Did you know you can’t ‘Part Pay With Avios’ if you lock in a BA fare for 72 hours?

ba.com has a little known feature called ‘Hold Your Flight Price’ – see ba.com here.

It is tucked away at the bottom of the ‘Review Your Flights’ page during the booking process for a cash ticket.

You can pay a non-refundable £5 (short haul) or £10 (long haul) per person to British Airways, and your ticket is reserved for 72 hours. The fare is guaranteed at this point and you get the £5 or £10 back when you complete payment.

If you don’t complete the booking within 72 hours, the ticket is put back on sale and you lose your reservation fee.

It’s a good option to have, especially as the fee is refunded if you do go ahead and finalise your booking.

Most of the small print isn’t onerous and some of it works in your favour:

• you don’t pay to hold a ticket for an infant

• BA takes all the risk on any changes to taxes and charges (albeit this is a very low risk) – if they go down, you pay less but if they go up, BA swallows the extra

• you can change passenger names when you finalise payment, although you can’t change the adult / child mix, time, class or date – these require a fresh booking

• you cannot use it for a flight departing in less than 21 days

• you cannot use it on flights departing from Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Egypt, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia or Trinidad & Tobago.

There is one quirk though:

• you cannot use ‘Part Pay With Avios’, or any discount code, on your booking

What is ‘Part Pay With Avios’?

‘Part Pay With Avios’ is the feature which lets you use Avios to reduce the price of a CASH booking.

You receive British Airway Executive Club tier points and earn Avios back after your flight as usual, even if you use ‘Part Pay With Avios’.

In general:

• it is good value if you redeem the smallest possible amount of Avios, usually 1,000 for a £10 saving or 2,000 for a £20 saving (1p per Avios)

• it is terrible value if you redeem a large amount, often as poor as 0.4p per Avios which is shockingly bad (even transfers to Nectar points get you 0.5p per Avios to spend at Sainsbury’s or Argos)

Here is an example:

Personally, unless HfP is paying for my ticket, I will always redeem 1,000 Avios to save £10. I’m getting a guaranteed 1p per Avios and that’s acceptable to me.

I certainly won’t redeem a higher amount, given that the value gets weaker and weaker. Using 206,510 Avios to save £846.69 (0.41p per Avios) is terrible.

IMPORTANT: Every time I write about ‘Part Pay With Avios’ I give this warning, because many readers have been caught out in the past. Your cash ticket is still a cash ticket, subject to the rules of a cash ticket even when you use Avios to pay some or all of it. Your ticket is not refundable. If you cancel it, you lose all your Avios in the same way that you would have lost all your cash.

Conclusion

‘Part Pay With Avios’ is an acceptable way of using Avios as long as you redeem as the ‘1p per point’ level, saving you £10 to £20.

‘Hold Your Flight’ is also a good feature, letting you lock in a ticket for a small deposit which is fully refundable if you do go ahead after 72 hours.

Note, however, that the two features cannot be combined.

You find out more about ‘Hold Your Flight Price’ on this page of ba.com.

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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:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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.

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.

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

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.