Reply To: Reward flight costs more than buying it?

[Cornishrex1]

Economy tickets will seldom get you much discount against simply using cash – and will burn a lot of Avios to do so – the Avios spend will be poor value in most cases. It is also worth remembering that Avios tickets are flexible though – so significantly superior to the inflexible cash ticket you are comparing against.

I m really interested in this response. I have been with Virgin to date, and we recently flew to Miami and back for 2 adults and a child for about £770, using Virgin points and a companion voucher. Economy. I was very happy. Can’t remember the points used but didn’t take that long to save them up with the paid virgin CC. But more recently, I wanted to book flights to Rio and back. And of course that is where I found the limitation of Virgin – their limited destinations. I have ended up booking three full price tickets via BA at a cost of £2900 (for next year’s rio carnival), and feel a bit gutted at the cost. I resolved to switch across to BA Avios points moving forward, so I have diligently transferred my current account to Barclays premier earning Avios points, and I was going to sign up to BA Amex for the points offer and pay the £250 fee. But we only fly economy. I am really not interested in business class – did enough of that in my job years ago and the novelty wore off (although spending every Sunday in the virgin lounge at Heathrow was pretty cool). If what the OP and others say above is true, then I may be wasting my time. Virgin offer good flight deals on points in economy (but seemingly not so great with their partner airlines). Are BA points not comparable in that regard? Should I just stick with my virgin card (the paid one with 241) if I only want economy flights on points?