British Airways now allows you to pay for a ticket using only avios points (of course you don't have to)
A little preamble if when you read this title you thought "The bum took a topical" , I tell you [...]
British Airways
Oneworld
A little background if when you read this title you thought. "The bum took a topical." , I tell you that this is absolutely not the case, I am not talking about redeeming a prize ticket with the avios points, but to pay for a regular ticket using avios points.
How Cash & Avios works
In this article:
For years British Airways, like many other carriers, allows loyalty program members to pay, in part or in full, for their tickets using Avios points. What's new is that you can now cover the entire cost of the ticket, whereas until last week it was only possible to pay the fee related to the tariff and not the fees.
However, what I never understood about this British Airways option is that there is never a fixed value of avios used in this mode, but a decreasing value: the more avios points you use, the less the points are worth.
If, for example, I use in the same mode the Flying points of ITA Airways I am very clear that 1000 points are worth 5 euros. In the case of British Airways, however, the value changes, for the worse.
Each time you buy a ticket BA offers the option of using points to balance the ticket, as seen in this example for a trip from Milan to New York that costs €485.03 the system offers to use different denominations of avios.
For example. 2000 avios are valued at €23, while with 12,960 avios you get a considerably lower counter value of 82€ off. Value that is halved if you want to cover the cost of the ticket in full.
Note that BA does not allow the ticket to be fully compensated, you still have to pay 2€ by credit card, probably in order to be able to identify the passenger with certainty through the payment method.
Why you should NEVER waste your avios with cash & avios
I think you don't need an economics graduate to understand about how this solution is the worst way to use avios points, but always keeping as a point of reference the round-trip ticket from Milan to New York, it is good to understand that with "only" 80 thousand avios + taxes you can redeem a round-trip award ticket in economy from Milan to Bali with Qatar, or a one-way ticket to Asia, so significantly higher value.
This applies not only to British, but to all carriers that offer this payment method, but it gets worse.
While a Award ticket is flexible and can be cancelled free of charge or for a small penalty, in the case of a regular ticket, paid for with avios points, the rules remain those of the ticket and its fare. This means that. if it is a non-cancelable ticket you will not get anything back If you are forced to cancel the trip, neither money nor points.
If you pay for the ticket with points, you get points and status
This is a very important thing, because, for example. In the Volare program, the rules are not the same. If you pay using avios points you will accumulate avios points and tier points with the ticket and the reason is simple it is a full ticket, not an award ticket, so you will accumulate points as per the rules of theexecutive club.
In conclusion
Those who read TFC know very well that I hate this opportunity, because it is a red herring. The inexperienced traveler thinks he is saving money, instead the only one making the deal is the company that gets the most by valuing frequent flyer points at a minimum.
