British Airways Is Offering A Triple Avios Promotion All Flights & All Fares

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UPDATE 10 September: As I suspected when I first wrote about this, British Airways doesn’t really understand its own promotion – you will only earn Triple Avios on base Avios which means that, if you’re traveling in a premium cabin, the Avios calculator will not tell you how many Avios this promotion will give you – I’ve written a follow up post explaining how I think you should work out how many Avios you will earn from your trips.

British Airways is offering travelers the opportunity to earn triple Avios on all its flights as well as flights on its transatlantic partners for travel though 11 December 2016. This promotion goes a step further than most promotions we’ve seen the airline release in the recent past as there don’t seem to be any restrictions on fare class or routings.

British Airways Triple Avios Promotion

The Headline Terms & Conditions:

• You must be a member of the British Airways Executive Club to participate (hopefully that’s obvious!)
• Travelers must register before booking – Registration Link
• Travel dates/times are 6 September through 23:59 BST on 11 December 2016.
• Triple Avios Points will be awarded on up to 8 flight sectors
• A qualifying flight is a published or corporate negotiated net fare flight in any selling class or cabin on British Airways, American Airlines, Iberia, Finnair and OpenSkies.
• All travel must be completed within the Promotional Period
• Eligible Participants will receive triple 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 book and travel within the promotion period.

Things To Note

On the face of it this looks like a pretty generous promotion…but there are a few things to watch out for.

Firstly, there’s a line in the T&Cs which I don’t fully understand and it’s the one that reads “Eligible Participants will receive triple Avios Points before any cabin or tier bonuses on all tickets except reward flights”

I understand the bit about the triple Avios being calculated before any tier bonuses are applied….but the way the BA calculator shows how many Avios you’ll earn takes into account the fare class booked and therefore also the cabin of travel….

…..so what cabin bonuses are excluded from the promotion?

I’ve asked BA about this and I’m waiting to hear back so I’ll update this post when I have an answer.

UPDATE: BA don’t understand their own promotion so, if you’re traveling in a premium cabin, you should ignore their advice to use the Avios calculator to work out how many Avios you will earn – check out this post to see how I think you should work out your Avios total from this promotion.

A big thing to note is that only 8 sectors will qualify for this promotion and British Airways defines sectors as “a single qualifying flight between the point of departure and final destination with no scheduled change of aircraft.”

So a trip involving Dublin – London – New-York – Los Angeles would count as 3 sectors and, if you reverse all of that  for the return journey, you will have used up 6 of the 8 sectors that count towards this promotion – something to be aware of if you’re doing numerous transatlantic trips in the promotion period….you should try to minimise as many unnecessary sectors as possible.

Make Sure You Do The Math

Update: My post showing how I think the math should work is now live.

Because only 8 sectors will qualify for this promotion travelers that expect to do a lot of transatlantic travel between now and 11 December should work out the optimum time to register.

Here’s why.

Let’s take an example of someone with no British Airways status (to keep things simple) who will be taking the following six trips in the promotion period:

• London – San Diego – London (Discounted Business Class)
• London – New York – London (Cheapest Economy Class)
• London – Vancouver – London (Discounted World Traveler Plus)
• London – New York – London (Cheapest Economy Class)
• London – Los Angeles – London (Discounted Business Class)
• London – Miami – London (Discounted First Class)

The Avios earnings for each trip in this promotion would be:

• 38,284
• 5,190
• 28,278
• 5,190
• 38,094
• 39,870

Based on this set of trips it would be best for the traveler in question not to register until after the second trip has been completed.

The last four trips (8 sectors) will earn by far the most Avios (111,432) so, if the traveler was to register too early, some of the latter flights wouldn’t count and he/she would miss out on a lot of Avios.

Bottom Line

This is a pretty good promotion…just not as good as the British Airways guidance suggested. The triple Avios are for base Avios only so the Avios calculator British Airways keep directing everyone to does not give the correct result for those traveling on most premium fares..

Be sure to work out (as much as your calendar allows you to) what trips you expect to be taking and be sure to choose when you register for this promotion based on what trips will earn you the most – you’re not in this hobby to leave miles/points on the table if you can possibly help it 🙂