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The odd way that ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ is priced since long-haul Reward Flight Saver launched

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Many strange things happened with the extension of Reward Flight Saver Avios pricing to long haul premium cabin redemptions 18 months ago.

At that time British Airways introduced the option to pay lower surcharges (a fixed fee of £350 return on most long haul Club World routes) in return for using a lot more Avios.

If you had a large Avios balance and a low bank balance then these changes are positive, and they work well for anyone redeeming a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.

how to upgrade british airways flights with avios

The changes were bad news for anyone with an ‘old style’ Amex 241 voucher (although these are all now used or expired), Barclays Upgrade Voucher or Gold Upgrade Voucher, or anyone who enjoyed booking flights from low-tax jurisdictions.

One interesting change was the impact on ‘Upgrade Using Avios’. This is when you use Avios to upgrade a cash ticket on British Airways.

What was interesting was that there was no change.

How does ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ work?

Let’s run over how ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ works on long haul flights.

‘Upgrade Using Avios’ let you use Avios to upgrade a CASH ticket on British Airways by ONE class.

You cannot upgrade from the cheapest Economy ticket types (O, G and Q). This means that, unless your employer is happy to pay for a semi flexible ticket, you are unlikely to be upgrading from Economy to Premium Economy (World Traveller Plus).

You can upgrade ANY Premium Economy ticket, non-refundable or full fare, to Business Class (Club World). This is the sweet spot in terms of ‘bang for your buck’, going from a slightly larger economy seat to a fully flat bed, often with a door.

You can upgrade any Business Class seat, non-refundable or full fare, to First Class.

Tickets issued via BA Holidays or travel agents can be upgraded but this usually requires a call to the Executive Club. Tickets which are part of package holidays sold by anyone except BA Holidays cannot be upgraded.

Upgrades use the same reward availability as Avios redemption tickets.  If you cannot book an Avios redemption in Premium Economy, Business Class or First Class, you won’t be able to upgrade your Economy, Premium Economy or Business Class ticket.

Upgrades must be done in advance of travel.  You cannot upgrade with Avios on board or at check-in.

Whilst this article only looks at long haul, you can also upgrade short haul flights in the same way.

How do you book flights and upgrade with Avios?

ba.com, once you are logged in, has the ‘Book with money, upgrade with Avios’ booking option.

This allows the system to sell you the cheapest ticket in a suitable ticket bucket and immediately process the upgrade.

Note that you cannot do this from the booking screen on the ba.com home page.  You must be logged in and searching from the Executive Club welcome page. You are looking for this:

You do not need to upgrade at the time of booking – indeed, it might not be possible if there are no Avios reward seats in the higher cabin to upgrade into. You can use ‘Manage My Booking’ online to upgrade later.

However, if you are planning to book an Economy ticket and upgrade it to Premium Economy then I would recommend doing it all at once. The method above ensures you are sold an upgradeable ticket in the first place and not a cheaper non-upgradeable one. It makes no difference in other cabins as all Premium Economy and Business Class seats can be upgraded, however cheap.

Note that, because British Airways has higher surcharges in First vs Business, Business vs Premium Economy and Premium Economy vs Economy, you will be asked for an additional cash payment on top of your Avios if you upgrade.

What does it cost to upgrade a BA flight with Avios?

To quote from ba.com:

“The Avios amount required for the upgrade is based on the Avios costs for reward flights in the cabins you are upgrading from and to and will depend on whether your flight is scheduled on a peak or off-peak date.

“The formula is:

Avios for the cabin you wish to upgrade to – Avios for the cabin you make your booking in = Avios required to upgrade one way

“Here’s an example for a peak one-way upgrade from London to New York, upgrading from premium economy (World Traveller Plus) to business (Club World):

Club World: 60,000 Avios – World Traveller Plus: 40,000 Avios = 20,000 Avios to upgrade”

In simple terms …. the Avios cost is the difference between the cost of a standard Avios redemption ticket in the higher cabin and the cost of a standard Avios redemption ticket in the cabin you originally booked.

In addition, you pay the taxes and charges based on the cabin you fly in.

How does Upgrade Using Avios work

What changed with the introduction of Reward Flight Saver to long haul?

Intriguingly …. nothing.

It seemed that someone at BA took a deliberate decision NOT to wreck ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ pricing.

Upgrades continue to be priced off the Avios points needed for a flight before December 2022.

Here’s an example.

The current ‘base’ pricing for Business Class to New York, off peak and return, is 160,000 Avios + £350. The current ‘base’ price for Premium Economy to New York is 85,000 Avios + £280.

