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First time post so please bear with me. I’m not a big flyer (when I do it’s budgets to Europe), but I am planning a big celebration trip in April 2025 to South America and would like to fly business class for the first time ever as part of my celebration.
I have been collecting Avios via the BA shopping portal and via a subscription (Voyager 20k) for the last 2 or 3 years and have accrued approx. 70k Avios. I have recently got the BAPP Amex and should hit the £3k in 3m target soon to trigger the bonus 50k and bring me up to 120k Avios. I also have a tiny amount of Avios (~400) in a Vueling account. I won’t be able to hit the £10k spend to get the 241 voucher, so will save that for another trip.
Is there any advice for how to make the most of the Avios I have collected? I have been looking at getting a cheap (e.g. EasyJet or Vueling) flight to Madrid and then flying with Iberia to e.g. Lima (or I may do open jaw to Quito, Ecuador and then back from Lima, Peru) as from the research I have done I believe business class from mainland Europe is better value? I think I need 150k to do a return in Business class so I am a bit short for the entirety in Avios. I also need to factor in taxes etc. and don’t know how much they are.
I know I’ll need to book as soon as the flight window opens in the next few weeks. Am I best booking direct with Iberia, or via the BA website? I seem to get 3 Business Class prices on Iberia but 1 on BA? And it it best to e.g. redeem 75k of points for one-way and then just do the other leg in cash and save the Avios for another trip, or do a part-pay?
So many things to consider so any advice would be very appreciated for this total newbie! I have read a ton of articles on here, but if there is one that would help me get my head around this then please let me know
https://www.headforpoints.com/category/avios-redemption-university/
This is a great series of articles – there is one on using avios on Iberia which can give good savings in comparison to BA. It’s a bit out of date for BA pricing but still relevant to IB.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/08/where-does-iberia-fly-long-haul/
More up to date, it doesn’t actually matter if you don’t have a 241.
Welcome to the forum (and well done on posting successfully without a duplicate!).
You’re right, there are a lot of things to consider, and you are jumping in at the deep end thinking about an ex-EU open jaw.
Two further pieces of info will help clarify your options with what you have collected so far:
How many of you travelling?
Do you have an “active” Iberia account more than 90 days old? (Needed to transfer your avios over).Welcome to the forum (and well done on posting successfully without a duplicate!).
You’re right, there are a lot of things to consider, and you are jumping in at the deep end thinking about an ex-EU open jaw.
Two further pieces of info will help clarify your options with what you have collected so far:
How many of you travelling?
Do you have an “active” Iberia account more than 90 days old? (Needed to transfer your avios over).It’s just me travelling (have promised the other half that I’ll use the 241 for a trip for us!)
I don’t have an active Iberia account – sounds like that is an issue then?
You might be a bit late to be able to transfer avios to Iberia in time to book, in that case.
One-way cash flights are very expensive so a better option is, e.g. fly out business and back in premium economy (or the other way around) if you want to save avios.
https://www.headforpoints.com/category/avios-redemption-university/
This is a great series of articles – there is one on using avios on Iberia which can give good savings in comparison to BA. It’s a bit out of date for BA pricing but still relevant to IB.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/08/where-does-iberia-fly-long-haul/
More up to date, it doesn’t actually matter if you don’t have a 241.
Super, not sure if I’ve read those or not (all my research is making my head spin!) but will check them out thanks! 😃
You can book IB award flights via BA but I think the surcharges are higher. You then need to make separate arrangements to get to Madrid, so for your first redemption, for simplicity’s sake, you might just want to go with BA from London!
If you have a bit of flexibility, remember that most of April next year will be peak pricing due to the Easter holidays, you pay fewer avios on off-peak days.
You might be a bit late to be able to transfer avios to Iberia in time to book, in that case.
One-way cash flights are very expensive so a better option is, e.g. fly out business and back in premium economy (or the other way around) if you want to save avios.
Oh no, that wasn’t something I had considered! I’ll take a look at their website now, but that puts a spanner in the works…….
I’d like to do business both ways even if it means paying some more cash but want to maximise what I do with the Avios
You can book IB award flights via BA but I think the surcharges are higher. You then need to make separate arrangements to get to Madrid, so for your first redemption, for simplicity’s sake, you might just want to go with BA from London!
If you have a bit of flexibility, remember that most of April next year will be peak pricing due to the Easter holidays, you pay fewer avios on off-peak days.
Yes, that’s a pity but if it’s higher surcharges or not use any Avios at all, I’ll guess I’ll just chalk it up to experience and take the hit.
I do have some flexibility, I had gone with April as a good balance between what’s the optimal time for visiting Macchu Pichu without ridiculous crowds and seeing the salt flats in Bolivia with the mirror effect during the winter. But May could also work, MP is busiest Jun-Aug I believe and the salt flats are still good all year round!
