How much would you have to save to shop elsewhere and not receive avios?

[newsq]

E.g. Lets say site A offers a product at £70 and you could get 5 avios per £ on the BA portal. Site B offers it for £60 but no avios. What would you choose?
Do you look at whether saving £10 is worth gaining lets say 350 avios at 5/£ spent? And then consider that 350 avios is worth only 70p at most and go for site B as you technically are getting a better deal? Or do you prefer to accumulate as many avios even if it means a worse deal short term?

[AJA]

I go for site b. I really don’t see the point in paying £10 extra to get 350 Avios. You are effectively paying 2.8p per Avios which at best are worth 1p.

[Nigel Keya]

First question is easy – BA portal is sh!te so you won’t go for that —> B

actually that’s the only question.

So answer is: BA portal is completely sh!te. You mostly won’t get the Avios. Avoid.

[Andrew.]

Too basic.

I’d be checking multiple retailers on PAW, Airtime, popular rebate sites, Nectar Connect, Amex, Barclaycard, Virgin, Halifax, BoS & Amex and not forgetting the intranet for staff offers.

Cash is king, points are just a bonus.

[can]

I think this question makes much more sense than it looks — but only for large purchases.
I always use the BA portal for TVs, furniture, phones etc, anything >£500. All large retailers that I normally shop from is there and you can bank couple thousand avios easy.

[Aston100]

Haven’t bothered with the BA portal since my one and only purchase didn’t pay out.
Is it actually any better than ‘Voldeportal’ aka the c@shb@ck site that cannot be named?

[Aston100]

Topcashback

Edit: oh wow, it’s now the site that can apparently be named again.

[memesweeper]

Andrew. wrote:

Too basic.

I’d be checking multiple retailers on PAW, Airtime, popular rebate sites, Nectar Connect, Amex, Barclaycard, Virgin, Halifax, BoS & Amex and not forgetting the intranet for staff offers.

Cash is king, points are just a bonus.

+1

Risk of clawback or just not paying out means I won’t pay anything extra.

Amex offers, on the other hand, definitely change my behaviour.

[BuildBackBetter]

As others have mentioned, get the cash saving and buy miles from BA when there is a sale, if needed. Their new miles subscription makes sense if you prefer saving cash and buying miles.

BA portal can come up with new ways to refuse avios.

[Nigel Keya]

Aston100 wrote:

Topcashback

Edit: oh wow, it’s now the site that can apparently be named again.

Aston100 wrote:

Haven’t bothered with the BA portal since my one and only purchase didn’t pay out.
Is it actually any better than ‘Voldeportal’ aka the c@shb@ck site that cannot be named?

No – it’s a lot worse. 1. I find that TCB mostly tracks and pays out extremely effectively (vs BA shopping portal pretty useless). For small purchases I can’t be bothered, but for significant c/b eg £40 on pet insurance or car insurance, I bang in a claim immediately after the purchase in case it doesn’t track (you have date/ order no etc immediately to hand so it saves trying to look up stuff later). TCB discourage this but you can easily make their day better by deleting your claim as soon as it tracks. For untracked items but with a claim, I find that you do generally get the retailer to pay out eventually.

2. You get a really good range of options to cash out, not just to your bank a/c or to Avios but to eg Amazon giftcards/ Tesco/ Sainsbury/ Waitrose.

[jj]

TL;DR: 0.8p/Avios is my cut-off point.

The first consideration is the value of an Avios. Maybe my flying patterns are different from others, but I generally find good availability and consistently gain much more than 1p value per Avios. I also value Avios as they can make the impossible possible: speculative flexible bookings with family members whose employers have complex leave arrangements, for example; or weekend flights when cash prices are out of reach.

But Avios aren’t liquid like cash, they can’t be spent with other airlines, and they aren’t a long-term value store as they can be devalued at any time. So, while an Avios is worth more than 1p when I spend it, I won’t buy at more than 1p; that way, I can make a meaningful profit when I travel.

Again unlike others, I have little issue with the BA Shopping Portal failing to track. I earn around 50,000 Avios per annum through the Portal, and I usually only need to lodge claims 1-2 times per annum. Only one claim has ever failed to be honoured (Trainline: if your social media team is reading this, you should know that I have spent several £’000 on train tickets with other providers since you denied my Avios claim). However, unlike cash, it takes a long time to realise value through the Portal. If I book a hotel or car rental through the BA Portal, I may wait 12 months for my Avios to finally land, but a cash discount is available immediately. I put a premium of around 20% on that time delay, so my cut-off is normally 0.8p per Avios.

I also always compare TCB with the Avios store. I value an Avios at 1p when deciding which to use.

My final piece of advice is this: never allow cashback or Avios to tempt you into buying an inferior product or something you wouldn’t otherwise have bought.