TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission which helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published. For more details please see the advertising disclosure found at the bottom of every page.
In a rather shameless way British Airways has launched a new Avios sale today less than 48 hours after it announced a devaluation to its Avios partner awards.
In its latest Avios promotion British Airways is offering a 50% bonus for purchases made by 21 May 2019 just as it did in its February and December promotions. Also BA has also kept in place the increased 200,000 annual limit for Avios purchases that was introduced last year so this looks to be the new norm.
As always, the price you pay for Avios varies depending on where in the world your British Airways Executive Club account is – I’ll be addressing the cost for US-based and UK-based members.
Buy Avios With A 50% Bonus – Headline T&Cs
- This offer is only open to Members of the British Airways Executive Club (Eligible Participants).
- The offer is available from 00:01 (BST) Thursday 2 May 2019 to 23:59 (BST) Tuesday 21 May 2019 only (the ‘Offer Period’).
- During the Offer Period, Eligible Participants will receive 50% extra Avios (bonus Avios) when they purchase or gift Avios at ba.com.
- Avios can only be purchased at ba.com using the Purchase Avios Application Form found on offer page.
- Eligible Participants may Gift Avios (purchase for someone else) during the promotional period, provided that the recipient holds a British Airways Executive Club account with at least one Avios point in their account.
- The Bonus Avios will not count towards your promotional limit of 200,000 Avios.
- This offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other Purchase Avios offer.
- Purchased Avios can be refunded within 14 days of purchase providing the Avios have not been used. Contact the British Airways Executive Club via BA.com or by telephone to cancel. Payments will be reimbursed no later than 14 days after the date of which the Executive Club was informed about the decision to cancel.
- The Executive Club Terms and Conditions and Conditions of Use apply to this offer and can be found at ba.com.
- British Airways reserves the right to cancel or amend the terms of this offer.
Follow this link for the full terms & conditions
The Cost
The cost of purchasing Avios will vary depending on the address to which your Executive Club account is registered – you get a better deal if you’re based in the UK than if you’re based in the US.
The Math – If You’re Based In The US
Although you’ll get the 50% bonus irrespective of how many or how few Avios you buy, the more Avios you buy the cheaper the cost/Avios figure becomes.
The lowest number of Avios you can buy (1,000) costs $53.00 and will net you 1,500 Avios after accounting for the bonus:
This brings the cost/Avios out to be 3.53 cents.
As you move up the scale the cost/Avios decreases:
• 10,000 Avios will net you 15,000 Avios after the bonus at a cost of $300 or 2.00 cents/Avios
• 30,000 Avios will net you 45,000 Avios after the bonus at a cost of $80 or 1.89 cents/Avios
• 100,000 Avios will net you 150,000 Avios after the bonus at a cost of $2,775 or 1.85 cents/Avios
If you’d like to buy the full allowable allocation of 200,000 Avios it will set you back $5,523 and will net you 300,000 Avios:
This works out to a cost of ~1.84 cents/Avios
The Math – If You’re Based In The UK
In the UK there’s a decrease in cost/Avios the more Avios you buy (just like in the US) and, when you buy the maximum number of Avios allowed, it will set you back £3,215.
This works out to a cost/Avios of £0.0107 or ~$0.014
Should You Buy Avios In This Sale?
Long Haul Flights
For long-haul bookings Avios are almost always a poor option as award bookings tend to attract ridiculously high surcharges….but there can be times when Avios saves the day.
This usually happens when you’re not looking to book too far in advance and will primarily be of use to travelers who can’t be very flexible with their travel plans.
For example:
If you want to fly from New York to London on 13 September and you want to return on 17 September the cheapest non-stop Business Class fare available (on any airline) is $3,644:
For the same dates you can book a British Airways Business Class award for 100,000 Avios + $1,121.86:
Buying 100,000 Avios in this sale (at the cheapest price) would cost you….
- In the US: ~$1,840
- In the UK: ~£1,100 or ~£1,400
In both instances it would be considerably cheaper to buy Avios in this sale and use them to book an award flight than it would be to pay with cash.
Short Haul Flights
One of the very best uses of Avios is for short-haul redemption on routes where cash fares can be high but don’t lose sight of the fact that there’s a partner devaluation coming (for all non-IAG owned partner airlines) and, although we don’t know for sure what that devaluation will look like, it’s a safe bet to say that the cost of most partner awards post 30 May 2019 will be higher than now.
Still, Avios redemption costs on BA aren’t changing for now and you can find some great value when booking short-haul flights within Europe….especially on popular vacation routes.
If we take the London – Cyprus route as an example, peak season roundtrip Economy Class awards on this route will cost 20,000 Avios and approximately $55 in taxes and fees but cash fares often climb past $700.
In this example, and depending on the dates you choose and where your BAEC account is based, 20,000 Avios could easily save you over $400 meaning that each Avios would be saving you 2.0 cents – that’s not bad if you bought Avios at 1.4 cents or 1.84 cents each.
How To Decide If You Should Buy Avios In This Promotion
Work out the math!
If you can see that the cost of a cash fare for your trip is greater than what a reward flight would cost (and that reward flights are actually available to book) then it may be a good idea to buy Avios in this sale and book your trip that way.
Don’t forget, however, that a cash fare will earn you Avios and Tier Points (or any other oneworld currency you may wish to collect) while an award flight will not.
These points/Avios/miles that you would be giving up have value so you should take that into account when working out the best course of action.
Remember: British Airways processes its own points sales so, if you use credit cards like the Citi Prestige, Chase Sapphire or even any of the British Airways credit cards, you’ll earn a lot of bonus points/Avios for spending on travel or for spending directly with the airline.
Bottom Line
The only way to know how good or bad this offer is for your particular circumstances is to decide on what you’d like to spend the Avios on, working out the cost of the award (including surcharges) and comparing it to the cost of a cash fare for the same trip.
For some it will also be worth taking into account any companion vouchers they may have but the math still needs to be done – Avios can be a tricky currency to use economically so don’t avoid the work.
Link to buy Avios with a 50% bonus
Shameless? British Airways?? You don’t say! 😉
They have been this way for a while now, as you know Ziggy, so nothing surprises me anymore.