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British Airways now lets you pay 100% of any CASH flight with Avios – but is it a good deal?

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For a number of years now, British Airways has allowed you to use Avios to reduce the price of a cash flight.

A similar structure is used by Vueling and Aer Lingus, BA’s two low cost sister carriers, but there were key differences.

Have these BA changes made things better or worse?

BA now lets you pay 100% of any CASH flight with Avios

Vueling and Aer Lingus always allowed you to pay for the entire cost of your flight with Avios, down to the last penny.

British Airways did not allow this. You had to pay the taxes and charges element in cash. This was confusing for customers, because the ‘taxes and charges’ element isn’t obvious when booking a cash flight. Customers didn’t understand why they had to pay a seemingly random element in cash despite having enough Avios.

The second difference was that Aer Lingus and Vueling let you use Avios at a flat rate to part-pay a flight. This is usually in the 0.5p-0.55p per Avios range. Whether you pay 1% or 100% of the flight cost with Avios, the value per point is the same.

British Airways took a different approach. You would get a generous offer for using a small number of Avios – often £10 off for using 1,000 points – but for larger sums the value was very poor, often well under 0.5p per Avios.

Let’s take a look at what has changed

Here is an example of a cash economy flight to New York under the new pricing.

The cash cost is £602.89. I am offered:

  • £20 off for 2,000 Avios = 1p per Avios
  • £43 off for 7,000 Avios = 0.61p per Avios
  • £63 off for 11,320 Avios = 0.56p per Avios
  • £102 off for 20,740 Avios = 0.49p per Avios
  • £164 off for 37,670 Avios = 0.44p per Avios
  • £217 off for 53,560 Avios = 0.41p per Avios
  • £289 off for 67,370 Avios = 0.43p per Avios
  • £385 off for 89,740 Avios = 0.43p per Avios
  • £601.89 off for 140,300 Avios = 0.43p per Avios

You’ll note that £1 must be paid in cash. I suspect that this is for security reasons. It makes it slightly riskier to use a hacked British Airways account to book an ‘all Avios’ flight when a credit card is required to pay a nominal sum.

British Airways BA A380 Heathrow

This is NOT a good deal

‘Part Pay With Avios’ was always a bad deal, apart from the nominal 1p per Avios saving for using the smallest possible amount. (If I am booking a cash BA flight for myself, I always take the £10 or £20 saving.) Nothing has changed.

It makes no sense, at all, to accept under 0.5p per Avios. Even after two devaluations, you will still get 0.5p per Avios when transferring your points into Nectar. You can spend this money at Sainsburys, Argos or eBay. Taking as little as 0.41p per Avios via ‘Part Pay With Avios’ is crazy.

If you do nothing else, pay the full cash rate and use Avios to pay for seat selection or extra baggage. You will get 0.5p per Avios this way.

For HfP readers, you shouldn’t settle for less than 1p per Avios. Our recently revised article on what an Avios is worth showed that you can easily get well above 1p, especially with a credit card companion or upgrade voucher.

Here are three things to remember

There are three things to remember when using ‘Part Pay With Avios’:

  • These are still cash tickets which operate under cash ticket rules. I get too many emails from HfP readers who don’t realise this. They book a flight using ‘Part Pay With Avios’, decide to cancel it a few weeks later and don’t understand why they lost everything. If you are booking a non-refundable cash flight, it remains non-refundable even if you pay for 100% of it with Avios.
  • Because it is a cash ticket, even if you pay 100% with Avios, you will still earn Avios and tier points as if you had used 100% cash
  • You cannot use ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on partner airlines, except for transatlantic American Airlines flights and some British Airways codeshare flights

Conclusion

‘Part Pay With Avios’ was never a good use of your points, and nothing has changed. However, there are plenty of people out there who don’t fully understand how to get full value for their Avios, and BA has now made ‘Part Pay’ more attractive and easier to understand for this group.

And, at the end of the day, it is probably beneficial for HfP readers to have more Avios used sub-optimally, leaving less pressure to devalue the options that offer real value.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (98)

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

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
    17 Apr17 April 05:41

    It is a good use if you take the penny per avios option which I usually do on short haul club fares ( £30 off for 3,000) and then get some back once you’ve flown.

    Though now BA have moved to a fare paid basis rather than distance base for avios it’s not as good as it used to be.

  • _nate says:
    17 Apr17 April 05:42

    I suspect the £1 payment is more for IT reasons. You didn’t used to be able to book JAL redemptions attracting no taxes or fees online without adding a £1 donation to charity…

    • Rob says:
      17 Apr17 April 07:08

      I thought that but readers said it was fixed.

      • QFFlyer says:
        17 Apr17 April 12:18

        Further to my comment below, obviously that’s based on English law – perhaps Japanese contract law is different. I certainly didn’t have to pay a cent on a JL reward booking recently, but that was using QF points (option wouldn’t appear via BAEC for some reason), I haven’t booked any domestic JL flights using Avios (but do have a long haul F coming up, so it’s not all doom and gloom).

    • QFFlyer says:
      17 Apr17 April 12:16

      It’s not a contract unless there’s consideration – BA claim Avios have no value, and that they own them – so the token £1 creates the contract. Basically how “peppercorn rents” came about.

