Ignore the Qatar Airways Avios sale – there’s a better deal available

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Over the weekend, Qatar Airways launched a new Avios sale in which it’s offering a bonus of up to 40% on Avios purchases completer by the end of 1 February. One the face of things, this is offering a reasonable deal, but if you’re prepared to buy Avios today, a better deal is available.

The Qatar Airways Avios sale

As I’ve just said, The Qatar Airways Avios sale allows you to buy Avios with an bonus of up to 40% so, for example, when you purchase 200,000 Avios, you’ll get an 80,000 Avios bonus.

Note: Apologies for the crude screenshot, but I can only login to my QR account on the app and not on the desktop, so this will have to do.

For the sake of completeness, I’ll point out that Qatar Airways is therefore prepared to sell me Avios at £0.0125 each … but this isn’t important at this point.

Also, for the time being, you can ignore the fact that my account shows prices in GBP and not USD, as all I’m attempting to show is that this isn’t the best deal and as you’ll see, this isn’t the best deal regardless of the currency you use.

The Aer Lingus Avios sale

While the Qatar Airways Avios sale has been mentioned in a few places in the past 24 hours, what I haven’t seen mentioned in the fact that Aer Lingus has been running its own Avios sale for the past few days (it ends today), and in this sale a bonus of up to 50% is on offer.

Where Qatar Airways will offer you 80,000 bonus points when you buy 200,000 Avios, Aer Lingus will give you 100,000.

In this sale, 300,000 Avios (including the bonus) can be purchased at a cost of £3,539 meaning that each Avios is being sold for £0.0118. That makes the Aer Lingus sale approximately 6% cheaper than the Qatar Airways sale.

The price of Avios will vary depending on what currency you’re buying in, but what won’t vary is the fact that the Aer Lingus sale is cheaper.

Avios can be transferred for free

A key thing to keep in mind is that you can transfer Avios for free between various programs, so if you need Avios to spend with British Airways, you can move them from your Aer Club account to your BA Executive Club account without paying a fee.

If you need Avios in your Qatar Airways Privilege Club account, you can move whatever you buy from Aer Lingus over to BA and then on to Qatar Airways and you won’t pay a fee.

Aer Lingus sale – key terms

• The offer is available until 23:59 (GMT) Monday 29 January 2024 only (the ‘Offer Period’).
• During the Offer Period, Eligible Participants will receive 50% extra Avios (bonus Avios) when they Buy or Gift Avios.
• The Bonus Avios will not count towards your annual limit of 200,000 Avios.
• The Purchaser can buy a maximum of 200,000 Avios in any one calendar year.
• Avios can only be bought in specified amounts, starting at the minimum of 2,000 Avios.
• The Purchaser will be able to spend Avios when they appear as credited in the Purchaser’s AerClub account. There may be occasions where there is a delay of up to 3 working days in the Avios being credited to your account. If after this time you have not received your Avios, please let us know via the Contact Us form at the bottom of the Buy Avios page.
• Avios can only be bought on AerLingus.com using the Buy and Gift Avios application found on the AerClub page.
• The transaction currency will be pre-determined based on the registered country of the AerClub account.
• The Purchaser must have at least one Avios in their AerClub 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.
• Purchasing Avios will reset the 36-month Avios expiry rule, as set out in the AerClub Terms and Conditions.
• You have the right to cancel contracts for the purchase of Avios within 14 days of purchase provided the Avios have not been used.

Full terms and conditions can be found on the Aer Lingus Avios sale page.

Is the Aer Lingus deal a good one?

As always, this comes down to what the Avios will be used for and when they’ll be used.

Let’s get this important point out of the way before I go any further – If you have no immediate use for any Avios that you buy, you shouldn’t be taking part in this sale.

It’s never a good idea to stockpile miles and you never know when a program will decide to implement a sudden and painful devaluation (my golden rule applies).

The best use of Avios is often to be found on short-haul flights within Europe (where taxes and fees are capped) or within regions elsewhere in the world where taxes are naturally low.

They can, however, also be put to good use on Aer Lingus Business Class flights to/from the US and on Iberia Business Class transatlantic flights as both Aer Lingus and Iberia charge considerably lower fees for Avios bookings than British Airways.

Don’t forget that as I mentioned earlier, Avios held in an Aer Club account can be transferred to the British Airways Executive Club, to the Qatar Airways Privilege Club or to Iberia Plus (and they can be transferred back again too).

If you’re thinking of buying Avios in this sale, the sensible thing to do is to is this:

1. Check that awards are available on the route(s) you’d like to book.
2. Price up the reward flights you’d like to book (based on the cost of the Avios you plan to buy) and compare that to the actual cash fare and to whatever price you would normally be prepared to pay for that booking.

If the cost of booking the reward flight is cheaper than the cash fare and is at least as low as the price you’d normally be willing to pay, then buying Avios in this sale should work out well. Otherwise, move on.

Anyone with a British Airways 2-4-1/companion voucher may do well in this sale too.

Don’t forget that you’ll still have to pay any taxes and fees due on the second ticket but with two people flying for the Avios cost of one, buying Avios in this sale and then moving them across to BA/Iberia (so you can use a 2-4-1 voucher) may be an economical way to book a very nice trip – you just have to do the maths to see if the costs work out in your favor.

Bottom Line

At £0.0118 per Avios, the Aer Lingus sale isn’t a fantastic deal, but it’s also not a bad deal either. Personally, I have a relatively low valuation of Avios (£0.0075) but I still often get over £0.015/Avios in value when booking reward flights, so there’s definitely scope for this sale to be of use – you just have to make sure that you do your due diligence and that you run the numbers to check that you’re coming out ahead.