Avios - Worthwhile or Worthless?

callum9999

colinjd wrote: »

This is where I have trouble with Avios' advertising and the way it sells itself.

I want to go to St Petersburg and I have more than enough Avios to do it, I don't want to fly into Moscow or some other such alternative city. The fact they only have 2 flights available in a 9-month period (both of which are in the Russian winter) is a disgrace.

They're happy enough for me to convert my Clubcard points to Avios because they realise that it's almost impossible for me to spend them on what I want!

This is going to have a knock-on effect with Tesco as well, as it's the collecting of Avios that makes me shop there. If I no longer want the Avios, I no longer need Tesco.

Has any serious investigation of Avios ever taken place?

Absolutely ridiculous. How on Earth are BA meant to know that out of the thousands of places you can go, you only want to go to St. Petersburg? This cannot be the only place you want to visit for the rest of your life?

I collect Avios and personally cannot earn them quick enough to spend them on the flights I want... Take the last flights I booked for example - cash price was £260 yet I paid £6.80 and 9000 avios.

jpsartre

Caz3121 wrote: »

I have a BA account, I am gold so I do get some additional availability showing and can see direct economy flights on at least 4 days out of 7 during July and August from LHR to LED but not sure how many of these are the 'extra availability as Gold'

All of them as far as I can tell. I don't see any economy availability in July/August at all.

anna_24

I'd pop over on to the flyertalk forums for ideas on how to make the most of your miles. In a mile vs cost, you'd be far better off buying a ticket with cash and upgrading with miles, and you usually find more availability for that too.- ie I've used 20k miles to upgrade from premium economy to businesses, in money terms it would have cost me £1500-£2000 more to have bought the business ticket straight off; whereas if I'd have just got an economy ticket with miles it would have been 60k miles for a ticket that was worth around £600

Hope that all makes sense!

jpsartre

anna_24 wrote: »

In a mile vs cost, you'd be far better off buying a ticket with cash and upgrading with miles,

Not when upgrading from economy (which is the only option for St Petersburg and other European destinations). The only upgradable economy fares are from the higest fare buckets, meaning they are often more expensive than simply buying a normal Club Europe ticket. For long-haul flights and for cabins above economy you are right though.

callum9999

anna_24 wrote: »

I'd pop over on to the flyertalk forums for ideas on how to make the most of your miles. In a mile vs cost, you'd be far better off buying a ticket with cash and upgrading with miles, and you usually find more availability for that too.- ie I've used 20k miles to upgrade from premium economy to businesses, in money terms it would have cost me £1500-£2000 more to have bought the business ticket straight off; whereas if I'd have just got an economy ticket with miles it would have been 60k miles for a ticket that was worth around £600

Hope that all makes sense!

That purely depends on how much you value being in Club as opposed to how much BA are saying it's worth. It may have cost you £2000 more to buy the business ticket but would you have actually done that? I certainly wouldn't spend more than a tenner to upgrade to Club Europe! Even if it's really good value I also doubt I'd ever upgrade to Club World, partially because I wouldn't ever buy a WT+ ticket in the first place, and partially because I really don't see the logic in spending so much money for a few hours of comfort when you could spend the same amount "on the ground" and dine in nice restaurants etc. for the whole week!

While you're right that economy is often a waste of miles because of the huge amount of taxes and surcharges you have to pay (if you can't get the Reward Flight Saver), that isn't always the case. Domestic flights abroad on non-BA planes are often well worth buying with Avios. Domestic flights on Qantas for example have virtually no taxes to pay. Same with flights in South America. They don't appear to have budget airlines there, so the cheapest flights often cost a fortune in cash but not much in Avios, which is how I got to get a £260 flight in economy for £6.80 plus 9000 Avios.

jackieblack

I've always found the website a bit frustrating but they have always been very helpful on the 'phone and found us some flights when I couldn't find availability on the website (although we were very flexible on our dates and destination within the USA)

marky_p

I know you said you don't want to fly to an alternate city but have you considered Helsinki? The HST link between there and St Petersburg is really very good and the flights are cheap (if you can't use your Avios). That's what I did to begin my Trans-Sib journey

bylromarha

I've only ever used them once to get specific availability within specific dates to a specific location.

I booked those in August 2011 to fly Jul 2012. I looked on the website to see if they were still available in Sept 2011 and none at all.

You have to book a long way in advance to get what you want when you want it.

Avios as a scheme? Well, I've loved our "free" half term Eurostar tickets that we got back from yesterday, which I booked in December.

schoolrunmum

Another vote here for Flyertalk-BA exec club section. They know this stuff inside out....get over there!