When you book a normal flight with British Airways (i.e. not using vouchers or Avios points), just before check-out you will see an offer to lower the cost of your ticket using Avios.
The first thing to mention about this discount is that you can use this to discount the amount of cash you have to pay for the flight, WITHOUT affecting the number of tier points or Avios you will earn from the booking. In fact, it’s the only way to book using Avios and still get tier points. If your mission in life is to get more tier points to get to a higher level in the Exec Club, and you have tonnes of Avios to spend, this is a good way to save you spending some money.
What’s the catch?
You should be aware that the amount of money you save gets less with the more Avios you spend. Essentially your Avios are worth less, the more you spend!
Let’s look at what this means, remember Avios do have a rough value, very roughly 1p per Avios.
If we convert the Avios into money and compare it with how much money BA are offering to give you back, you’ll see how the deal gets worse as the amount increases:
Avios cost | Cash equivalent | Money BA are offering you | How much you lose! |
5600 | £56 | £50 | -£6 |
8000 | £80 | £61 | -£19 |
12930 | £129 | £99 | -£30 |
24420 | £244 | £143 | -£101 |
45510 | £455 | £230 | -£225 |
65590 | £656 | £304 | -£352 |
95500 | £955 | £405 | -£550 |
125580 | £1,256 | £540 | -£716 |
196170 | £1,962 | £844 | -£1,118 |
Bottom line
Personally, I quite often use the lowest values at the top of the table to shave a little bit off my flight costs. This is because I have a lot of Avios and my main goal is often tier points, not getting the best value out of my Avios. Remember you were given the Avios for free, so even if you use the worst deal and save £844 on your ticket, yes, you’ve not got the best use of your Avios but you’ve saved a good amount of money.
However, if you want to get the most value out of your Avios, this is not the way to do it, better use them for Avios tickets or upgrades. Read my article on booking with Avios here.
