Home » Loyalty Programs » Avios
Category Archives: Avios
Earn 250 Avios and more with Red by Dufry
We wrote about Red by Dufry before, which is a loyalty program that gives you discount at duty free stores and other perks at airports worldwide.
In the Red by Dufry app, go to My Profile, scroll down to the bottom where you have the option to add a partner account. If you link your Iberia Plus account, you will 1 Avios per £1 / €1 spent at Dufry stores, and 250 bonus Avios on your first purchase.
It seems that British Airways is also a partner and the same earning rate / promotion applies. My account was already linked to Iberia Plus. I was trying to unlink and relink but I couldn’t see either Iberia or BA in the partner dropdown list anymore.
Historically Red by Dufry had some promo codes that gave away points or even Platinum status. Give them a try but I doubt any of them work anymore:
- RED300POINTS
- HAPPYBIRTHDAY2020
- REDPLATSMART0821
- AegeanMilesPlatinum
As a Red by Dufry member you get a guaranteed discount at many duty free shops and earn Avios with every purchase, so it makes sense to create an account.
Big Avios devaluation on CX/JL redemptions
Over the last five years or so, British Airways’ Avios program was one that devalued most frequently and probably to the largest extent. Sadly it just took another hit overnight, and redemptions on Cathay Pacific / Japan Airlines have got a lot more expensive.
Note that British Airways no longer publishes a redemption chart, and they removed the Avios cost calculator too, to avoid to awkwardness when they run no-notice devaluation like this. As of today the chart above still holds for most of their partners, except for Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines.
Here are the before/after charts for Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific respectively (H/T FlyAsia):
Tokyo – Osaka (269 miles) now costs 10,500 Avios / 17,500 Avios per way:
Hong Kong – Shanghai (779 miles) now costs 12,000 Avios / 30,000 Avios per way:
Hong Kong – Beijing (1,234 miles) now costs 14,300 Avios / 32,500 Avios per way.
Tokyo – Ho Chi Minh City (2,685 miles) now costs 15,600 Avios / 46,500 Avios per way.
It is without a doubt horrendous news and Avios is no longer the best, or even a good way to travel within Asia, at least not if you aim to book business or first class. There isn’t any change to long-haul bands over 3,000 miles, but they were hardly good value anyway.
From the very limited data points I saw Iberia seems to have adopted the same pricing swiftly, and their partners awards are non-refundable so you wouldn’t want to book through them anyway. Qatar Airways however, is still showing BA’s old pricing for now.
Therefore it could make a LOT of sense to transfer your Avios to QRPC first and book there. Your tickets won’t be issued immediately though – you can only fill out a request form and their ticketing team needs to issue your ticket manually.
Nectar / Avios bonus via Daily Mail subscription
MyMail, the membership program of Daily Mail, is to cease its partnership with Nectar on September 14. Interestingly however, they’ll still be running Nectar promotions, and there’s currently a very good incentive.
If you purchase a Digital Annual subscription now for £20, you will earn 4,000 Nectar points as a bonus, which is equivalent to £20 in return.
The 4,000 points can be spent at Sainsbury’s, Argos and Ebay amongst other shops. You can also convert them to 2,500 Avios, which effectively means buying Avios at 0.8p.
It’s unclear when the promotion ends. There doesn’t seem to any restriction on how many times you can avail the offer either.
Avios Balance Booster offer ending and a useful trick
British Airways launched a new feature called Balance Booster in June that introduced a new way of purchasing Avios at a lower cost. There is an ongoing 10% bonus that will end on Monday, so don’t miss out if you need to top up your account.
The annoying part is that you can only purchase maximum triple the amount that you’ve earned in the last 30 days, which may not be enough. Interestingly, a reader has shared a trick / loophole that allows you to work around that cap and buy more.
When you land on the Balance Booster page, the frontend will only load past transactions that haven’t been boosted. When you complete a purchase, the backend will update the record to mark that transaction as “boosted”.
However, there’s a delay before the frontend is notified of that change. It means that you have a short time window to boost the transaction again (and more) if you are quick enough.
I tried it once and it worked out. The delay was approximately five minutes.
Beware that it is a loophole so there’s some risk associated, although I think it’s fairly low. At the end of day you are paying money to BA, and there’s the 250,000 Avios cap which prevents unlimited boosting, so it should be fine.
Buy Avios at 0.89p with The Economist’s promotion
The Economist has brought back its promotional offer with British Airways, which allows you to earn bonus Avios for purchasing an annual subscription.
The offer page is here. Two types of subscription are available, and here’s the UK pricing:
- Digital Only: £199 with 15,000 bonus Avios
- Digital + Print: £265 with 18,000 bonus Avios
In terms of “buying Avios” the prices aren’t hugely competitive, so it doesn’t make much sense unless you are actually interested in the subscription. If you have a UK Amex card though, you may have a “spend £199 get £65 back” offer, reducing the cost substantially to 0.89p per Avios only which is excellent!
If not, you can still change the webpage’s country to Canada, where the Digital Only subscription costs only C$235 (~£140).
British Airways added a new feature called Balance Boost recently, and the introductory 10% bonus in July makes this deal even more attractive, as it allows you to buy another 45K Avios at a low cost. The 15,000 Avios should hit your BA account roughly two weeks after purchase.
