Good afternoon everyone! Yesterday, I spent a few hours planning my 2 week Eurotrip (more details later) and got to experience the new British Airways Avios off-peak award pricing. I found a good flight from London (LHR) to Paris (CDG) on British Airways for $111. Since this flight is operated by British Airways, I checked to see what the award price would be.
According to my good friend Great Circle Mapper, the distance between London and Paris is only 216 miles.
This is the old (out of date) British Airways award chart. All flights under 651 miles cost only 4,500 British Airways Avios. This is what I was expecting to see on the British Airways website when I looked for award seats.
Here is my search on the British Airways website.
On the results page, a large popup box alerted me to “changes to reward flight fare prices” (terribly written title, if you ask me). I completely forgot about off-peak award pricing until I saw this message. Lucky @ One Mile at a Time wrote about the changes to the British Airways Avios program back in January.
Here is the new British Airways award chart. Zone 1 off-peak awards only cost 4,000 British Airways Avios, instead of the previous 4,500 British Airways Avios. The savings are much greater for longer flights. Unfortunately due to the recent changes with the British Airways Avios program, business and first class awards have gotten more expensive for zones 4-9.
Anyway, back to my British Airways Avios search. The flight I want had award space and it was only 4,000 Avios and $27.50 in taxes/fees.
I really love how British Airways offers several Avios and Cash prices for award seats. The probably I have is, which option gives me the best value for my Avios?
To find out which Avios and Cash option is the best, I created a spreadsheet that takes into consideration the various Avios and Cash options and the current price of the ticket (British Airways Avios Calculator.xlsx). After entering the 5 Avios and Cash options along with the $111 cost of the flight, the spreadsheet shows how much value you receive when redeeming Avios:
- Redeem 3,200 Avios + $42.50 in taxes/fees (2.14 cents per Avios)
- Redeem 2,500 Avios + $57.50 in taxes/fees (2.14 cents per Avios)
For a tiebreaker, I always select the option the requires the fewest Avios. #AviosHoarder
After making my selection, I purchased the British Airways Avios award ticket. Ta da!
If you want to learn more about British Airways Avios awards, please read How to Book British Airways Avios Award Tickets. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great weekend everyone!
P.S. Yesterday, I booked Dublin (DUB) to San Francisco (SFO) on Aer Lingus using 25,000 British Airways Avios and $106.76 in taxes/fees. I had to book this over the phone and the agent was very fast and helpful. I asked how much an Aer Lingus flight from Zurich (ZRH) to Dublin (DUB) would cost and he said 7,500 British Airways Avios and around $60 in taxes/fees. That is a terrible deal since the flight only cost $130, I would be getting less than a penny per Avios. No thank you!
Hi Grant,
Congrats on getting the award ticket! What a timely post and I am glad for this post since I am based also in SFO and planning a trip to Europe.
I have some questions:
1. So did you end up choosing the 2,500 avios and $57.50 award seat for LHR-CDG flight?
2. I am also looking for to redeem 25,000 avios for SFO – DUB on Aer Lingus, is this in economy and don’t you think the AA offpeak award for N.America to Europe is better for long haul trip to Europe since it’s only 40,000 AA miles roundtrip in economy so each segment only cost 20,000 miles and thus can save 10,000 miles.
3. As I mentioned above I am also looking for award space for SFO-DUB or vice versa, how did you search and find award space availability for Aer Lingus SFO-DUB?
As in your post above you will be using Aer Lingus for DUB-SFO, how about for ZRH-DUB leg? and outbound SFO-DUB-ZRH leg?
Yes, I did go with the 2,500 BA Avios + $57.50 option for the LHR-CDG flight.
25,000 Avios is a one way in coach price on Aer Lingus. The AA off-peak is cheaper, but I wanted a nonstop back to SFO from DUB.
You can search for Aer Lingus space on United.com. I decided to pay for the ZRH-DUB flight. I am flying SFO-LAX-LHR on AA business class (50,000 AA miles each way. I am visiting LHR, CDG, NCE, MUC, VCE, ZRH, and DUB on this trip.
Sounds like a great plan and we look forward to enjoy your detailed Europe trip report! Will be very useful for us who plan to go to Europe!
So I search Aer Lingus space on United.com and have to call when I found the availability or I can just book the award seat online on United.com?
SFO-LAX -LHR on AA business class 50k AA miles one way sounds great…I like the long haul from LAX-LHR without having layover on east coast cities, do you know what kind or AA plane is it? 777-200?.
Also don’t you think the AA business class’ soft and hard product are a lot worser compared to foreign airlines (I heard the food is not so good), that’s why many people try to redeem AA miles on european, asian, or middle east partner airlines to get the most redemption out of their miles.
My trip to Europe isn’t until January, but I will share my searching and booking tips before then. You can use United Airlines miles for Aer Lingus, but it will require more miles than if you used British Airways Avios. I’m not sure what AA plane it is, doesn’t matter to me. There are many good uses of AA miles, but I care about getting to the destination as easily and quickly as possible. If Cathay Pacific or Etihad flew the same routes as AA, I would probably fly them.
