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Booking LGW to MLA for May 26 half term, 4 adults. Economy standard £457 return, CE £870, cash. Best value Avios for CE equivalent to £484 return using 1p rule, economy standard £257. Four CE snapped up! It shows that even short haul redemptions can be very good value.l with Avios.
Why would 4 adults want to go away during half term, are you teachers?!
Seriously, though, yes you can get phenomenal value on short-haul routes at peak times. One of my best redemptions was on one of the the much missed MAN routes – 4 x ET MAN-NCE on Monaco Grand Prix weekend.
Please can we stop threads like this immediately? Negativity and derision are de rigueur here. Highlighting the excellent value that can be had simply will not do.
Booking LGW to MLA for May 26 half term, 4 adults. Economy standard £457 return, CE £870, cash. Best value Avios for CE equivalent to £484 return using 1p rule, economy standard £257. Four CE snapped up! It shows that even short haul redemptions can be very good value.l with Avios.
Well done.
But would you have paid that cash price if there wasn’t any award availability, or would you have travelled elsewhere?Well done, avios can be great value. You got to where you wanted to go at a time you wanted for half price, and refundable.
Why would 4 adults want to go away during half term, are you teachers?!
Maybe because they have kids who are over 12 but still in education. Grow up.
This is much more like it – attacking anonymous strangers is just how balanced people should be spending their evenings.
@NorthernLass is always super helpful.
I did want to play devil’s avocado on a similar half term booking albeit to TFS for a family of four..
Club out / economy back in half term: £7350 if cash fare
Avios equivalent £708 and 66k Avios on the basis of that combo being the best value (doing the 1p thing).
Whilst I recognise May half term is peak and the outbound leg in Club, £7350 for return flights to Tenerife? I think it was £6k for economy return ie £1500pp.
I wasn’t sure if I was comparing to an artificially high, just released BA cash fare which is at peak price as it’s just released, when perhaps I should compare with a LCC for a similar route albeit EZY and Ryanair may not have released May 2026 just yet.
Thoughts welcome anyway!
Good one.
Another good use of Avios is J seats on the AY a350 to HEL.Got 5 seats in CE to Milan using Avios in February half term for a skiing trip with a teacher family member. Price at 1p/Avios was well below Economy rates which, in turn, were a fraction of the cost to Geneva. At half term, CE is a very welcome upgrade from the teenage bedlam at the back of the flight.
Without a voucher, European flights tend to give the best value per Avios in my experience.
Serious sense of humour fail here, especially as it’s a common theme on this forum to bewail the cash cost of travel during peak periods. I do sometimes wonder whether it’s worth helping some of the people on here.
Why would 4 adults want to go away during half term, are you teachers?!
Seriously, though, yes you can get phenomenal value on short-haul routes at peak times. One of my best redemptions was on one of the the much missed MAN routes – 4 x ET MAN-NCE on Monaco Grand Prix weekend.
It’s a fair point! One of them is a teacher, our daughter. There’s six adults actually, but as we’re retired we’re going earlier and coming back later.
Serious sense of humour fail here, especially as it’s a common theme on this forum to bewail the cash cost of travel during peak periods. I do sometimes wonder whether it’s worth helping some of the people on here.
Indeed, for a while I thought that HFP was free of the thoroughly unpleasant humourless behaviour that plagues the web nowadays. I guess the more popular and mainstream HFP has got, the more po faced posters will shout every one down from their soap box.
Booking LGW to MLA for May 26 half term, 4 adults. Economy standard £457 return, CE £870, cash. Best value Avios for CE equivalent to £484 return using 1p rule, economy standard £257. Four CE snapped up! It shows that even short haul redemptions can be very good value.l with Avios.
Well done.
But would you have paid that cash price if there wasn’t any award availability, or would you have travelled elsewhere?Why is that relevant?
Because if the cash price is sufficiently high enough that you would never have paid that much then it isn’t a direct reflection of the Avios value.
Because if the cash price is sufficiently high enough that you would never have paid that much then it isn’t a direct reflection of the Avios value.
I don’t agree. The value of Avios in this instance is it allows you to go somewhere you wouldn’t have been able to afford or couldn’t justify paying the cash price.
There’s a Tenerife example in the thread where the benefit is saving £6,000 on return economy flights. That’s a tangible value.
I agree that if it allows you to go somewhere you wanted to but wouldn’t have paid cash for there is a genuine opportunity benefit, but that is different from a cash benefit. Hence why the original question was asked.
Booking LGW to MLA for May 26 half term, 4 adults. Economy standard £457 return, CE £870, cash. Best value Avios for CE equivalent to £484 return using 1p rule, economy standard £257. Four CE snapped up! It shows that even short haul redemptions can be very good value.l with Avios.
Well done.
But would you have paid that cash price if there wasn’t any award availability, or would you have travelled elsewhere?Booking LGW to MLA for May 26 half term, 4 adults. Economy standard £457 return, CE £870, cash. Best value Avios for CE equivalent to £484 return using 1p rule, economy standard £257. Four CE snapped up! It shows that even short haul redemptions can be very good value.l with Avios.