If you only receive the digital copies, country of residence doesn’t make a difference anyway. However make sure you provide a plausible billing address in the selected country (e.g. Canada), as otherwise your subscription may be cancelled.
Balance Booster: new cheap way of buying Avios
British Airways introduced Avios subscription last year which offered a new way of buying Avios at a relatively low cost. A new service has just emerged, which might be even sweeter.
It is called Balance Boost, and you can find it on BA’s shopping portal.
If you’ve been paying attention to IHG news, Balance Boost is very similar to what they introduced quite recently. Based on the amount of Avios you earned in the last 30 days, you can purchase 1x, 2x or 3x at a discounted price.
Avios that were bought, transferred from another member account or combined from your IB / QR account are excluded. Otherwise virtually all transactions are qualifying, including BA or partner flights, credit cards, hotel point transfers etc.
You get the best rate if boosting 3x – at 0.92p it is almost as good as you’ll ever get from BA’s official offers. Even better, all boosts in June and July earn an additional 10% bonus, reducing the cost further to just below 0.84p.
Your account address needs to be in the UK to see GBP rates. Otherwise you’ll be charged in USD or EUR at a slightly worse rate. You can buy a maximum of 300,000 Avios per year, after which the rate gets much higher.
Balance Boost is a solid new feature to purchase Avios, and if you can get some Avios flow into your account within the next one month and a half, e.g. through credit card sign-on bonus you may benefit a lot. The Economist offer is still ongoing, and you may earn a total of 60K Avios with Balance Boost.
How to book LATAM flight with Avios
LATAM left Oneworld in 2020, which was a blow to the alliance as it was the only airline they had in South America. In 2018 I few to Peru on a cheap LATAM business class ticket which helped me earn BA Gold status, and I also redeemed Avios for some domestic trip which would otherwise be more expensive.
Fortunately, LATAM maintains its ties with most of its alliance partners except American Airlines. You can still earn Avios when travelling with LATAM if crediting the flight to BA, although you won’t earn tier points and BA elite benefits don’t apply.
More importantly, we didn’t lose the ability to redeem Avios on LATAM flights. You can do it with either BA or Iberia, and they charge the same:
Here are the catches:
- You can redeem LATAM tickets online with Iberia, however they are non-changeable and non refundable
- You cannot redeem LATAM tickets online with BA, and intra-continent economy class tickets don’t come with baggage allowance
If you are very certain about your trip, it’s better to book your trip on Iberia’s website. It’s hassle free and you are guaranteed one-piece baggage allowance when travelling in economy.
However, for the peace of mind I’d say flexibility is very important under most circumstances, so I’d rather book with BA and you can change / cancel for the standard £35 fee. You can check availability on Iberia’s website first and then phone BAEC’s hotline, but be prepared for a long call. Many of the agents aren’t well trained or familiar with the LATAM procedure, and even if they are issuing the ticket can still take quite some time.
Once the ticket is issued, you can manage your booking on LATAM’s website but it requires their own PNR. The quickest way to figure it out, from my experience, is by messaging @Latam_Chile on Twitter with your itinerary details. They are very helpful and prompt.
A final non-Avios-related tip for those who hold an US-issued American Express card: you might want to check the ticket price on Amex Travel too. It turns out LATAM is an Amex Insider Fares partner so you can sometimes get preferential rates:
In my case, the ticket from Buenos Aires to Santiago is more than 50% cheaper on Amex Travel for the Easter holiday period, as long as you have enough Membership Rewards points to pay for it. It also comes with free seat selection and one-piece baggage allowance.
Tips for Avios ticket seat selection as a non-BA Elite
British Airways is notorious when it comes to seat selection fees. It is perhaps the only airline that charges business class passengers if they want to choose a seat, and it could cost north of $100 for a long-haul flight!
Thankfully, the fee is waived if you hold any Oneworld Elite status – at the time of booking for Sapphire and Emerald members, or within 7 days of departure for Ruby members. It applies to status members from other Oneworld airlines too, such as American Airlines, Cathay Pacific or Finnair.
It gets trickier when you redeem Avios though. When you book an Avios ticket on ba.com, the reservation is tied to your BAEC number and it’s not possible to modify it online. Therefore you can’t add your say AA membership number for free seat selection.
A lot of workarounds have been suggested, for example updating the FFP number using Finnair’s website, however they might not always work. A friend @Rike has come up with a brilliant idea, which you may find useful.
In a nutshell, instead of booking the Avios ticket for yourself, book it for “someone else” so that the BAEC number won’t stick. Here are the detailed steps:
1. Add your travel companions and yourself to BA’s Family and Friends list:
2. Don’t fill in the BAEC number when you add them:
3. When booking an Avios ticket, answer “No” to the question “Is the payment card holder travelling on this booking”. Choose your companion or yourself from the Family and Friends list.
4. Go to ba.com, but don’t log in!
5. Go to Manage My Booking and retrieve your booking. You need to pay for seat selection as of now.
6. As your reservation has no FFP number attached yet, you can add it freely here.
7. Once done, you can reserve your seats for free!
