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Hi Everyone,
I have approximately 180,000 Avios as of now and hope to reach up to 200,000 by end of May 2025. I also have two 241 voucher in the family.
Please advise me the best way to use them for my trip to Far East (KL/Bangkok/Singapore/Jakarta) in end of June 2025 for a family of 4 adults.
I am planning Manchester – KL/Bankgkok/Singapore/Jakarta and return. Dont mind landing anywhere and boarding anywhere while returning. Locally I plan to fly based on best price and connection.
However I would certainly prefer Qatar Airways over British Airways. I am planning to purchase the ticket by cash and use Avios to upgrade to Business Class.
Or use 241 for British Airways ticket.Please advise the best option.
Am afraid it’s a bit too late to book or upgrade using Avios as most award seats are taken well in advance.
You might find one or two premium economy seats to Singapore on BA. Slightly better on KL route, but that route is likely to be cancelled, in my opinion, due to their 787 troubles.
QR might have more availability as they fly more routes, but again i doubt you can find more than one or two award seats. You cannot use the 2-4-1 voucher on QR.
The other options are to look at flying economy outbound and using the voucher for the inbound.
Or look at other airlines like Finnair or other Oneworld carriers like Srilankan.Also consider QR from other locations (Birmingham, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam etc) to maximise chances of finding availability.
There is still availability, though you may need to be flexible. E.g., Tuesday 17th June outbound to KL with BA just picking one date at random, has 8 World Traveller seats, 2 World Traveller Plus and if you have the voucher from the BA Premium Plus (paid) Amex, is wide open with extra availability in Club World.
Your restriction, though will be in the number of Avios you have available. For four of you, BA World Traveller with the 2for1 vouchers will be possible if you can find availability on suitable dates. Any higher cabin will require more Avios, as would Qatar where you can’t use the voucher. Using them for upgrade to BA WT+ in one direction may also be possible, but if not upgrading at the time of purchase note that only certain WT fare buckets are upgradable and 4 seats on the same flight in WT+ will be much harder to find.
Are the vouchers from the free or paid Amex? If the former you can only use them in World Traveller (economy) anyway.
Don’t worry too much about the risk of KL being cancelled. BA would have to reroute you if that happened.
In theory you may just about be able to do all four of you in WT+ (premium economy) both directions as an upgrade to KL, which would require a grand total of 182,000 Avios on off-peak dates plus likely nearly £4K for the base fare and additional taxes and fees for the upgrade. However, as I said before, I think you’ll struggle to find WT+ redemption seats for all four of you on the same flights.
BA do also offer options to reduce the Avios requirement for a higher cash payment. If you do have the paid Amex vouchers, it is possible for four people to do:
WT+ at 182,000 Avios plus a rather more palatable £1,880 for four (so forget Avios for upgrade in this case).
CW can be done for 175,000 plus just over £9K(!) return if you can find availability that works in both directions.
Similare to OP, I too am planning a trip to the far east in April 26 for a family of three using a mixture of Economy and Business cabins using Avios for the longhaul legs. We plan to travel to Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand (in any order). My local airport in the UK is MAN, so the cost & time of getting to & from London has to be factored in with possible overnight stays needed.
I am new to Avios, but have been a collector of points for about 15 years with EY, EK & most recently AY. I will have around 250K Avios by April 25 and a couple of upgrade vouchers from Barclays CC & current accounts. According to the maths I have done, I cant find it cost effective to use the upgrade vouchers, it doesn’t seem cost effective. When I take everything into account, such as peak travel periods and cost of tax on top of tickets & a few shorter flights with cash, I came up with the following:
BA (Using Upgrade Vouchers for outward long-haul) – 255K Avios + £2080 Cash
QR – 340K Avios + £1900 Cash
AY – 277K Avios + £1460 CashMaybe I am missing something, but the upgrade vouchers seem pointless for my circumstances. I think maybe I am better taking the 7000 Avois, which seems like a real waste. Any advice would be appreciate.
@PaulR it seems that there is not really much to advise. I didn’t double check your figures, but yes, Barclays “upgrade” voucher has little value, I agree.
(I mostly use them for intra-Europe flights these days)Assuming that you are fine with the AY hard product and would not mind flying there, I think the choice is clear.
With BA you are paying for “LHR premium” practically.Assuming that you are fine with the AY hard product and would not mind flying there, I think the choice is clear.
With BA you are paying for “LHR premium” practically.I like the AY business seat. Ive used it three times on 12+ hour flights and find it better then traditional reclining seats. The soft product is not the best on AY, but it will do. Getting to from MAN-HEL is similar timing and cost as going MAN-LGW (Train). The points and taxes is a huge saving by positioning from HEL.
For example using the upgrade voucher for three people in peak times from LGW-BKK would be 240K Avios +£1000 Tax. Where as HEL-BKK in peak times would be 188K Avios + £300 Tax. This saves 58K Avios and £700@PaulR, in my opinion, the main constraint would be the availability. Some have quoted seeing many seats available, but I rarely see more than 1 or 2 seats available in business in AY. Also people quote availability without considering school holidays, so dont be surprised if you dont see them. You may get lucky. But keeping plan B ready would be good. As long as you can get to one of the 3 hubs, you can fly short haul in any direction easily.
On Avios and vouchers, yes, we dumped the paid barclaycards in favour of BAPPs to give us flexibility (can book return only trips) and additional availability. Keep the free barclaycards for where they dont accept amex. Maximise boost option with BA, keep AY and QR accounts open and active, to pounce on any opportunity that can be suddenly available. Use the AY accounts to transfer between partner accounts as AY and QR do not have household functionality.
As a couple we’ve found the upgrade vouchers useful to book a CW outbound for two one-way to SIN or KUL with BA, returning with QR (or AY).
There’s a cost benefit to that due to the BA RFS cash element generally being the same for outbound and inbound whereas paying actual taxes and fees with other airlines is more expensive on the outbound due to UK APD. Coupled with the BA flights being direct and assuming we want to start in a city served by BA (or not served directly by QR/AY), it makes it sufficiently attractive despite QR having a superior product and service.
But Heathrow is our local airport, we are travelling as a couple and we do book a long way in advance (often 355 days out). Even then, the inbound trip is better value with QR/AY.
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