Reply To: Swapping Avois for Nectar

[alig4th]

I think it’s because we’re happy kidding ourselves alongside having aspirational travel objectives.

For example, I KNOW that I pay a card fee, and that every Avios I collect has an associated cost/value (e.g. 0.8p in Nectar, or I could use a free cashback AMEX that gets me 0.5p/£), so for every Avios I collect per £ spend on a fee paying card, it’s actually only a 0.3p “extra” than what I would get for not paying a fee. Then there are sign up and referral bonuses to look at, and 241 vouchers which complicate the maths.

Then you’ve got to realise availability issues for Avios flights, having to plan your travel around what works in Avios rather than picking the dates that work for you necessarily.

And then consider what you would choose to fly… Would you, if you didn’t have Avios, REALLY pay to fly business or first class?

But, ignoring all that, when you find availability in First for “only” £800 taxes each, plus a large number of little digital ones-and-zeroes that you theoretically value at 1p each and then you look and go “oh, that’s £800 taxes plus £1200 Avios, which is loads less than the £8,000 cash value, so I’m SAVING £6,000!”, it feels great. You’ve “played the system”.

Even though you’d NEVER had paid £8k for a flight, and earning those Avios meant you actually missed out on collecting cashback…

So it’s emotion Vs logic.

And that’s what Avios Group want you to think. It’s how they’ve marketed it, and well done to them. They’ve definitely got me several times. And will continue to do so…

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