Avios Help

callum9999

sandsy wrote: »

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.

There are lots and lots of economy tickets available to Australia, presumably because it's such awful value very few people want to use them. If you're flying economy you can ignore almost everything mentioned on that site - they're almost exclusively premium flyers who view having to sit in economy a fate worse than death!

steve1500 wrote: »

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

That wouldn't be worthwhile on a cost basis - it's only any good if you specifically want to visit the US.

Voyager2002 wrote: »

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.

Or cheap flights within the Americas, Japan or Australia (I don't know if they have any intention of seeing anything other than Sydney?).

Ballard

steve1500 wrote: »

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

I looked at Virgin for a trip down under last November but they were outrageously expensive. For my return leg the best I could find was £3,200 economy. That's one way. I didn't look at the option of going west as I didn't want the hassle of the US visa waiver... or US border control come to that.

marsman802

There is the option of using avios to reduce the cash fare of a ticket which may be useful

agrinnall

Ballard wrote: »

I looked at Virgin for a trip down under last November but they were outrageously expensive. For my return leg the best I could find was £3,200 economy. That's one way. I didn't look at the option of going west as I didn't want the hassle of the US visa waiver... or US border control come to that.

That seems very steep, my niece flew back from NZ on Boxing Day on Air New Zealand / Virgin via LAX, on a flight booked less than 2 weeks before, for around £800 one way.

pmramsay

virgin fairs are expensive one way as the one way tickets are fully flexible, one way with miles is usually the best value if you only want to use virgin for one direction

Ballard

pmramsay wrote: »

virgin fairs are expensive one way as the one way tickets are fully flexible, one way with miles is usually the best value if you only want to use virgin for one direction

Sorry. I didn't explain that at all well. That leg was part of a return. The outbound leg was about £100 more than BA so roughly £4,000 return economy.