companion voucher, so you’d need 78,000 Avios for two people. To Hamburg, in Economy.

You need a pretty big microscope to see the value in that.

Want to fly Club Europe? A Gold Priority Reward to Hamburg will now cost you 65,000 Avios plus £1, return. Bargain.

Don’t even think about using a Gold Priority Reward for long haul

There never was any value in using a Gold Priority Reward for a long haul flight but now it has just got silly.

In late 2022, British Airways extended ‘Reward Flight Saver’ to long haul too. The ‘taxes and charges’ element was reduced to fixed rates, starting at £350 return in Club World.

Let’s take one of my regular family runs to my sister-in-law in Dubai. The base rate for a Business Class seat on Avios is now 180,000 Avios plus £350.

Want to use a Gold Priority Reward? You are looking at 360,000 Avios plus £350, return. For one person.

A family of four would be looking at 1,440,000 Avios + £1,400 to fly to Dubai in Club World, return.

Clearly there is some value left – but it was often on BA Euroflyer

It is unfair to say that there is never a way of getting value from a Gold Priority Reward. After all, our readers are still booking them occasionally – it was a reader enquiry which triggered this article after all.

The best use of Gold Priority Reward flights is arguably for ski resorts at February half term.  We have done this a number of times over the years.

This is what is costs to fly to Salzburg for February half-term in 2024, assuming you want well-timed flights travelling Saturday to Saturday which is what ski hotels usually insist on:

British AIrways BA Euroflyer Gold Priority Reward

It’s still a great deal to pay 39,000 Avios plus £1 in taxes and charges to avoid paying £990. It arguably justifies a push for a British Airways Executive Club Gold card on its own if you are getting close.

But, but, but …..

Take another look at the screenshot above. You’ll see that the flight is from Gatwick on BA Euroflyer, which means that it can’t be booked as a Gold Priority Reward.

Not all of BA’s peak season ski flights are from Gatwick. However, many are and they are now unavailable for booking via this route. The same goes for the ‘summer sun’ routes which could also have value as a Gold Priority Reward on peak dates.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (February 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.

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

50,000 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

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

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.

Comments (40)

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

  • Mr. AC says:

    I had a conversation recently about BA with a friend, explaining the benefits of having Gold (they’re considering a TP run). The number of caveats of the Gold Priority rewards “perks” is simply embarrassing… It makes it sound like the whole thing is a scam. Felt uncomfortable explaining it.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      TBH it’s such a minor benefit it’s hardly worth explaining at all and I’d concentrate on things like extra baggage, seat selections and earning a few more avios.

      • Clayton says:

        Agree. Silver is widely viewed as the ‘sweet spot’ for BAEC. Explain that to them, help them get there and by that time they lll know if they wanna go up the chain

      • BahrainLad says:

        Before they changed the pricing to the ludicrous 2x+£1 model, it was an extremely valuable benefit and it saved me thousands of pounds over the years, especially travelling to southern Europe in July and August.

    • iamlost says:

      The 30 days cutoff has always been the dealbreaker for me. If it was more like 7-14 days, then it would be really valuable.

      • Froggee says:

        Indeed. Given that there is no cancellation charge for them, I’ve cancelled more Gold Priority Rewards than I’ve actually flown. If there was a chance of a trip on a pricey day it was pretty much book now, decide later. This will probably lead to the next enhancement of removing free cancellation on them.

  • Alastair says:

    I wonder if there is anyone at BA who realises that they’ve completely trashed this benefit through death by a thousand cuts. Who is actually in charge of BAEC these days?

  • iamlost says:

    Rob, the point you eloquently made about the poor value / appeal of the ‘max Avios, min cash’ option is the exact reason why I’ve gone off the Barclaycard Upgrade Voucher too.

    My cynical view of BA increasingly forcing this option is to corner people into regularly buying Avios, eroding the value proposition of Avios redemptions by stealth.

    • lumma says:

      Why would you buy avios to use them for this? (unless you live in Chelsea and have to take the kids to Salzburg in February)

      • G says:

        Of course though, old money would hire a private jet rather than fly with the hoi polloi…

        • Londonsteve says:

          That sounds like a new money thing to do, to be honest. Old money will be swilling champers in Club, grumbling how BA’s service has gone downhill since the days when ‘aunties’ would fly them on a VC10 to Malaya during the school holidays.

  • Peter says:

    The main gold benefit for me is the extra economy reward seats, which was useful especially this last summer. But now prices are coming down again, I booked a flight to Barcelona on Vueling for £9 – didn’t even bother with BA even though I’m Gold. The first lounge is now offering the same food as the business lounge, only other benefit is the first wing but even that is not much faster than the other security. I’m not renewing for next year.

  • Peter says:

    My point is, they are slowly removing one gold benefit after the other: no more First class lounge food to order, Gold Priority Rewards only on most expensive Avios option, 100% bonus Avios slashed to 50%, and now no more Gold Priority out of Gatwick. And these are just the cuts from the last year.

    • Littlefish says:

      I think this observation is also worth bearing in mind during the occasional GoldForLife / any scheme status for life, discussions.
      In itself, the Gold double avios release, has been pretty niche and Virgin’s equivalent somehow managed to be worse … but the erosion of BAEC niches is very much a worry.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      I was in the LGW F lounge on Wednesday morning and the order by app system was still in place. Has some nice eggs royale which weren’t otherwise available.

      Don’t recall if food was still on it at LHR when I was there in August but cocktails and coffee certainly were.

  • Jane says:

    Disagree that the double avios reward option is not a valuable perk – twice now one of my teens has had to get back early from a long haul break over Christmas when there is zero return availability. This is invaluable – and they don’t have to travel in club – I put them in economy for same price as a club avios ticket pretty much. I am GGL and use this option when space release doesn’t open anything up.

    • Harry T says:

      This is incredibly niche though, and presumably you have Avios coming out of your backside if you’re GGL.

  • Peter Rawlinson says:

    Probably a little known fact about double reward bookings. If regular Avios becomes available in the meantime you can request those Avios seats for a refund of half the Avios you originally paid.

  • LittleNick says:

    And now they have taken away the sleep pods in the Galleries First lounge. Let’s hope the bar returns after the renovation? No food to order and hot food near identical to GC, seems like they just want to keep taking away from Golds.
    So much for when they said the Euroflyer operation would be identical to Mainline short haul, only the staff contracts would be different, differences are now clearly emerging. It just seems they constantly want to insult Golds for some bizarre reason.

    • Alastair says:

      Gold is just Silver in BA’s eyes. GGL is the new Gold.

    • Jack says:

      How are they insulting golds exactly by having the same policy as they have for city flyer with euroflyer which is also a subsidiary. They are not taking away from gold’s

      • Rob says:

        Clearly they have because you could previously do a GPR from Gatwick.

        • Jack says:

          They are not taking away anything from gold’s BA euroflyer is a subsidiary the same as cityflyer and historically GPRS have never been available on cityflyer . Therefore it is not too big a surprise that they have changed it for euroflyer , it was different when it was BA mainline

          • LittleNick says:

            Subsidiary or not (we were told by BA it would make no difference to the customer experience (which it clearly has) when it went from mainline BA to Euroflyer) it’s BA at the end of the day (I/Most Customers couldn’t care less if it’s the main entity or parent) and they’ve clearly now taken away the benefit as say a month or two ago you could, so they have taken it away, wouldn’t be surprised if it goes entirely with the way they keep picking away at gold benefits.

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.