Has anyone ever managed to actually use/spend Avios points?

jpsartre

Aubrey_Thicket wrote: »

Any UK airport (preferably Manchester) to
Orlando on dates (Outbound) 1st or 2nd April 2017 (inbound on 15th Or 16th April 2017).

Orlando is tough route to redeem on, especially arond holidays. It doesn't help that you're looking at weekend departures. Also, 32k Avios isn't going to get you there, even in economy (and for longhaul flights, it's generally poor value to redeem in economy cabins anyway.)

silvercar

Beauty of Avios is you can cancel 24 in advance and get back all your Avios. So be organised and book well in advance then cancel if you need to.

We have managed to book Avios flights New York, St Lucia, Mauritius, Las Vegas, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Paris over the last few years.

richardw

Avios direct flights from Manchester http://www.avios.com/gb/en_gb/spend/regional-flights?dept=MAN&from=flightSearch

Caz3121

Aubrey_Thicket wrote: »

Thanks for the brilliant advice all. Maybe I'm doing something wrong then. To put my mind at ease would somebody mind taking a moment to check if I'm right in saying There is nothing available on Avios for the following:

Any UK airport (preferably Manchester) to
Orlando on dates (Outbound) 1st or 2nd April 2017 (inbound on 15th Or 16th April 2017).

Thank you in advance.

I am guessing these dates will have been snapped up some time ago
closest still available is 1 economy redemption 4th-10th April or for 2 weeks it would be 12th-26th...however you would need more than 32,000 avios even for one passenger
...just to demonstrate that redemptions do exist...

ShAnE

Got an email to say my 12,000 avios points were expiring next month. The only thing I could get for them was a skull of vodka.

Not complaining as it's quite a cool piece for our alcohol cupboard, but I did find they were pretty much worthless when it came to their primary purpose.

Voyager2002

ShAnE wrote: »

Got an email to say my 12,000 avios points were expiring next month. The only thing I could get for them was a skull of vodka.

Not complaining as it's quite a cool piece for our alcohol cupboard, but I did find they were pretty much worthless when it came to their primary purpose.

You can prevent them from expiring by any transaction involving Avios -- the simplest is to order a case of wine through BA (actually Laithwaites) which is reasonable value and the points are credited very quickly.

As a general rule, you can only use Avios to pay for something that cannot be sold for cash. That means flights to unpopular destinations on unpopular dates, and upgrades on all but the most popular dates and routes.

FunTime

Voyager2002 wrote: »

You can prevent them from expiring by any transaction involving Avios -- the simplest is to order a case of wine through BA (actually Laithwaites) which is reasonable value and the points are credited very quickly.

As a general rule, you can only use Avios to pay for something that cannot be sold for cash. That means flights to unpopular destinations on unpopular dates, and upgrades on all but the most popular dates and routes.

That's crazy. I use them often.
I missed a flight the other day and quotes for a replacement were £300+,. I was able to book a flight on AVIOS for the next business class flight that day.
The people who have problems usually just don't have a clue.

pmramsay

South africa last year - Virgin Miles to JNB, avios flights with comair from JNB to CPT and also CPT to PE

Got a trip to asia this year, virgin miles return UC flights to HKG, avios flights from Hong Kong to Hanoi and Phuket to Hong Kong. Also got my flight back to Manchester from London via avios

Next year return business class flights to Crete for a 3 week summer holiday via avios.

So yes it is easy to find flights as long as you are flexible and look in advance. do some dummy bookings for future flights and if you require more miles find ways of building avios. You can do part pay with avios if you want to get rid of a few and pay the rest in cash.

budgetflyer

32k Avios won't get u to Orlando anyway, even if there were 100 seats available

dickydonkin

All of my avios are in my BAEC account and I have recently managed three upgrades to First and many Reward Flight Savers (which are great value BTW, although better still if flying from London).


The key is patience, persistence and flexibility.

I would check every morning by doing a dummy booking to check for redemption availability and as soon as they were visible, I would get straight on the phone to book.

Personally, I wouldn't use them to 'buy' flights as the additional taxes that need to be paid can make the purchase poor value.