Avios - is it any good?

signol

Don't forget you can redeem Avios on other Oneworld partners. One of the best is Air Berlin, Berlin to Abu Dhabi (with a free taxi on to Dubai if you're in Business) for 50k Avios and £60 in taxes, as opposed to the £300+ in taxes from BA. Slightly more if you book Berlin - New York. All bookable on the BA site. You'll just have to buy a separate ticket to Germany, 9k +£30 return.
Raffles blog https://www.headforpoints.com has loads of good advice.

signol

daisiegg

We have nothing but good experiences with Avios - we use points for all our holidays.

I am flying to and from Geneva in the summer for £20 using some Avios points - even Easyjet was going to be £150.

I do think it works for us though because we tend to use it to fly business or first, and my husband gets loads and loads of points each year as he usually does half a dozen long haul flights for work a year. We also have an Amex card and put everything we possibly can on that to get the points. I think it works less well if you want to just get dirt cheap/free (!) economy flights.

This summer we are flying to and from San Francisco first class using points and some money - the cost in money is slightly LESS than it would have been to fly standard economy class if paying for it. We did the same thing to NYC last year (our in business, back in first) and that was significantly cheaper than flying economy on the same dates. It is true you need to be a bit flexible about dates and flights though, but I think if you are, you can mae it work.

jpsartre

daisiegg wrote: »

I think it works less well if you want to just get dirt cheap/free (!) economy flights.
/QUOTE]

Or if you're not flying often and then only at peak times to popular destinations.

hamsterfan1

we've used our avios to pay for the hotel & booked easy jet flights - there were some very good offers - one quite expensive hotel had lower avios costs than some cheaper ones