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New user so please be gentle. After many years of business travel and frequent use of a BA Amex card, I’m sitting on over 4 million Avios. BA never has availability in business or first whenever I try and book a reward flight so the points total just keeps growing. I also used to have loads of Emirates points and would use them at the gate for instant upgrades. Almost worked every time. If only BA did the same, but that’s a moan for a different day. I don’t fly long haul for work anymore but do still regularly fly short hall with BA but never really felt reducing my cash fare by using part Avios was a particularly good / cost effective way to use the points. I’ve also looked into using Avios for holiday car hire over the years but felt that’s a big rip-off so never did it. I have 2 questions really:
1) for those points gurus out there – can you give me some tips on how to spend the 4m Avios in a sensible / good value way
2) I am planning a trip to Melbourne in November and of course BA has no business or first availability using points. Any tips on how to get there in first or business using points – maybe from an EU airport (I am based in the UK) or a partner airline?
Many thanks.
BA doesn’t fly to Melbourne …..
You can get availability to Melbourne pretty much whenever you want on Qatar Airways if you pay double Avios (360k per person in Business). You need to transfer Avios to Qatar Airways Privilege Club and book from there as ba.com doesn’t show the ‘double Avios’ seats. Plenty of articles on how to do this if you search.
BA never has availability in business or first whenever I try and book a reward flight so the points total just keeps growing.
Never? I simply find that hard to believe – especially for club (there aren’t that many F rewards). BA offers a minimum of 4 club reward seats on every flight and quite often more than that. The only restried numbers are flights to a handful of very popular destinations.
But the main tip is to be fliexible on date, destination and routes.
@Rob lots of far fetched threads started by people with new / very few accounts.
@Zappy-chops if you’ve actually got 4m Avios from flying and cards sign up to seat spy shows plenty of Avios business and First flights. And as above be But fliexible on date or be early4 million avios? How gentle would you like me to be?!
As Rob says, Australia is not the easiest place to get to with avios. You can probably find availability to all sorts of places en route and connect from there, though.
I highly recommend the series of articles on here about maximising your avios. As you’ll see, to get the best out of them you need to ideally be planning 12 months ahead, but you can still find good redemptions nearer your travel date.
E.g. https://www.headforpoints.com/british-airways-executive-club-guide/#redeeming-avios
There are about 50 return CW seats available to Hong Kong and Singapore between now and end of schedule.
Your problem seems to be flexibility. As Rob rightly pointed out you can transfer Avios to QR and book double awards to pretty much anywhere at any time.
Lots of flights, and good use of BA Amex – don’t you have any companion vouchers and/or aren’t you BAEC Gold? Both open up additional redemption opportunities that mere mortals don’t have – surely there are some destinations that appeal.
don’t you have any companion vouchers and/or aren’t you BAEC Gold? Both open up additional redemption opportunities that mere mortals don’t have
Something isn’t quite right with this OP.
I know it’s not the ‘best’ use of Avios, but surely if you’ve accumulated that many and can’t find Reward seats you could have knocked something off a cash fare to make use of them?
Also a few to KUL. Or if you’ve got plenty of time, go the long way round, you are almost certain to find availability in F to some North and South American cities. I would love to plan this trip!
I guess OP needs to be specific when/where they are targeting…
Melbourne in November is pretty specific, to be fair, albeit a tad unrealistic.
Also a few to KUL. Or if you’ve got plenty of time, go the long way round, you are almost certain to find availability in F to some North and South American cities. I would love to plan this trip!
They could also make good use of the multi-partner redemption chart if willing to put in the time and effort into planning.
As @freckles mentions, OP may have companion vouchers if they have the BA Amex. The paid version of this gives access to more CW seats, especially from the regions – so worth researching this as well as people have had luck finding award seats to SYD this way.
Melbourne in November is pretty specific, to be fair, albeit a tad unrealistic.
Well, specific in some sense but not with BA.
And as others mentioned, QR is easy with that route.
You can book flex QR flight to MEL almost anytime you want. I booked an one way MEL-MAN ticket using 540k avios for 3 of us during school holiday. It’s not a cost effective way but why not if you are posits rich.
Playing travel agents I have spotted 1 normally priced business class seat DOH-MEL on November 28th. The system threw me out when I tried to add London into the mix, but seats to DOH tend to be 10 a penny, even if you had to book separately.
Japan for blossom season March/ April 2025 on JAL.
Presumably you are Gold for Life with that level of historic business travel. In which case you can use Gold Priority Rewards to use double Avios for any BA flight that has empty seats (just need to call BA and book more than 30 days in advance).
It’s late at night so I am just running this past what is 4 million avios worth if converted to Nectar. Is it 64,000 Pounds ? Which would theoretically then be spendable on ebay, possibly on something saleable ? (If Argos and Sainburgy’s don’t appeal)
PS if you fly into Melbourne, personally I’d fly out via Sydney. The Sydney First Class QF lounge is actually worth a diversion for especially from early lunchtime onwards
We often come across people on holiday with loads of Avios but no real clue how to use them properly. When we educate them on the possibilities it’s usually a religious-like conversion, they don’t care or can’t be bothered. Had the former on the holiday we’re on now,they were very grateful for the advice. My advice to the OP is to read the articles on this website!
I note the OP mentioned ‘rip off’ re some redemption so I presume you have some view on value of your points. I would think if you are struggling so much / not that keen to spend as much time calling and searching then use them via nectar points if it meets your minimum value and use the saved cash to buy cash flights.
Thanks everyone for the responses. Just adding a bit to my original post. Yes, I do see that if I am flexible on dates and destinations then I can use points for business / first reward seats, but that’s not how I travel. I know where I want to go and when (but not always far enough in advance) and I have tried to use my points with BA an untold number of times and there is never any availability for where I want to go.
I also always get the companion voucher annually and have 2 currently active I think.
I am gold for life with BA and was regularly Gold Guest List when I was travelling frequently. That helped a bit as they would open up extra reward seats with that status, but I don’t have that anymore.
I don’t really have a sense for what 4 million points is worth but when I’ve looked at using them for car hire for example, I’ve just felt the number of points required to save the regular price for the hire seemed an awful lot.
I don’t really have a sense for what 4 million points is worth but when I’ve looked at using them for car hire for example, I’ve just felt the number of points required to save the regular price for the hire seemed an awful lot.
Have you read this? https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/03/25/what-is-an-avios-point-worth-7/
So at a minimum cashing out to Nectar they’re worth £20k. Anything better than 0.5p as a redemption is good.
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