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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.

  • roberto says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:35

    Reward flights used to be a perk provided by BA to Frequent flyers – now its just another revenue stream.

    • JDB says:
      17 Apr17 April 07:44

      Are you suggesting making it a revenue stream is a problem?

      BA is a business and ultimately passengers benefit from its success or suffer if it struggles. IAG/BA is emulating the US airline model with its loyalty programme and the increasing monetisation of the scheme has widened both earning and redemption opportunities to make Avios one of the best ones around, so it feels like a good thing for passengers.

      • WearyTraveller says:
        17 Apr17 April 09:20

        Yes it is a problem @JDB. And I disagree with you about widening earning opportunities – there are fewer of these this year than in the past. Credit card sign up bonuses have been gradually going down in 2023/24 and you now have to pay more for certain credit cards than before (e.g. BAPP). You also gain less avios for flights than you used to in the past.

        • JDB says:
          17 Apr17 April 10:22

          @WearyTraveller – Credit card bonuses in 2023/4 have been at record highs – we’ve had 100k on Plat and up to 70k on BAPP. Also Amex offering retentions at UK record levels. Nectar seem to give away points like they are going out fashion. These completely dwarf Avios earned from flying which are in any event unchanged for many including BAH and many travelling for work in premium classes will earn more. The widened use of 241 as solo or other airlines, opportunities to use Avios more easily on QR and AY are further fairly recent enhancements.

          • David says:
            17 Apr17 April 14:24

            @WearyTraveller cc signs ups gradually going down? Have you been in a 1-2 year coma?

      • r* says:
        17 Apr17 April 11:09

        Turning it into another revenue scheme just means that its something there to be gamed and used as a cash substitute to try to reduce the overall cost.

        Its one of the areas that Virgin moved ahead of BA by seemingly realizing this and giving tier points on points booking. If Im having to pay £1k in fees, the points are just an offset and not comparable to the airlines that charge say 80k points and $7 in fees for a similar distance flight.

    • Alex G says:
      17 Apr17 April 13:20

      I don’t know how far back in time you are thinking Roberto, but decades ago I used to collect Air Miles points from shopping in Sainsburys, which I could exchange for paper vouchers that in turn could be redeemed for a BA flight.

      The perks for BA frequent flyers are surely lounge access, seat selection, and priority boarding.

      • Gordon says:
        17 Apr17 April 13:33

        I’d agree with one out of your three examples, being Seat selection, lounges are like zoo’s, and have you seen the scrum at the gates on a BA flight! I hate the boarding process, BA would the wise to take a leaf out of Jet Blue’s book, on how to control the boarding process….

        • Flightsy says:
          17 Apr17 April 22:58

          Yeah I agree with you on BAs awful boarding scrum. Also last couple of times I’ve flown long haul business class with BA this year there has been a member of staff standing at the barrier for the business queue (both at check-in desks and gate) who has said to me “excuse me, this is for business class only”. And I’ve had to say “Eh, yeah I know, I am flying business…” I found it quite rude.

  • SharonC says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:45

    The £1 is to make it a legally binding contract of carriage between you and BA. If Avios is considered ‘free’ currency there must be some form of ‘proper’ payment (consideration) to be made

    • Ironside says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:55

      I had the same thought. The security aspect might still be a factor, but it’s harder to argue that Avios have no value if the airline exchanges a flight solely for them.

  • roberto says:
    17 Apr17 April 07:55

    Yes. That’s what I am suggesting.

    The same as priority pass charging a fee to reserve a slot to access a lounge that is not busy when previously you could have sailed straight in.

    These “benefits and enhancements” introduced by the travel industry only seek to prop up their bottom line. And whilst I fully understand your sentiment you have to agree that the executive club is actually not executive or a club its a money making arm of BA whose remit is to provide less and less and charge more and more.

    You may think that’s a good thing, others prehaps don’t.

  • d3vski says:
    17 Apr17 April 08:08

    What’s the betting that the moment you use full avios + £1 option, you will get 75p only compensation when you hit UK/EU261 territory?

