How To Find Avios Flights

Exercise y'all collect Avios points? If the answer is yes, do you know the true value of 10,000, 30,000, 50,000 and 100,000 points - and the best mode to spend them?

Many people collect what is substantially the 'currency of British Airways' and have a pot built up, but may be unsure the wisest manner to go the most out of the points.

Avios points are a way for you to turn your everyday spending into flights with BA, Aer Lingus, Iberia and other airlines.

There are a multitude of dissimilar ways to collect points once you have an Avios business relationship.

Points mean prizes: Avios tin can be redeemed on flights with British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, Qantas and others - but it can be difficult to work out their worth

For instance, for every £1 you spend with Asos or TK Maxx you get five points, or half dozen with every £1 you spend with Booking.com, via the Avios east-shop.

You tin see the listing of all retailers you lot tin earn points from here.

One of the quickest ways to build up points is through general credit menu spending, with some of the best reward cards offered past American Limited.

For example, Amex's British Airways credit card gives you a five,000 point bonus in return for spending £1,000 in your starting time iii months of having the card, too equally giving you effectively one betoken for every £1 yous spend on the bill of fare.

Its Preferred Rewards Gilded credit bill of fare, meanwhile, gives you lot 10,000 Amex points – which can be converted into the same number of Avios points – if you spend £iii,000 in the get-go three months, and a signal for every £1 you spend.

However, just behave in heed the gold carte comes with a 57.6 per cent APR, a £140 annual fee later the first twelvemonth - it means you lot accept brand sure you clear the balance in full every month.

It is too worth pointing out that not all retailers accept American Express.

You tin also earn Avios points with your own air miles when flying with the likes of British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia.

Flight economy with BA you tin collect up to i point per mile flown, up to 1.v point per mile in premium economy, upwardly to ii.5 points per mile in business organisation class and upwards to iii points per mile in commencement course.

Flying economic system from London to Milan return, for case, would net you i,200 points.

How to redeem Avios for flights

Y'all can spend Avios points on short-booty flights in one case you've got 4,000 points, and on long-haul flights once you've got 13,000.

Reward flights tin can be booked with British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, Vuelings and OneWorld Alliance airlines.

For the purpose of this nosotros'll expect at British Airways Executive Club – the section of BA that deals with Avios redemptions and reward flights.

As well as BA itself, Avios points can be redeemed through Executive Club with 18 other OneWorld airlines, including American Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas and Qatar Airways.

It's worth noting at this point that y'all cannot pay for a flight solely with Avios points and not have to spend any actual coin, equally you will still finish up paying some cash to encompass 'taxes, fees and carrier charges'.

This is a key point when determining how much value you lot have got out of your points.

Also equally booking bodily flights, in that location are other aviation-related ways of spending Avios points. You can part-pay with Avios, for example spending viii,000 points to salvage £45 on your flight.

Y'all can too upgrade an existing cash booking, bumping yourself upwards a form – like from premium economy to concern class. The toll of doing so is based on the Avios cost of reward flights in the class yous are upgrading from, and the class yous are upgrading to.

If a advantage flight in premium economic system costs 40,000 points and a business class reward flight costs 60,000, and so the toll of an upgrade is xx,000 points.

On the whole though, neither of these are considered a specially good mode of using your Avios points.

First spreading the news: Avios could be converted for a trip to New York - just how many points do you need?

What are Avios points worth?

This is a 'how long is a piece of string' type question.

Rob Burgess, of frequent flyer website Caput for Points, says the aim should be to go effectually 1p per indicate, while website The Points Guy UK puts the value of an Avios bespeak at 1.1p.

This is dynamic though, as Burgess adds that redeeming points for long-haul business or offset form flights more often than not get you lot the best value for your points, more and so than flying economy long-haul, due to the higher charges BA levies on long-haul flights.

How do you lot spend yours?

Practise you take whatsoever top tips on how to spend Avios points?

Let's u.s.a. know in the comments below or contact us:

editor@thisismoney.co.great britain

It means if you are going to wing economy, you will get more value on curt-booty flights.

The best way of illustrating this is to accept a real-world example.

Flying BA long-haul gives y'all four classes to choose from; economic system, premium economy, business class and get-go-course. Premium economic system costs twice equally many Avios points every bit economy, business concern course costs iii time as many, and first course 4 times as many.

How many points it'll cost you for a flight volition too depend on whether you are flying pinnacle time or off-peak time.

In 2019, meridian time is betwixt 7 July and 6 September, and then between 12 Oct and iv November except for Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays. You then accept peak fourth dimension over again between December fourteen and the end of the year.

Every bit you'd expect, flight at summit time costs more. Hither'south some examples:

How much does information technology cost to wing from Heathrow to New York i-style with BA
Class	Cost with Avios off-superlative	Cost with Avios peak	Toll paying greenbacks (outbound Oct 15 2019)
Economic system	13,000 points + £252.44	xx,000 points + £252.44	£295
Premium Economy	26,000 points + £346.44	40,000 points + £346.44	£519
Business	fifty,000 points + £446.44	60,000 points + £446.44	£1554
First	68,000 points + £446.44	80,000 points + £446.44	£1754
Source: British Airways

Looking at the table above, yous can work out roughly what the saving or shortfall is past using Avios rather than greenbacks. For example, flying business course off-peak would normally toll £one,554, because October 15 is a Tuesday.

In Avios points, information technology would cost 50,000, plus £446.44 extra in charges. If you divide 50,000 by 100 - to become from pence to pounds - then you end upwardly with £500, for a total price of £946.44.

This is a massive saving on the £one,554 you'd spend with greenbacks - and if you subtract the £446.44 accuse cost, you end upwardly with Avios points worth 2p per signal in this instance.