BA and Iberia have the same surcharges now unless you add UK-Madrid.
Since you are not using the voucher, you should book separately three legs London to Madrid, then Madrid-Lima/South America and South America-London. This will save you most cash and on the way back you will be able check through bags. I’d go the day before to Madrid before your flight South America in order not to miss the long-haul flight.
One way or another I think you are flying business!
You can always choose one of the “more pricing options” when you have selected your flights and are given the “total price”. This will not necessarily give you the best “value” overall, but if it’s what you want from your avios you should be happy.
If you are flexible on dates, it will not only be cheaper to visit MP on an off-peak date after the school Easter holiday, but the weather will be more reliable in May (or end of April).
If you don’t have the Iberia account active you can’t take advantage of the lower charges “starting” your journey in Madrid, but since BA don’t fly direct to Lima you would be changing in Madrid anyway. In most people’s opinion this is a good thing as you will be on Iberia for the long flight.
I’ve just done a dummy booking off-peak return to Lima (Iberia flights LON-MAD-LIM) 110,500 avios + £454 so it sounds like you are there even without losing value with one of the lower-avios-higher-charges options. However @meta is right that the best thing is to book 3 separate legs.
Open that IB account now so it is there next time! I think you also have to make a credit to it as well; I’m sure Rob has done an article on what sort of activity will activate the account.
BA and Iberia have the same surcharges now unless you add UK-Madrid.
Since you are not using the voucher, you should book separately three legs London to Madrid, then Madrid-Lima/South America and South America-London. This will save you most cash and on the way back you will be able check through bags. I’d go the day before to Madrid before your flight South America in order not to miss the long-haul flight.
Thanks, yes definitely going to go the day before as the idea of missing the long-haul section makes me twitchy! I’m likely going to travel with just the 2 pieces of hand luggage as will be doing hop-on hop-off buses when I’m there so my trusty old travel backpack from my younger days should mean I don’t need to worry about checked luggage hopefully
One way or another I think you are flying business!
ha ha yes I think so! 🙂
You can always choose one of the “more pricing options” when you have selected your flights and are given the “total price”. This will not necessarily give you the best “value” overall, but if it’s what you want from your avios you should be happy.
If you are flexible on dates, it will not only be cheaper to visit MP on an off-peak date after the school Easter holiday, but the weather will be more reliable in May (or end of April).
If you don’t have the Iberia account active you can’t take advantage of the lower charges “starting” your journey in Madrid, but since BA don’t fly direct to Lima you would be changing in Madrid anyway. In most people’s opinion this is a good thing as you will be on Iberia for the long flight. I’ve just done a dummy booking off-peak return to Lima (Iberia flights LON-MAD-LIM) 110,500 avios + £454 so it sounds like you are there even without losing value with one of the lower-avios-higher-charges options. However @meta is right that the best thing is to book 3 separate legs.
Ah that sounds ok, thanks very much for checking for me. I’ll take a look then at the peak/off-peak charts and look to shift it to straight after the Easter holidays.
It might sound daft, but I’m less bothered about paying a bit more in charges than I am about ‘making the most’ of my Avios. Gathering the Avios has been a right mission these last couple of years (I think my partner will be glad not to hear me yelling “Stop! Have you checked to see if I can get Avios on that?” for a while lol!) so I don’t want to ‘waste’ them. So if the only thing I have ‘lost out’ on by not realising I had to have the active Iberia account in time is the charges rather than there being a big difference in the amount of Avios needed, I can live with that, if that’s correct?
As I’m going to travel over to Madrid the day before and likely hand luggage only, and so don’t need to worry about checking bags all the way through, is there any significant benefit in going over to Madrid by another airline (EasyJet, Vueling) and then doing MAD-LIM with the Iberia flight booked via BA?
Open that IB account now so it is there next time! I think you also have to make a credit to it as well; I’m sure Rob has done an article on what sort of activity will activate the account.
Yes did it last night. I had a look at one of the articles @NorthernLass flagged and it looks like I can transfer some Amex points over as ‘activity’ so will do that this evening . As I may use my 241 with my partner on a trip to Thailand with Qatar in a couple of years I better make sure I don’t need to do something similar with the Qatar scheme!
One query – if you can hit £3k of spend in 3 months to get the sign up bonus, what is stopping you from making £7k of spend in the remaining 9 months of your card year to trigger the voucher?
Supermarket shopping of £100 weekly (I don’t know how this fits into your budget but I’m using it for easy numbers) would get you about halfway there, for example.
I’d book Madrid / South America online then ring up within 24 hours and get Madrid / uk leg added on the end. You’ll want to start the journey in Madrid to avoid higher Avios and taxes
This is what I did for my upcoming trip to Peru
One query – if you can hit £3k of spend in 3 months to get the sign up bonus, what is stopping you from making £7k of spend in the remaining 9 months of your card year to trigger the voucher?
