Avios Help

FunLovinCriminal

Hi All
Firstly a bit about me.
Family is me, OH and little FLC, and we are happy to announce another FLC due in July.
OH has a sister in Australia, and we as a family are planning to visit her next year.
Now, the point of the thread.
We both work for a large supermarket chain that offers loyalty points that can be used against Avios points.
How do they work? I had a plan to save our points for the year and convert to Avios points and discount our flights to Australia this way.
Money, as ever, is always tight though - and I don't want to get to November 2017 with a load of Avios points, and no way of using them against our flights.
And still a huge amount to pay for our trip of a lifetime.
Does any one use Avios?
Any advice?
FLC

becominganobsessivesaver

to use avios to get to Sydney is notoriously difficult. You'd need to have enough collected by the end of 2016 to get flights for Nov 2017. In economy you get very little value as you still have to pay taxes/fuel surcharge. Essentially you will need at least 200000 avios, about £833 of club card vouchers. There are other ways of accumulating avios, but for this trip it doesn't seem worth it. Start looking at flights from outside of th uk, eg. Qatar from Amsterdam, as you can get some really good prices.

You could use avios for internal qantas flights in Australia though.

Ballard

Unfortunately it's no longer possible to get completely free flights as you have to pay taxes, fees & surcharges.

You should check for yourself on https://www.avios.com but you're looking at 65,000 Avios plus £450 for each adult (presuming that there's availability for the dates that you're after).

phatbear

You can sort of answer this question yourself by looking on avios and price up the flights for yourself.

For example i just priced up a return to sydney in nov 2016 and its 65000 miles and £451 each

FunLovinCriminal

Thanks for both your replies.
Glad I asked the question.
The last thing I wanted to do was focus on getting thousands of avios miles, then finding that there was no chance of getting any sort of discount, wasting all the club card points - which I'm embarrassed to say we use on food rather than "boost". And the current financial situation, other holidays to use the avios points are out of the equation.


Any other tips on how we can get most value for money to Australia?
Sister in law can give us accommodation, so all we would need is flights and spending money

FunLovinCriminal

phatbear wrote: »

You can sort of answer this question yourself by looking on avios and price up the flights for yourself.

For example i just priced up a return to sydney in nov 2016 and its 65000 miles and £451 each

Thanks phatbear - the reason I posted was to ask if the flights are actually out there - not like the some of the advertised "cheap deals" that were non-existent. I didnt want to save all my points, lose out on savings elsewhere, convert to avios, and find that there is one flight to sydney per month that was eligible to use avios points on.

callum9999

FunLovinCriminal wrote: »

Thanks phatbear - the reason I posted was to ask if the flights are actually out there - not like the some of the advertised "cheap deals" that were non-existent. I didnt want to save all my points, lose out on savings elsewhere, convert to avios, and find that there is one flight to sydney per month that was eligible to use avios points on.

Yes they're out there. Just make an account and then you can search for availability. A complete waste of Avios though.

For 2 flights (I don't know how old the older child is?) you'd need £541 in Clubcard vouchers + £912 in cash, making it £1453 in total. You can buy tickets outright for less than that. (There'd be a small addition for the children but I haven't worked that out)

Not to mention it also depends where your sister-in-law lives. If she doesn't live in Sydney then it is going to be even better to just buy a cash ticket to whichever city she lives in. If it's near one of the State capitals you'll likely be able to get there in 1 stop with a cheaper price, whereas with BA you'd have to have 2 stops (or pay a LOT more in Avios).

PeacefulWaters

As I think you've already worked out, forget the idea of Avios paying for the trip.

Focus first and foremost on finding the best fare. Sites like Skyscanner can help with giving you a guide. £700 return in economy is achievable. Others on here have said to avoid Chinese airlines though. When booking go direct to your chosen airline.

While money might be tight, keep your eye on sites like Headforpoints and Flyertalk. I'd suggest skimming HFP daily without fail as it will draw your attention to various airline sales, often highlighting unusual routings to save money.

While HFP is focused on premium cabin travel it might open your eyes to other opportunities. The idea of that many hours in economy makes me shudder. Getting a budget airline flight to Oslo (or elsewhere in Europe) to then pay twice the price for a business class seat appeals greatly to me. It might not work for your finances but keep your eyes peeled just in case.

Back to Avios. A BA return flight to Oz in economy will bag you enough points to treat yourself to a one way flight from London to the nearer parts of Europe such as Prague or Lisbon. Business class return to Oz will get you within reach of eight such flights.

So get saving!

Voyager2002

I use all my Clubcard points to get Avios, so it can be worthwhile. To get the most value from Avios, you should use them either for upgrades (you buy a premium economy ticket and use Avios to move in to Business) or for cheap flights within Europe: they call them Reward Flight Savers.

sandsy

There's virtually no Avios tickets available to Oz, according to the Flyer Talk forums which is the fount of all knowledge for this sort of thing. I book for other destinations the day they are released which is typically 355 days ahead. You'd be taking a huge chance relying on there been such tickets and the amount saved isn't great in economy, once taxes are paid. Rather use your club points for food and put the money saved towards cash flights.

steve1500

I don't know if the OP has thought about Virgin & going West. Virgin Atlantic to LA & that opens up quite a few other routes into Oz


Plus Virgin have lower fees & at the moment they are offering a 20% bonus, something that is extremely rare with Avios