  • SimonCH says:
    17 Apr17 April 06:21

    It is NOT a good idea.
    Simply put, you would get more transferred into Nectar Points than what they are offering.
    The maths is Terrible. The 140,000 option for £600 is an INSULT.
    You can get a £3500+ Business class to New Zealand or Australia for 180,000 and under £400 in taxes if you transfer them to Qatar Airways and you get Club Suites all the way. So why would anyone use the high Avios option??

    Stick to the options where you get a minimum 0.9p per Avios.

  • Ian says:
    17 Apr17 April 06:26

    If people opt for this to spend Avios it might reduce competition for proper seats with Avios.

    One can only hope!

    • NorthernLass says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:04

      People who already use avios to book expensive flights aren’t going to change and start wasting them on part or full payment options. As Rob points out, this is aimed at BA customers who don’t really understand how avios work – though fortunately for the rest of us, there are rather a lot of those!

      • BJ says:
        17 Apr17 April 08:35

        Agreed, and this is what I find really shameful about BA. But they are not aline, or even the worst offenders in the game.

        I thought this was an excellent article today, explicitly clear, short and right to the heat of the matter. However , I felt it merits stronger criticism of BA, not on opportunity which is always welcome, but on value provided. It is not reasonable/ethical at all IMO for BA to sell avios to customer for 4x the price it is willing to buy them back from those same customers. I don’t think ‘Stuffed again’ would be inappropriate as a title prefix.

        • NorthernLass says:
          17 Apr17 April 10:24

          Don’t stores selling clothing/jewellery/accessories etc do exactly the same?!

        • QFFlyer says:
          17 Apr17 April 12:20

          The thing is, we need people who book using these ridiculous rates, or “waste” their Avios on things like gift vouchers, etc. – the overall average has to work for BA, and any airline, otherwise they’ll enhance the program away and you’ll need more and more Avios to book the same flights (this happens anyway, but it would happen faster, I would speculate).

          • David says:
            17 Apr17 April 14:19

            I thought it was brilliantly put by by Rob at the end. At McDs for example once in a blue moon, I get the combo. I would be eavesdropping on the next customers and they will order.

            “Can I get a burger only. Add a drink. And actually some fries”. Making the meal 60-70% more than as a combo. I’ve seen this small nugget of info often.

        • Dubious says:
          17 Apr17 April 17:05

          Not everyone buys on quantitative logic. Many people buy based on emotion.

          Nothing new there. If that’s how people want to spend their assets that’s the choice. The information is not hidden.

  • Kwab says:
    17 Apr17 April 06:27

    Eventually though I think this will become the standard model and they can then quietly phase out the options that offer real value.

    • LittleNick says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:15

      They can’t take standard award redemptions on partner airlines

  • Jack Ryan says:
    17 Apr17 April 06:55

    “BA has now made ‘Part Pay’ more attractive and easier to understand”

    Looking at that deliberately awkward range of discounts I’d say BA’s goal was not making it easier to understand, but rather to mask the poor value of an Avios when used this way

  • JDB says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:18

    The £1 consideration also establishes the validity of the contract in case there were any questions as to whether the Avios constituted valid payment for that purpose.

    • Reeferman says:
      17 Apr17 April 07:37

      I came on here to say exactly that – you need “consideration” for the legality of the contract

    • Red Flyer says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:12

      How about hotel redemptions that don’t require £1 and can be paid 100% in points?

      • JDB says:
        17 Apr17 April 09:11

        @Red Flyer – you will find that most hotel contracts are implicit or provided by statute. Airlines are required to contract with you under the terms of the Montreal Convention and it is in their interest to do so.

    • cin3 says:
      17 Apr17 April 10:55

      Also useful for Section 75.

      • Thaliasilje says:
        17 Apr17 April 11:10

        Correct me if I’m wrong but, isn’t section 75 is for £100 or more?

        • Rob says:
          17 Apr17 April 11:36

          You only need to pay £1 on a card though – total transaction must be £100.

          • Londonsteve says:
            18 Apr18 April 13:15

            But in this case if the total cash paid is less than £100 due to use of Avios to reduce the cash element, arguably section 75 wouldn’t apply, irrespective of how much of it was paid on a credit card.

        • cin3 says:
          17 Apr17 April 13:00

          No – any amount on card, total transaction must be £100.

  • TooPoorToBeHere says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:20

    .41p isn’t LOTS worse than .5p, and the rate at which one can transfer Avios to Nectar is limited – as is the rate at which one can use Nectar if unwilling to make large eBay purchases and not feeding a family of 8 at Sainsburys.

    If you’ve got 5 million Avios from card spend or constant fancy business travel you may as well.

    • Rob says:
      17 Apr17 April 07:40

      It’s 20% worse. I’m sure you’d be excited with a 20% saving on any other purchase.

    • BJ says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:39

      If I’m not mustaken they currently sell the same avios to the same customer base for 1.7p each, 4x tve price.

      • PH says:
        20 Apr20 April 11:14

        But here you are unconstrained by reward availability and still earn tier points. I still wouldn’t go for it myself

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

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