On this basis, ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ from Premium Economy to Business Class should cost (160,000 – 85,000) 75,000 Avios on an off-peak date.

Instead, it is unchanged at the old pre-December 2022 price:

How does Upgrade Using Avios work

You only require 48,000 Avios to upgrade an off-peak New York return Premium Economy flight to Business Class, which is the difference between the OLD base prices of 100,000 Avios for Business Class (Club World) and 52,000 Avios for Premium Economy (World Traveller Plus).

You are being charged a lot in extra surcharges but you don’t notice it

If you look at the screenshot above, you might think that the cash price of the underlying Premium Economy ticket is £1,570.

It isn’t. It is actually £950. So where does the extra £620 come from?

As well as charging you 48,000 Avios, British Airways quietly adds a £620 surcharge when you upgrade. The ‘carrier surcharge’ in Club World is £900 return whereas in Premium Economy it is only £280 return, so you are charged the £620 difference on top of the cost of the Premium Economy ticket.

Hence, in my example above, you are paying £950 for the Premium Economy ticket plus £620 in additional surcharges for a total cash element of £1,570.

The Reward Flight Saver changes do not apply to First Class so, unsurprisingly, there are no changes to ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ pricing there.

Conclusion

‘Upgrade Using Avios’ on long haul British Airways flights is still priced off the pre-Reward Flight Saver levels of taxes and charges.

The reason, I think, is because it is the easiest way to get around the problem that taxes and charges are capped on Reward Flight Saver flights but are not capped on the underlying cash ticket from which you would be upgrading.

Rather than have to pay a partial cash refund to anyone who upgrades, it is easier for BA to pretend that Reward Flight Saver doesn’t exist and keep using the pre-December 2022 Avios pricing.

You can find our more about ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ on ba.com here.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (49)

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

  • JRich says:
    20 Jun20 June 05:22

    Under the old system the cash co-pay was much much less if not 0 when going from Premium Economy to Club. This devaluation has effectively killed the UUA long haul sweet spot. RIP

    • James C says:
      20 Jun20 June 10:16

      This depends on the respective difference in PE and CW YQ. It’s eyewatering on North American routes but can be a couple of £100 for other destinations.

    • SamG says:
      20 Jun20 June 11:02

      This isn’t related to the Avios switch, this is related to BA massively increasing CW YQ (especially on North America routes as James says)

      RFS actually shields full redemptions from that change whereas Virgin passes it all on

  • NigelthePensioner says:
    20 Jun20 June 06:40

    The bottom line of course is how much value are you getting per Avios cashed in. These days like everything else BA and Avios, it doesn’t look great value if you are still paying £1500 for your return Club Class ticket.
    This is why I feel that Avios are becoming a bit of a waste of space (I dont like greasy sausage rolls!) and so am tempted to just convert them to Nectar points and buy champagne from Sainsbury’s when it’s buy 6 get 25% off! The Etienne is not unpleasant and BA could get away with serving it in the lounge – joke…….I hope!

    • Catalan says:
      20 Jun20 June 09:00

      Aren’t greasy sausage rolls the points bargain of the airline with the red tail?

    • TooPoorToBeHere says:
      20 Jun20 June 12:20

      Takes a bit of planning if you have a significant balance as the total amount of transfer Avios->Nectar per account, per month, is limited.

      You can set up automatic conversion AND do a manual conversion each month.

      If you have a partner they can do the same in their account, to their own Nectar account.

      Each Nectar card will get different offers for use in-store.

      Beware of high Nectar balances – there is a significant problem with Nectar fraud, so watch the accounts – and if you do as I do and repeatedly redeem large Nectar amounts in-store against groceries, expect to find the card locked-out at checkout and having to have phone calls made to re-instate it so you can redeem.

      • Alex W says:
        20 Jun20 June 13:01

        Some criminal spent £200 of our Nectars and nobody could care less. Fortunately I did get the points back but nobody at Nectar, Sainsbury’s, Argos or the fraud police were remotely interested in catching the culprit. I have then the exact time and date of the crime and the store manager said unless the police requested it they would just wipe the CCTV footage after a month.

        • CJD says:
          20 Jun20 June 13:38

          What exactly are you expecting to happen?

          You’ve been put back in the correct position, it’s probably not worth anyone’s time to chase it up for the sake of £200.

          • TooPoorToBeHere says:
            20 Jun20 June 14:25

            This. The store can’t realistically do anything, fraud for this type of amount is de-facto decriminalised (like dope?) – the police or their masters have decided it’s not to bother with.