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:43

      It’s not been an issue with reward flights and getting downgraded so why should it be an issue under this variation?

      The regulation is clear. If you get downgraded you get a % of what you paid reimbursed. You’ve quite clearly paid more than a quid under this option.

    • sayling says:
      17 Apr17 April 10:46

      As reimbursement for downgrades is a percentage of fare paid (less taxes), sufferers of such events will actually benefit more from this option than currently

    • TGLoyalty says:
      17 Apr17 April 20:13

      Actually BA will be better off as small claims court would have a £ value they gave you for your Avios so instead of getting 75% of 100k+£1 back you get 75% of your £500 cash price …

      A 100k reward flight that they failed to pay out 75% on would be awarded at the cash price of buying Avios ie 75% of £1k+

  • BJ says:
    17 Apr17 April 08:15

    And we’re customers, not BA board members or even shareholder for the most part. Why should we care, we want what’s good for us not what’s good for BA. BA has a long history punctuated by periods of extraordinarily good and bad performance in the financial sense. I cannot ever recall that the customer experience improved dramatically for customers during the best of times for BA, if anything I can recall at least getting better fares during the bad times.

    • Mikeact says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:39

      I’ve always said, please, just get me/us there safely…not particularly bothered with all the othe fripperies connected with flying this day and age. I’ve enjoyed the best of FFP’s in the earlier years.

    • JDB says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:47

      @BJ you should care about BA’s financial performance because it needs to be performing well to have the resources to invest in new aircraft, new seats/cabins, lounge improvements, recruiting more staff, improving its IT systems etc. Much of what you are seeing today – new aircraft and Club Suite were investments signed off in good times. There’s always a balance to be struck (and sometimes tension) in any business about sharing financial success between customers, management/staff and shareholders. BA’s service levels/popularity have since the 1980s been too cyclical vs the long term consistency of say some Asian airlines and the ME3 came in to trump everyone. Covid obviously didn’t help when BA had little choice but to sack staff and remove costly conditions. That hollowed out a lot of experience and like most businesses, BA now finds recruitment difficult.

      BA and its customer experience should also be looked at in the context of being a private business vs those subsidised ones which covers far too many global airlines. Cathay suffers vs say Singapore in this respect. Also if you look at a European airline like Swissair which was at the top of the customer service class, it went bust and its reincarnation in the form of Swiss is a shadow of that former airline. Others like Olympic, Alitalia, Sabena and SAS all have gone bust and TAP and Aer Lingus would have done. EI was formerly a superb service airline across the Atlantic.

      Iberia was nearly bust and IAG has done a great job reviving and repurposing it to become a very decent airline. The contrast for BA is probably the LH group which struggles with profitability and I think the overall customer experience probably is a bit worse than BA although LH is now trying to do something about premium seating.

      • BJ says:
        17 Apr17 April 09:43

        You can put the textbook away now JDB, you know as well as I do that it is no more credible than Marxist fantasies in the real world. I think the IAG dream was, and probably still remains, Cruz Budget BA. I don’t think Cruz failed, I think IAG just panicked.

      • Geoff says:
        17 Apr17 April 10:13

        “ you should care about BA’s financial performance because it needs to be performing well to have the resources to invest in new aircraft, new seats/cabins, lounge improvements, recruiting more staff, improving its IT systems etc”

        Not really. If they don’t do those things I’ll just use another airline.

        • Gordon says:
          17 Apr17 April 10:42

          With many other cost effective redemption options available now, people are using other airlines irrelevant of BA’s investment!

          • JDB says:
            17 Apr17 April 10:47

            @Gordon – BA is quite happy with that too! BA and its parent have invested heavily in the Avios loyalty universe to make it more attractive for both parties.

          • Gordon says:
            17 Apr17 April 12:51

            @JDB – If BA’s lack of investment offends wealthy cash paying customers, they wont be happy then! And there are many!

