Guide to BA Avios Points Part III: Long-Haul Award Flights
Welcome to another edition of my Guide to BA Avios Points in this third edition we will cover everything you need to know about long-haul award flights redemption value.
Previous Editions Were:
Guide to BA Avios Points Part I: Partner Award Flights
Guide to BA Avios Points Part II: Short-Haul Award Flights
On to Part III
To understand Avios Points, let’s first look back to when they were BA Miles.
BA Miles were the British Airways currency of choice until November 16th, 2011 when they re-branded to Avios Points.
The new system changed the cost of an award being derived from a static award chart to one based on distance flown AND Segments.
This change made British Airways Avios Points THE go to currency for short-haul (international or domestic), single segment, award flights.
But all of those changes don’t mean NO value is to be found for long-haul award flights.
One good example of a long-haul flight that was once great value pre-Avios and is still ok value is JFK-EZE Roundtrip nonstop. (Our Example may be international but this applies to domestic long-haul flights too.)
This post runs long and it is not vital to read all the details about cpm (cents per mile) you can skip to the last paragraphs in the “Monetary Value” section to get all of this summarized and translated into U.S. Dollars.
Past and Present
BA Miles (Pre-November 2011):
JFK-EZE Round-Trip nonstop flight and use BA Miles only:
40K miles
100k BA miles = 2 R/T (20K BA Miles Leftover)
Pretty good right? So what can I get with the current Avios Point System?
Avios Points (Post-November 2011)
50k Avios points
100k Avios = 2 R/T (0 Avios Leftover)
This example reinforces the huge devaluation we have witnessed in the BA frequent flyer program.
But at the same time we may not have fallen as far as we originally thought.
Now some of you care about miles lost from a paid ticket but I don’t.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, I am in this for free travel everything else is just a bonus.
I simply could not afford these types of flights, ~$1300 R/T, once a year let alone three times a year without the help from frequent flyer programs
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