Forums › Frequent flyer programs › British Airways Executive Club › New to this, is this an acceptable use of Avios for flight price reduction
New to this, is this an acceptable use of Avios for flight price reduction
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I can get a flight in economy from LHR to Funchal for £403.36, however I can trade 27.200 avios for a £136 reduction down to £267.36.
I appreciate the question is subjective i.e. what price do I put on a point, but would be interested to hear peoples thoughts?
Most people here would say that’s a poor use of 27k avios! What value you put on them is a personal thing, but Rob uses 1p as his baseline. I would consider that as my minimum value, and prefer to be nearer to 2p or more for redemption.
Thanks Anna, I thought that might be the case. I’ll probably pay cash and save the avios for something whare I get more value from them.
Thanks Anna, I thought that might be the case. I’ll probably pay cash and save the avios for something whare I get more value from them.
What @Anna said. You are getting 0.5p per Avios which is very, very poor. You might not shop in Saisnburys, Argos or on EBay but there you can get 0.67p value for your Avios if you find that it is difficult to get good value from them on flights.
I start using Avios at 1p value like many on here but frequently beat 1p by a significant margin.
I have ascertained from your other posts that you are a) travelling as half of a retired couple; and b) new to Avios.
Being retired gives you a strategic advantage in using Avios as you have much more flexibility than those of us who are tied to school holidays. Being part of a couple will allow you maximum value if you end up getting the BA Amex and a 241 voucher. And being new to Avios means it might be worth building up a stash while you find sweet spots for redemptions.
As a comparison, BA want 21,500 Avios plus £35 for a return flight to Funchal on peak days. Or they will take 9,500 Avios + £135. They undoubtedly don’t have Avios availability for the date you want to fly this time but as you get the hang of it there will be many excellent opportunities to use these Avios.
And if you really can’t manage to then you can use them to buy an iPad at 0.67p per Avios or similar.
Thank you Frogee. Lots to think about here then.
Yes the above pricing is for two people, and we have a lot of flexibility.
How much you value avios at is a personal thing. I’m happy to spend them at 0.9p per avios as cash is so much more flexible to use.
However I agree that 0.5p per avios is too low, unless you are desperate to go and cash poor.
Hi Peter, Thanks for your input, I’m a bit new to this but asked the question because I though I was aiming a bit low. I think I can probably make better use of them in other ways, I wont be a big collector as it will mainly be amex spends and the odd subscription bonus, so I guess I need to be a bit selective on what I spend them on.
I usually have a different approach for such calculations. It is based on the question “how much would I be willing to pay for Avios?”
In your example, if you take the full cash price, you are paying £136 for 27,200 points. That’s a great deal that I would take and thus would take the cash price.
Thank you, that’s definitely another way to look at it, and I’m pretty keen to go to Madeira. I priced up some of the LCC’s and once I had added in the two hand luggage’s, the BA price seemed competitive. Also if I continue to save, I’m not sure if we will do any long haul redemptions either, so I’m not sure what I would be saving the avios for. The ones I have at the moment are from a gold card subscription so to me it seems like free flights – even though my brain tells me they aren’t. I’m also thinking of boosting the sub to get a few more points to give me a bit of flexibility, so need to sort that our before I spend them – from what I have read that means they will cost me 0.9.
Thanks for the help on this
Managed to secure two seats in Club Europe for £282 and 39,000 avios, still not sure if I have got the hang of it, but it seemed like a good deal to me. Checked the cash price first and it was £2200 unless I was doing it wrong – would people really pay over 2K to fly to Madeira, presumably someone must. I am now a happy bunny.
That’s very high for a cash fare, are you travelling at Christmas or another peak time? This is where you generally get the best value from avios.
Hi, NorthernLass No in the spring and not over any of the bank holidays at that time of year. Probably did something wrong, I might go and have another look it did seem high to me as well, I was going to compare it with a Jet2 flight, but their site was down unfortunately, and I don’t expect they have club, maybe just extra legroom.
Did you look at award flights to see whether they were better value?
Hi Again,
These were booked through the link that is called Reward Flight Saver, so I think that is what they are. I though £140 per person was a good price to get extra legroom, and assume I might be able to use a lounge for 30 mins or so to get a drink before we go through to the gate. I have seen people on here talk of paying just £35 per person, but couldn’t find that price. I suppose I was wondering if I had got good value from my avios.
I’ve checked today and the homeward bound flight is no longer available so maybe I booked the last 2 seats on it.
Your initial post read as though you were booking cash flights and using the option to reduce the amount with avios, this is different from booking an award trip.
If you’d booked award seats (the usual way to do this is to click on “book with avios” at the top of the homepage), you would have been presented with several payment options. £35 pp in fees refers to the previous redemption cost in economy; you can still get this but there all several other options as well now.
It sounds as though you would find helpful the series of articles on here about using avios, e.g. https://www.headforpoints.com/2020/04/06/how-do-you-book-flights-using-avios-points/
Definitely make the most of the lounge and also onboard F & B. You won’t get extra legroom though, unless you can somehow bag row 1 (usually saved for BA top status members but can sometimes be swooped on if you check in exactly 24 hours before the flight). The business cabin on short haul flights is the same as economy – you just get the middle seat blocked, though that does give you extra room to spread sideways!
Thank again and apologies for being a bit of a needy numpty. I am now going off to read the link you have put up which will hopefully make things clearer for me.
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