            I don’t know if they still print (far too much of) the nectar card number on receipts, but the cards have a predictable number and anyone can present the barcode or number for any card with a transaction and see/spend the balance.

  • Shamit Shah says:
    20 Jun20 June 07:17

    Do you still get the full tier points of the class of ticket you booked if you then upgrade to the next Cabin using avios e.g. booked premium economy and then upgraded to business using avios, would you still get premium economy tier points for that flight?

  • Marcin says:
    20 Jun20 June 07:39

    If you upgrade using avios from PE to Club would you get tier points, avios from your originally booked class (I.e PE). Or the new you upgraded to using avios? (I.e. Club)?

  • AndrewT says:
    20 Jun20 June 08:34

    To clarify , yes you definitely get the Avios & TP for the original cabin / cash ticket, which should be part of the overall cost consideration compared to a straight reward seat in the higher cabin for example.

    It’s not unknown to get lucky and get some freebies for the higher cabin, but only when something out of course occurs.

    • BJ says:
      20 Jun20 June 08:41

      To clarify further it was fixed.

      • Mark says:
        20 Jun20 June 08:54

        When was it fixed?

        • AndrewT says:
          20 Jun20 June 09:01

          Depends on what was meant by ‘fixed’. There may have been specific IT ‘features’ that have been fixed, but human errors during for example a cancellation & rebooking process are always possible, but far from typical even when something unusual does require manual changes to a booking.

        • BJ says:
          20 Jun20 June 09:07

          At least 5 years ago unless people have since started getting lucky again but it was fixed, resolved or whatever one wants to call it.

          • AndrewT says:
            20 Jun20 June 09:12

            As I said, with anything that requires a human to click a box or type something somewhere has scope for errors. They were quite common during Covid with people working under pressure. I had one last year, so you cannot say ‘it has been fixed’.

          • Mark says:
            20 Jun20 June 09:16

            It happened to us just over 2 years ago, with double tier points on BA Holidays….

  • BJ says:
    20 Jun20 June 08:38

    I have not used UUA for many years already despite being a fan in the 20teens. Back then the ‘book and upgrade’ option was generally a no-no because it usually priced up significantly higher than booking a revenue flight and subsequenty upgrading it with avios onlline or by phone. The article makes no mention of this; is the ‘book and upgrade’ option still a bad deal in many cases or has it been ‘fixed’?

    • Mark says:
      20 Jun20 June 09:06

      Using a 2for1, if you have one, is generally better value for CW, especially at the lowest cash option. However, it can work out well in some cases. The last time I used Avios for Upgrade to CW was on a BA Holidays package in 2022, when it worked out cheaper than using a 2for1 and paying for a hotel separately.

      • BJ says:
        20 Jun20 June 09:19

        I was not referring to value of UUA but to the way we do it. Doing it at the same time using ‘book and upgrade’ option at BA.com generally cost more cash overall than booking a standalone revenue ticket and subsequently upgrading it with avios. There was a great HfP article on this but I cannot find it as key words in search keep finding forum posts.

    • Alex W says:
      20 Jun20 June 09:27

      +1 similar to my question below!

  • Mark says:
    20 Jun20 June 08:40

    What’s the best method for upgrading using avios on an open jaw? Book the flight then immediately phone to upgrade?

    • BJ says:
      20 Jun20 June 11:16

      Yes, if you’re not happy with cost that alliws you to cancel original booking under 24h rule. Open jaws cannot be managed online unless set up as 2x one ways.

  • Alex W says:
    20 Jun20 June 09:26

    Can somebody clarify please is the £1,570 on top of what you have already paid for a Premium Economy fare?

    If not, how much actually is the cash cost to upgrade if you already had a Premium economy ticket? Is it just the difference £620 return? Would it be £310 to upgrade one-way or does it depend on where you are flying to/from.

    Thanks

    • Rob says:
      20 Jun20 June 09:36

      The cost to upgrade an existing cash ticket with Avios is, yes, £620 (the difference in the BA surcharge) + 48,000 Avios return. A one way may not be exactly half, depending on how BA allocates the surcharge.

      • Alex W says:
        20 Jun20 June 13:09

        Aren’t you still being ripped off then, because according to dummy booking I just made, you would already have paid £580 taxes fees and charges on a WTP return cash ticket (not £280 as the article says)?

    • BJ says:
      20 Jun20 June 09:37

      @Alex, no it is the full cost of flight plus extra upgrade charges. There is no dimp,e rule in charges for upgrades unfortunafely. I just noted your reply to my comment above so you clearly grasp there may be a cheaper way of doing it.

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

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