-
So have been collecting them for a while and built up a healthy pot.
We’re a family of 5 with 3 young kids so business class flights are not really our thing so my thinking was to convert them to nectar and use at Sainsburys where I could then buy vouchers for other high street shops.
Limited to 50k avios converted per month but that works out to about £335 which isn’t bad.
Anyone have any better ideas?
A lot of people swear by converting to Nectar, however with 3 young kids your holidays are going to be very, very, expensive once they’re at school. Even economy redemptions at peak periods can be amazing value. I was just reading an article on my news feed saying one-way flights from Spain to the UK at the end of the school holidays last week were approaching the £800 pp mark.
But with 500,000 avios, you could convert some and still have plenty left over for flights.
– Nectar hotels or ebay are good exits for a large Nectar balance in addition to Sainsbury’s
– if you’re not bothered with business on long haul Premium Economy is decent – you may need to book one adult & some kids on Avios; one adult plus remainder for cash
– don’t forget you can treat family members and friends — I gave my mum a cruise with Virgin, the value was far better than anything i could have squeezed out myself
– last minute bookings with Avios are almost always a huge saving, but you’ll rarely if ever see five seats — keep sufficient aside to cover that emergency trip home/abroad (in a decade as a serious collector I’ve done that twice, once for me and once for a friend)Even as a family of 5 (I am
In the same situation, albeit I still look into Premium Travel thanks to 2-4-1 and Barclays Upgrade Vouchers), you can have better return using the Avios for travel, especially if you look at redemptions options across all the airlines that use Avios as currency (Iberia, Vueling, AirLingus, Qatar, obviously BA and soon Finnair).The Avios to nectar exchange gives you basically 0.66p per Avios, whilst you can easily get 1p or above using it against flights, even in Economy.
There would be an argument going forward for switching to pure cashback options, such as Chase 1% for the up to £1500 spend per month on certai. Spending categories, if you do not want to put more effort in finding the best return for future Avios earning, but with an existing pot of 500,000 Avios, I would try to get better return than a simple conversion to Nectar.
I am more on the psychlogical side of the redemptions. Once converted to nectars, it feels like, it just goes away on groceries and gift cards for jeans.
With Barclays and Amex vouchers and very careful planning, I think you can get more value and “pleasure” from your pot. I’d assume some of your kids are young, so flying to Asia or accross the ponds wouldn’t be in your immediate plans, but still for Greece and Turkey in high season, you can get good and pleasurable value from them.+1 on high season redemptions – flights at decent times to places like Dalaman can cost eye watering amounts in school hols so even redeeming for economy offers a decent return. Likely need to do some planning and dive in at T-355 to get seats though
Long haul less bargains around but value can be there e.g. peak dates to Orlando if you were ever planning on something like that
That said, I got through a big chunk at Sainsbury before Nectar got devalued. I put the cash I saved on my groceries aside for a cruise we’re going on so I didn’t feel like we’d wasted them on something dull. I still have a healthy stash but we’re planning on just doing places like France on the ferry etc for a few years so made sense for us to cash some out
We’re in similar situation (two kids and sitting on 1m Avios). We have no need/desire to do long haul for a few years, so we’re just slowly drawing down for short haul trips – organised 12 months ahead.
Have spent 350,000 since the end of lockdown and never got less than 1p/Avios. Other advantage is that the Avios are refunded if plans change.
Incidentally, I did look at Nectar route but was under the impression that Nectar points can’t be used to buy third party gift cards?
I am more on the psychlogical side of the redemptions. Once converted to nectars, it feels like, it just goes away on groceries and gift cards for jeans.
I’d completely agree — and for that reason I hold a little savings account for use exclusively to fund purchases when on holiday. This is topped up every time I sacrifice points or c/back for “essentials” , ie anything other than a holiday booking.
I’ve built up a comparable balance and in our case it’s 2 adults and 2 children, however after casually browsing for places to go in and around Feb half term and Easter hols etc, I must admit I really struggled to identify availability for 4 seats in many cases which would work with school hols.