Well done.
But would you have paid that cash price if there wasn’t any award availability, or would you have travelled elsewhere?Booking LGW to MLA for May 26 half term, 4 adults. Economy standard £457 return, CE £870, cash. Best value Avios for CE equivalent to £484 return using 1p rule, economy standard £257. Four CE snapped up! It shows that even short haul redemptions can be very good value.l with Avios.
Well done.
But would you have paid that cash price if there wasn’t any award availability, or would you have travelled elsewhere.Economy cash would be last resort. CE return for 2 was £1797 return, yikes!
Copilot says …
The comment you shared contains a mix of sarcasm, humour, and a serious point, but it’s not a complaint. Let’s break it down:
Comment:
“Why would 4 adults want to go away during half term, are you teachers?!
Seriously, though, yes you can get phenomenal value on short-haul routes at peak times. One of my best redemptions was on one of the the much missed MAN routes – 4 x ET MAN-NCE on Monaco Grand Prix weekend.!”Tone Analysis:
“Why would 4 adults want to go away during half term, are you teachers?!”This is sarcastic and playful. The speaker is poking fun at the idea of adults choosing to travel during school holidays, which are typically more expensive and crowded—unless they’re teachers who are restricted to those dates.
The rhetorical question and the exclamation suggest a light, teasing tone rather than a genuine complaint.
“Seriously, though…”This signals a shift to a more serious tone. The speaker is now making a genuine point about travel value.
“Yes you can get phenomenal value on short-haul routes at peak times…”This part is serious and informative. The speaker is sharing a personal experience to support their point.
Conclusion:
Not a complaint.
Starts sarcastic, then transitions to serious.
Overall tone: light-hearted, informative, and a bit witty.Copilot could comprehend what many did not.
There’s an article in today’s FT about the problem of AI providing answers that are too sycophantic or what the user wants to hear. The above would appear to be a good example of the issue.
Copilot says …
The comment you shared contains a mix of sarcasm, humour, and a serious point, but it’s not a complaint. Let’s break it down:
Comment:
“Why would 4 adults want to go away during half term, are you teachers?!
Seriously, though, yes you can get phenomenal value on short-haul routes at peak times. One of my best redemptions was on one of the the much missed MAN routes – 4 x ET MAN-NCE on Monaco Grand Prix weekend.!”Tone Analysis:
“Why would 4 adults want to go away during half term, are you teachers?!”This is sarcastic and playful. The speaker is poking fun at the idea of adults choosing to travel during school holidays, which are typically more expensive and crowded—unless they’re teachers who are restricted to those dates.
The rhetorical question and the exclamation suggest a light, teasing tone rather than a genuine complaint.
“Seriously, though…”This signals a shift to a more serious tone. The speaker is now making a genuine point about travel value.
“Yes you can get phenomenal value on short-haul routes at peak times…”This part is serious and informative. The speaker is sharing a personal experience to support their point.
Conclusion:
Not a complaint.
Starts sarcastic, then transitions to serious.
Overall tone: light-hearted, informative, and a bit witty.Copilot could comprehend what many did not.
I’ve avoided using AI / chatgpt etc
But if what you quoted is genuine, then I may well reconsider, especially for things like travel itinerariesThere’s a Tenerife example in the thread where the benefit is saving £6,000 on return economy flights. That’s a tangible value.
But only if you were willing to pay the (huge?) cash price, otherwise it isn’t a genuine saving.
Agree the actual benefit is being able to go somewhere that you wouldn’t have been prepared to pay the prevailing cash price.
AI can be very useful in the appropriate context BUT it is just the ‘opinion’ of a specific AI model, based on whatever sources it’s learnt from. Quite often it may as well be a memo from the ‘Department of the Bleedin’ obvious’. 🙂 Let’s stick to real people talking about Avios etc
Indeed the other day I googled something and the AI response said one thing. I changed the question slightly and got a totally opposite response!
As to going back to this thread I’m not sure it actually matters why anyone travels to any part of the world at any particular time or what someone’s occupation is.
People travel travel when they want and need to.
All sorts of jobs – not just teachers – have various restriction on when people can take their annual leave.
It’s not that common these days but various “wakes weeks” basically forced holiday times on many, many workers. I once applied for a job at a University where the holiday allocation was 5 weeks but 1 week of that was forced to be taken at Christmas / New Year!
Why would 4 adults want to go away during half term, are you teachers?!
Maybe because they have kids who are over 12 but still in education. Grow up.
This is much more like it – attacking anonymous strangers is just how balanced people should be spending their evenings.
giggling smiley.
AI can be very useful in the appropriate context BUT it is just the ‘opinion’ of a specific AI model, based on whatever sources it’s learnt from. Quite often it may as well be a memo from the ‘Department of the Bleedin’ obvious’. 🙂 Let’s stick to real people talking about Avios etc
Real people cannot seem to be able to recognise sarcasm!
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