DEAL: Earn Double Avios On Flights Through The End Of The Year

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British Airways has launched a promotion offering double Avios on flights through the end of 2018 and you don’t even have to fly with British Airways to make the most of this deal.

As with most promotions there are quite a few terms and conditions which you can find by following this link….but here are the more important ones you’ll need to know:

• You must register on this British Airways webpage by 31 December 2018
• Book and fly up to 10 qualifying flights during the promotional period (27 September to 31 December 2018)
• A Qualifying flight is either a one-way (single sector) or a return flight (two sectors) between the point of departure and final destination with no scheduled change of aircraft that must be booked after the Member has registered.
• A Qualifying flight is:
  • a BA prefix on any selling class (excluding Reward flights) or cabin on any BA operated service
  • a BA prefix on a transatlantic flight operated by British Airways (BA), American Airlines (AA), Iberia (IB) or Finnair (AY) between the Europe and North America.
  • any flight included as part of a British Airways Holiday package
• The promotion also applies to travel on domestic flights within the UK and Southern Africa (operated by Comair), Sunnair and CityFlyer.
• Eligible Participants will receive the double Avios Points before any cabin or tier bonuses on all tickets except reward flights.
• This promotion cannot be used retrospectively. This promotion only applies to those who register, book and travel during the promotion period.

Thoughts

The most important thing to note here is that bookings which have already been made will not earn double Avios in this promotion – BA has been very clear about that in at least two different places in the terms and conditions – and that’s disappointing.

It’s also important to not that it’s only the base Avios that will be doubled and not the total number of Avios earned which includes status and cabin bonuses.

Still, on a positive note it’s nice to see that flights operated by BA’s transatlantic partners are included in this promotion…although be aware that you’ll still have to book these flights via British Airways to get the double Avios (the flights must be booked as British Airways codeshares).

Also, very frequent travelers should pay attention to the fact that only the first 10 flights booked in the promotion period will earn double Avios.

If you’re likely to book more than 10 flights in the promotion period it may be prudent to credit some of your flights (the flights which will earn the least number of Avios) to another oneworld frequent flyer program. This way you can ensure that as many of your high Avios earning flights as possible are counted for this promotion.

As this is British Airways were dealing with here (an airline whose IT department ranks as one of the least competent on the planet) a lot of readers will almost certainly see this message:

As far as I can tell this is an IT issue as there isn’t any wording in the T&Cs that would exclude a specific group(s) of flyers.

If this is a message you see when you try to register I suggest waiting for a few hours to give BA’s IT guys a chance to read “coding for dummies” and then try try again. It may take a while but I expect everyone to be able to register for this promotion.

Bottom Line

While its disappointing (and a little annoying) that existing bookings don’t qualify for this promotion I understand why they don’t – this is an attempt at BA to drum up some extra business so why would the airline reward those of us who have already committed to fly with it?

With the Christmas period included in this promotion there could be some good Avios earning opportunities for travel towards the end of the year when Business Class fares can often be found at a significant discount…especially for transatlantic travel.

Whatever you think of this promotion and regardless of whether or not you expect to make any new bookings you should make sure you register for the promotion (via this link) as soon as possible. I don’t anticipate making any new British Airways bookings before the end of the year but I’ve registered anyway as plans can always suddenly change and I’d hate to miss out on free Avios just because I didn’t take 30 seconds to register.