However, at the other end of the scale, if you flew off-peak economy with Avios you would spend £130 plus the £252.44 charge, for a total price of £382.44 - meaning your Avios points were worth less than 1p per signal in this instance.

This example demonstrates why Burgess suggests flying economic system long-haul is a less valuable use of your points, considering the charge BA levies on you lot is already quite substantial and doesn't increment past all that much by flying business or first class.

He also says that paying part with Avios, as mentioned above, gets y'all roughly betwixt 0.55p and 0.8p per indicate.

Danish dream: Even people with small Avios balances could potentially put them towards curt-haul flights to destinations such equally Copenhagen - pictured, Nyhavn area

Where can I go with my points?

If you lot have a points balance already, you can utilise British Airways' reward flight figurer to find out exactly how many points it would price you to wing somewhere.

BA uses a distance-based nautical chart when redeeming your Avios for flights, meaning you pay different amounts of Avios depending on the distance y'all travel.

According to Nicky Kelvin, content director at The Points Guy United kingdom, these amounts 'range from four,000 Avios for a ane-fashion off-peak economy flight from London to somewhere like Nice or Zurich, upward to 200,000 Avios for a one-way peak first class flight all the way to Sydney.'

British Airway's Avios chart is distance-based, meaning that how many points information technology costs you for a reward flying depends on how far away where you're trying to wing to is. This chart, from The Points Guy UK, breaks downwards the costs in Avios of each class flight

Still, This is Money has as well crunched the numbers to find out just how far you tin fly with certain Avios point totals.

Information technology's worth noting that y'all'll demand fewer Avios points for a BA flying than on a partner airline, like Qantas or Qatar Airways for example, on the same route.

10,000 points: At this distance there isn't a huge corporeality you can spend your points on sadly. You'll be unlikely to get out of Western Europe certainly.

Is it worth using elsewhere?

Avios aren't merely for spending on flights, though that is likely what they are primarily used for.

You can also use them to book hotels, hire cars or even order cases of wine, beer and spirits with wine merchant Laithwaites.

However, there is a reason why often people continue their points purely for flight spending, and that is because information technology is far better value than using it for most other purposes.

For example, redeeming your Avios points to buy food on board a BA flight likely works out around 0.7p per indicate - which as you can see above is not what yous should be aiming for for your Avios, according to the experts.

In general, according to Rob Burgess of Head for Points, not-flight redemptions tend to work out at a value of around 0.5p per point - about half the value of what yous should aim for, and less than half of what The Points Guy Great britain estimates Avios points to exist worth.

In terms of the actual flights you tin can redeem your points for, you lot could get a peak time return flight to any of Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Munich or Paris for 9,000 Avios points and £35. If yous only wanted to go 1 manner, then halve both of those numbers.

Off-peak information technology'd be the same value charge but toll y'all 8,000 points.

30,000 points: A few more than options brainstorm to open upward to you once yous go to this milestone, including the novel thought of being able to accept someone with you.

For example, for 30,000 Avios points exactly you can purchase ii meridian return flights to Barcelona, for the additional cost of £75.

As yous'll likely be aware from the table above, 26,000 Avios points, along with a £346.44 charge, would get you lot a one-way off-height premium economy flight to New York, or a return flying in economic system class at the aforementioned time of year - though that'd ready you back more in taxes.

For 27,900 Avios points and £110 actress, you could become an off-peak business course render flying to Marrakesh, Morocco.

50,000 points: At 50,000, you lot can become an off-acme business class single flight to New York for this many Avios points and a £446.44 extra accuse.

If y'all're after somewhere even further afield, you lot could become a peak time economic system class return flight to Barbados for 50,000 points, plus £350.84 in charges.

Once again, if you want to have someone with yous, you can get two business class return flights to Barcelona for 50,000 Avios points and £200.

And finally, if you're after somewhere really far abroad, for a shade over 50,000 points - 51,500 - you tin get a 1-fashion flight to Melbourne, which comes with an extra cost of £342.12.

100,000 points: Well done on making it to half dozen figures. Once you've got to hither you can think about taking someone with you slightly further afield than simply Europe.

You can book 2 off-peak single business course flights to New York for £446.44 extra on each ticket.

You tin can get two peak fourth dimension one-way flights to Cape Boondocks for 100,000 Avios points and £643.24, flight premium economy. Two return peak fourth dimension flights to Moscow in business class will cost yous 80,000 points and £100.

And finally, two return off-pinnacle flights to Tokyo will price you 78,000 Avios points and £916.48, or 96,000 Avios and £1,116.48 if you wanted to fly at summit time.

As a disclaimer, it is worth noting that there is no guarantee reward flying seats will exist bachelor at a time you want to fly.

According to Caput for Points, BA guarantees at least ii business organisation class and four economy seats per flight for advantage flying customers redeeming points, and is 'fairly generous' with the quota of seats available.

As for the availability of the flights themselves, Burgess says that while customers looking to redeem points for family unit holidays over Christmas or in the school holidays volition find information technology more difficult than single travellers or childless couples, information technology isn't impossible.

But if you lot're just curious virtually how many points y'all will need to acquire in order to book your dream trip abroad using Avios, so what this ought to demonstrate is the difficult yards you'll need to put in to collect enough points to become y'all somewhere very far away.

On that note, Nicky says: 'To maximise your Avios balance we recommend ensuring you are earning points on every purchase you lot peradventure can, whether that is through a points earning credit card, through shopping portals for online purchases, as well every bit for car rent and hotel stays.'

THIS IS MONEY'Due south 5 OF THE Best CREDIT CARDS

Some links in this article may be chapter links. If yous click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps u.s. fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We exercise not write manufactures to promote products. We practice non allow any commercial relationship to touch our editorial independence.