Be careful: Check these two Avios sales to get the best price for you

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Finnair has been running an Avios sale since the middle of last week and British Airways has just launched a new flash sale, and the key thing for Avios collectors to know right now is that it while both sales are offering different bonuses, the best sale for you may not be the one offering the highest headline bonus.

The Finnair Avios sale

The Finnair Avios sale runs through 18 September (so there’s no big hurry to get involved) and is structured like this:

• Buy 1,000 – 5,000 Avios and get zero bonus
• Buy 5,000 – 49,000 Avios and get a 30% bonus
• Buy 50,000 – 200,000 Avios and get a 50% bonus

Key terms:

• Transactions must be completed by 18 September (23:59:59 UTC+3) 2024 to earn the bonus Avios.
• Finnair Plus members can purchase for themselves or as a gift a maximum of 200,000 Avios in the calendar year.
• The combined maximum amount of Avios that a member can buy or receive is 200,000 Avios per calendar year.*
• Bonus Avios offered as part of this special offer are not included in this limit.
• Avios will be added to your account 1–3 days after the purchase.

A 50% bonus is as good as it gets with Avios sales so from that point of view, things look promising. The less promising aspect of this sale is that it will, apparently, take between 1 and 3 days for any Avios that you buy to show up in your Finnair Plus account.

The British Airways flash sale

British Airways has just launched a flash sale that runs for 72 hours and it has a very simple structure:

• Buy 2,000 – 200,000 Avios and get a 40% bonus

There’s no option to just buy 1,000 Avios.

Key terms:

• The offer is available from 00:01 BST 09 September 2024 to 23:59 BST 11 September 2024 only.
• During the Offer Period, Eligible Participants will receive 40% extra Avios (bonus Avios) when they Purchase or Gift Avios.
• The Purchaser can buy a maximum of 200,000 Avios in any one calendar year*.
• The Bonus Avios will not count towards your annual limit of 200,000 Avios.
• The Purchaser must have at least one Avios in their Executive Club account in order to buy Avios. If the Purchaser has a balance of zero Avios, they will need to have collected or redeemed Avios in the past 36 months in order to buy Avios.
• You have the right to cancel contracts for the purchase of Avios within 14 days of purchase provided the Avios have not been used.

40% isn’t the best bonus that we see British Airways offer (that would be the 50% bonus that appears reasonable frequently), but if you need some Avios right now, this may still be the best sale for you.

*These caps are mostly irrelevant now because they only apply to Avios purchases from Finnair and British Airways. You can still buy Avios from AerClub, Iberia Plus or Qatar Airways up to their annual caps and those Avios can be moved freely between all Avios earning accounts.

This is what you need to know

For both sales, the price per Avios varies according to the number of Avios that you buy and according to the bonus that you’re being given. What this means is that just because two separate Avios purchases may come with the same bonus, they won’t necessarily be offering the same price per Avios.

Note: I’m now about to show some examples which will be priced in GBP (because my BA account is based in the UK) but the principles are the same regardless of what currency is being used.

For example:

We know that all British Airways purchases of 2,000 Avios or more will attract a 40% bonus, but the cost per Avios when you buy 5,000 Avios is not the same as the cost per Avios when you buy 50,000 Avios.

Buying 5,000 Avios with a 40% bonus would net you 7,000 Avios at a cost of £105 (1.500p per Avios) while buying 50,000 Avios with a 40% bonus would net you 70,000 Avios at a cost of £899 (~1.284p per Avios).

Same bonus, but very different cost per Avios.

Because these sales are structured in this way and because both sales aren’t offering the same maximum bonus, the best sale for someone to use will depend on the number of Avios they want to buy.

So, what does this mean in practice?

Well … Finnair sells its Avios in Euros, so to make things comparable, I’ve converted Euros to GBP at a rate of 1.18 Euro to the pound (that’s a little conservative based on today’s rate, but it should work ok).

Here’s how the cost per Avios changes depending on how many Avios you buy in the Finnair Avios sale:

And here’s a similar table showing what happens in the BA flash sale:

As you can see, the fewer Avios you need to buy, the more likely it will be that the British Airways sale will give you the better price per Avios purchased, and the larger the number of Avios that you need to buy, the more likely it will be that the Finnair sale will give you the better price per Avios.

If you only need to buy ~100,000 Avios in total (i.e. including the bonus), there’s not much difference between the two sales, but at opposite ends of the spectrum, the cost differences can be significant and as you can now move Avios freely between Finnair Plus and British Airways, there’s no reason to pay any more for Avios than you absolutely must.

Bottom line

If you need to top up an Avios account, be aware that there are two sales currently in progress. The Finnair sale (which runs through 18 September) will give you the best cost per Avios if you’re buying a large number of Avios while the British Airways flash sale (ends on 11 September) will give the best deal to those who only need to buy a modest number of Avios.

Note: If you’re buying in a foreign currency and you’re using a credit card that charges foreign transaction fees, those fees will need to be factored in to your calculations.

Link to Finnair Avios sale
Link to British Airways Avios sale