Pardon me for this noob question since I am still a noob….. I thought that we can only redeem Avios for award flight only on British Airways or Iberia flight only? is that true? I also read the comment below from iahphx that said “The problem with MOST off-peak Avios deals is that they’re only on BA or Iberia”
If so, how do you manage to redeem Avios for Aer Lingus ?
British Airways only offers off-peak Avios award for flights on British Airways or Iberia. You can use British Airways Avios for flights on One World Alliance Airlines and British Airways partners. Since Aer Lingus is a British Airways partner, you can use British Airways Avios to book award flights. Does that make sense?
Thanks Grant….now I understand, ONLY off peak Avios award that can be used on Iberia and British Airways, since your award flight on Aer Lingus is not off peak award then it can be used on BA partners (like in your case, Aer Lingus).
You may have received 2.14 cents per avios in value, but the you also PAID 2.0 cents per avios by paying $30 extra ($57.50-$27.50) to save 1,500 avios. This is a very poor value. Would you otherwise pay 2 cents out of pocket per avios? because that’s what you just did.
That is one way of looking at it, Arie. I take the approach that I would have paid the $111 for this flight if there were no award seats available, but I could save $53.50 if I used only 2,500 Avios (thus 2.14 CPP). Granted, if I had many Avios, I would have gone with the top option and paid the least amount of cash. To each their own.
I have to agree with Arie here, I was going to post the same thing. You’re already receiving the initial value of the point redemption, everything from that point on is an opportunity cost: how much you are willing to pay for the difference in points. And in that respect your best “deal” would have been 3,200 + $42.50. You are paying $15 extra for 800 points – at a cost of 1.88 CPP instead of the 2.0 CPP you paid. I would agree again with Arie, though, that your best deal is not to buy any points at all.
You are Arie might be right then. I can see the argument you are saying and it makes sense to me. Thank you for sharing your insights.
Yesterday, I booked four tickets in August for MUC-LHR-IAD in economy on BA for 17k Avios and $288.25 each. They considered Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s off-peak, so I was quite pleased with that.
Well then, off-peak it is. What would the peak price be, assuming the same taxes/fees. Did you have the option of several Avios and Cash prices?
Yes, there were several Avios and Cash options. Instead of paying 17,000 Avios + $288.25 per ticket, I could have chosen from the following.
13950 Avios + $ 324
11650 Avios + $ 349
9450 Avios + $ 379
7700 Avios + $ 399
6750 Avios + $ 419
The peak price would have been 24,500 Avios + $288.25 per ticket or
20000 Avios + $ 339
16600 Avios + $ 379
13300 Avios + $ 419
10800 Avios + $ 449
9500 Avios + $ 474
BTW, Aer Lingus availability found on United and Expert Flyer don’t seem to be matching up with BA’s availability any more. I spend a good part of today trying to book IAD-DUB tickets for flights showing as available on United.com and ExpertFlyer, but the BA agents could never see any of them. This goes for peak and off-peak dates. Perhaps I was just dealing with incompetent agents?
I will plug in your numbers into the spreadsheet and see the CPP. I think you might have gotten a bad BA CSR. I think United.com shoes current award space because you can book with UA miles on United.com.
I think you’re right. My 4th, yes 4th, BA CSR of the day was finally able to see and book my Aer Lingus flight. Even he kept telling me that I could book Aer Lingus awards myself on the BA site. The lack of knowledge of some of the CSRs is incredible, but I’m glad it’s done. I look forward to testing out the new Aer Lingus business class seat.
I’m glad you finally got your Aer Lingus biz class seats booked. My economy seats from Dublin to SF will probably not be as comfy :/
That certainly is cheaper than Eurostar. Any way we can use points for Eurostar? I hate the fact you have to take the train to the airport then take the train again into the city. Airports are so far away from city central. Eurostar is almost faster considering all the time getting to and from the airport.
I saw some Eurostar prices for $59 one way for November dates (doesn’t show any dates past then). I like plane travel and going to airport lounges.
$59 is the advance purchase rate for lots of dates. City center to city center beats hauling yourself out to and in from an airport for such a short flight, IMO.
I would agree with you. Wish I knew about this before I booked the flights.
Nice get. The thought of dealing with LHR and CDG just a few hours apart is the stuff of nightmares…………..
Wish me good luck!
The problem with MOST off-peak Avios deals is that they’re only on BA or Iberia — the partners don’t qualify (at least to my knowledge). BA is pretty useless long haul due to the surcharges. (BA can be useful intra-Europe and in southern Africa). Iberia can be interesting, especially if you’re headed to Spain. Best I can tell is that if you use the trick to transfer to Avios-Iberia, you can save a few thousand miles on a transatlantic ticket (it seemed to come to about 17,000 miles one-way) and pay only a $50 surcharge each way (in addition to the taxes). Not a bad deal at all The only problem with this is that Avios charges by the flight. I was looking for off-peak from Italy back to the USA, so I decided to redeem an AA off-peak economy ticket for 20,000 miles.
As far as using miles and cash to pay for an Avios award, I don’t do it because it’s quite easy to gin up more UR points at Staples for (at most) about 6/10ths of a cent buying gift cards. I’m also doing all the Chase sign-up offers for UR points and Avios points.
As far as I know, off-peak is only available to BA and IB. It would be great if they could add a few partners too. If you have to connect to make an off-peak award work, you might be better off using AA miles.