Supermarket shopping of £100 weekly (I don’t know how this fits into your budget but I’m using it for easy numbers) would get you about halfway there, for example.
Oh yes, that’s my plan, I just didn’t get the card early enough to get there before I intend booking this trip (have avoided having a credit card for some time due to my awful mismanagement of one in my younger days…). I’ve said to my partner that I’ll use the 241 on a nice trip for us the following year seeing as I am sloping off for 3/4 weeks by myself next April/May!
I’d book Madrid / South America online then ring up within 24 hours and get Madrid / uk leg added on the end. You’ll want to start the journey in Madrid to avoid higher Avios and taxes
This is what I did for my upcoming trip to Peru
I’ll look into that thanks
@zio Charges are completely aligned now whether you book via BA site or Iberia. The only difference is if you do London-Lima via Madrid it adds long-haul APD hence why it’s higher charge. It will be the same if you book with Iberia.
One way or another I think you are flying business!
Yes did it last night. I had a look at one of the articles @NorthernLass flagged and it looks like I can transfer some Amex points over as ‘activity’ so will do that this evening . As I may use my 241 with my partner on a trip to Thailand with Qatar in a couple of years I better make sure I don’t need to do something similar with the Qatar scheme!
Btw, the 241 vouchers aren’t valid on Qatar, only BA, IB and Aer Lingus.
IB is the only scheme that makes you jump through hoops with ensuring your account is “active”. BA, you don’t get RFS pricing unless you’ve earned in the past 12 months but y9ou can still actually book with Avios (non RFS). Qatar you don’t need activity, just connect a Qatar account to your BA account and Avios will be sucked from BA automatically.
One way or another I think you are flying business!
Yes did it last night. I had a look at one of the articles @NorthernLass flagged and it looks like I can transfer some Amex points over as ‘activity’ so will do that this evening . As I may use my 241 with my partner on a trip to Thailand with Qatar in a couple of years I better make sure I don’t need to do something similar with the Qatar scheme!
Btw, the 241 vouchers aren’t valid on Qatar, only BA, IB and Aer Lingus.
IB is the only scheme that makes you jump through hoops with ensuring your account is “active”. BA, you don’t get RFS pricing unless you’ve earned in the past 12 months but y9ou can still actually book with Avios (non RFS). Qatar you don’t need activity, just connect a Qatar account to your BA account and Avios will be sucked from BA automatically.
Ohhh, rookie error! Back to the drawing board on how I get to a white sandy beach for that 241 then lol!
Good to know that Qatar are at least straightforward if I do ever need my Avios to book with them
One way or another I think you are flying business!
Yes did it last night. I had a look at one of the articles @NorthernLass flagged and it looks like I can transfer some Amex points over as ‘activity’ so will do that this evening . As I may use my 241 with my partner on a trip to Thailand with Qatar in a couple of years I better make sure I don’t need to do something similar with the Qatar scheme!
Btw, the 241 vouchers aren’t valid on Qatar, only BA, IB and Aer Lingus.
IB is the only scheme that makes you jump through hoops with ensuring your account is “active”. BA, you don’t get RFS pricing unless you’ve earned in the past 12 months but y9ou can still actually book with Avios (non RFS). Qatar you don’t need activity, just connect a Qatar account to your BA account and Avios will be sucked from BA automatically.
Ohh, rookie error! Back to the drawing board on using that 241 then!
Good to know that Qatar is straightforward though should I ever decided to book something through them. I would never have occurred to me that things would be anything other, but I am on a steep learning curve when it comes to the Avios game!
@tootsci How many seats do you need? Return Madrid-Lima-Madrid is 68k Avios + tax. You already have enough for that. If you add London for the return you can just use less Avios more cash.
you will have until Late April to book the tickets. Also no need to stress out the outbound. Even now 2024 April has plenty of outbound seats.
It may be different next year – this year Easter is very early, and next year it’s very late, so peak dates (and demand) will adjust accordingly. It’s a moveable redemption feast!
@tootsci How many seats do you need? Return Madrid-Lima-Madrid is 68k Avios + tax. You already have enough for that. If you add London for the return you can just use less Avios more cash.
Just the one seat. Is that Avios + tax for economy? I’m looking at business for this trip to have my first ever experience of ‘turning left’ (hope Iberia doesn’t disappoint, I’ve read mixed things about the service, though really all I actually want is a lie-flat bed for my middle-aged back and knees!)
So if the issue is the higher costs going from London on the outbound leg, then I could do MAD-LIM (or Quito) and then LIM-MAD-LON on the inbound leg. I’ll definitely go to MAD the day before on the way out to make sure I’m there for the long-haul section but it would be simpler to go all the way through on the way back.
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