        • meta says:
          17 Apr17 April 10:48

          In real world investments are minimal and benefit only management and shareholders not customers. If they cared about customers, Club Suite would have been maintained to high standards, made of high quality materials and actually cleaned regularly, crew paid decent wages, I wouldn’t see errors on ba.com all the time, BA agents would pick up the phone within 1-2 minutes, there wouldn’t be outages preventing check-in, priority bags would be delivered first at Heathrow, etc.

          This is the case not just with BA, ME3 airlines have similar problems. Airlines now do minimal changes presented grandiosly.

  • Mikeact says:
    17 Apr17 April 08:27

    £10/20 off is good enough for me.
    Just had to warn a neighbour yesterday, as he thought part pay was an excellent deal, until I pointed out the error of his ways. Interestingly, he still wasn’t particularly bothered, so I guess he went ahead anyway.

    • Red Flyer says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:36

      I suspect it’s the perceived immediate gain that drives people like that. For example, I want to book for NY now and can do so for the points rather than £601 – even if I can get £800 worth of shopping at Sainsbury’s. That shopping route takes more faff and is spread over many shopping trips rather than on the laptop here and now.

      • Rob says:
        17 Apr17 April 08:45

        Book your hotel with Avios then, and get £800 of rooms.

        • Red Flyer says:
          17 Apr17 April 08:52

          I know plenty of people who still consider them credit card ‘airmiles’ because they get them via a BA Amex, so would not think to do that – even less likely to know about the Sainsbury’s and Nectar route!

        • cin3 says:
          17 Apr17 April 10:53

          Lots of people never stay in hotels ever.

          • Rob says:
            17 Apr17 April 11:38

            The crossover between ‘never stay in a hotel’ and ‘have 140,000 Avios to afford a £600 NYC flight’ groups must be about three people.

          • memesweeper says:
            17 Apr17 April 12:33

            Airbnb has changed that calculation for leisure travellers.

            I have a friend who crosses the Atlantic several times a year, every year, and never stays in hotels. It’s friends and family only — plus camping for holidays! (gah!)

          • Gordon says:
            17 Apr17 April 13:05

            “Airbnb has changed that calculation for leisure travellers”.

            Ahh, Florida, the land of the villa.

        • jj says:
          17 Apr17 April 14:43

          Quick check on my 2024 leisure bookings…ten different hotels and places to stay; only one listed on Nextar hotels, the Sofitel at Athens Airport. Nectar hotels is useless to me. Given that I rarely use Sainsbury’s, Argos or eBay, Nectar is useless to me, so the oft-stated Avios floor price is an irrelevance.

          Better to get 0.41p for something I want than 0.5p for something I don’t want. Better still, of course, to get 1.5p or more on a normal Avios flight redemption.

    • Charlie says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:40

      This is how most people think about and spend Avios – they feel like they got them for nothing so happy to spend them at nothing.

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
        17 Apr17 April 08:49

        Some people will see it as getting a “free” flight using them this way.

        And it’s not like the rates are secret.

        You can quickly calculate the penny per avios rate. Just as you’ve always been able to do under part pay with avios. I’ve even got a tab on my spreadsheet set up to do that for me.

        • Charlie says:
          17 Apr17 April 08:51

          I’d hazard a guess that 99% of the population doesn’t know how to use Excel competently. Which is probably the same 99% of the population that doesn’t think about cost per Avios when they come to spend them.

          • Erico1875 says:
            17 Apr17 April 19:32

            I haven’t a clue using Excel, but I can work out what I’m getting per Avios, no problem

    • Andy says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:47

      Blimey. I didn’t think it was newsworthy enough to go and warn my neighbours. Fair play to you.

      • David says:
        17 Apr17 April 14:31

        I’m just at number 23 now to tell them about Avios. Many confused looks and a door shut door in my face.

  • Bagoly says:
    17 Apr17 April 08:42

    More relevant to look at the marginal effect of each tranche.
    So the second tranche is £23 for 5k avios i.e. 0.46 pence – already below the 0.5

  • TomB says:
    17 Apr17 April 09:44

    Brilliant. Means more people wasting Avios on this and less competition for reward seats.

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