I think I even priced up LHR – Rome for a short Xmas city break, and the only outbound availability some day after Christmas was for a 6am departure or something.
I’m going to hang tight but I think I need to change my approach in line with the recommendations above, ie plan 12+ months in advance as opposed to c. 6 months.
I know a couple of friends who folded on the points game because they couldn’t cope with the cognitive load of trying to redeem around family life (kids!) constraints. This site is great for too tips though.
There are a bunch of popular European routes that you don’t need to stay up until midnight to book well timed flights for school holidays but tend to disappear within a few days of availability opening up.
The key is to look at your term dates and just get in the habit of booking somewhere you fancy going. As things stand, the cost of cancelling is £1 per person. This might change but even if it does, £35 per person isn’t life changing.
Avios are wonderful for this as you can end up with great flights for less than you’d pay on a LCC that can be cancelled up to 24 hours before you fly.
I value this quite highly.
@froggee – is it confirmed it is still the case that you get an (almost) full refund on avios bookings (no matter what £/avios amounts paid?
I thought this was a brief glitch a while back but interesting if still going.
I know a couple of friends who folded on the points game because they couldn’t cope with the cognitive load of trying to redeem around family life (kids!) constraints. This site is great for too tips though.
Having a kid, thus being restricted with the school holidays, was the number one reason for me to get into this game…
I agree with the above posters, school holiday flights are a complete rip off. Using Avios for economy flights short haul can make absolutely massive savings.
I like a decent size pot to play with. But does come with the risk of devaluation.
I used a wedge a year ago when Gatwick had their 2p/Avios off flights. Which was a massive saving on already cheap PE flights to Tampa for 6 of us.
Thanks for the tips and recommendations. I think I will convert some to nectar to help pay for Xmas and then will keep the rest for future holidays as mentioned above.
I’ll continue to collect so will build up a good pot anyway even if I do convert some to nectar
@froggee – is it confirmed it is still the case that you get an (almost) full refund on avios bookings (no matter what £/avios amounts paid?
I thought this was a brief glitch a while back but interesting if still going.
Well BA haven’t confirmed it but they wouldn’t. I last cancelled flights less than a fortnight ago and several months after bringing back 50p per leg cancellations it was still working. Others have also reported this. It doesn’t work when using a 241 but otherwise seems fine.
I wouldn’t book flights for every weekend so I could pick nice weather on this basis but then I wouldn’t do that anyway as it’s wrong. But I now have a book European flights first, ask questions later policy! The risk of going from £1 for a return to £35 when it is 80% that I’ll go is one I’m happy to take.
You can check for yourself if you have any booked as at the final cancellation stage (i.e. before clicking accept) it confirms what you’ll get back.
Website suggests the fee is £35 for cancelling, and I’m pretty sure that is what I was charged recently. https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/spending-avios/booking-and-service-fees
Although if you only pay £2 + Avios in the first place, I’m not sure how they deduct £35 from the reimbursement!
@froggee – is it confirmed it is still the case that you get an (almost) full refund on avios bookings (no matter what £/avios amounts paid?
I thought this was a brief glitch a while back but interesting if still going.
I cancelled a couple of AVIOS flights yesterday – both booked with a £17.50 fee. The cancellation page stated a £17.00 refund for each – hopefully that’s what will arrive on my CC.
Save the Avios and plan ahead. Next year will be our fifth family holiday using reward seats (would be No 7 had COVID not have happened).
If going in school holidays shorthaul redemptions to popular destinations can save you BIG.
But you need to start planning for next year around May the year before. We often book our accommodation in May for July the next year, as you will find more choice and better prices booking early. Just make sure the property has free cancellation in case you cannot bag the Reward flights.
Then know your -355 dates and be online to book them when they come online. I often have to book next year’s outbound flight while on holiday. Plenty of popular destinations have multiple flights.
Thing with holidays is your not going till you book the flights. Once you book the flights you are going.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
