Avios/Amex Questions

HK1989

Hi All,

I was hoping for some advice regarding various Avios and AMEX questions. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

Current situation -

My household BA Avios account balance is around 185-190,000 Avios points.

I have a Barclaycard Avios plus Cabin upgrade voucher to use.

I am about to reach the spending threshold to receive an AMEX BA Blue Card companion voucher. I didn’t realise before but I’ve now read that this voucher is for economy use only. 

I’m wondering if anyone has upgraded from the AMEX Blue BA to the AMEX BA Black Card just before hitting the spending threshold and received the more flexible companion voucher which they can then use for business class ?

Can one BA household account transfer multiple household member’s Avios points to another BA household account for a £50 transfer fee or would a £50 transfer fee apply to each individual member transferring points ?

Barclaycard Cabin Upgrade Voucher - I’ve read this can’t be combined with the BA Amex companion voucher. We would be travelling as two adults and a 0-1 year old so I think the best/only way to use this voucher is to upgrade cabin one way for two adults ? 

Any advice with the best ways to use the 190,000 Avios points with the BA Blue Card AMEX ‘Economy only’ Companion voucher or the BA Black AMEX ‘Flexible’ Companion voucher ? We would love to travel somewhere in Europe early September and Thailand or similar in Dec/Jan!

Thanks,
Dave 

El_Torro

I've never booked a whole flight using Avios. Whenever I book a flight with British Airways (a few times a year) I just use all the points I have at that point to get a discount.

One watchout I have heard from others is that Avios flights fill up very fast. Maybe it depends on the destination, I mainly hear this from people flying to the US. When you do get round to booking you may find that all the Avios seats are taken.

silvercar

As long as you upgrade the card before you trigger the voucher, you should be fine.

As far as household accounts go, you no longer need to live at the same address, so you could merge to form one household account, that will allow you to spend everyone’s avios.

You’ll get better value using the voucher for a business class flight to Thailand than a European flight. Not sure how easy it is to find availability, but there are websites that will send you alerts when reward seats become available. Alternatively, watch out for timetable changes as that often means seats are released.

Worried_fool

Business class in Europe is generally not all that different from economy. You may find that the cash element of an Avios fare is actually more than the cost of the whole journey on a 'no-frills' carrier.

I think that you should concentrate on the journey to Thailand.

HK1989

Thanks for the replies! That’s useful to know about BA household account addresses

jimi_man

In terms of the BA Amex voucher, if you join PP now then you'll get the better voucher but not after it's been issued. So you'd need to get on with it if you're close. It's just a phone call usually.

190k isn't quite enough for BKK - you're looking at about 220k Off peak, 240k Peak. But you can always Boost them if you collect them regularly. However be warned, BKK is hard to get! I've been looking for a while now for next year. There's only one flight a day (actually 6 a week) and whilst BA guarantee 4 Club seats at 355 days out, they get snapped up pretty quickly (midnight at 355 days out usually!).

BA do release more over the year if the route needs it and using a Voucher can sometimes release more. However being a LGW plane there are only 24 Club seats (4 Avios and 20 cash) and the cash go very quickly as it's a popular route. So they hardly ever release more over the year. Tokyo, the Maldives and Cape Town are the most popular as well and virtually impossible to get to because of the savings over a cash fare. With the taxes and Avios, most flights work out around (using the accepted 1p per Avios) £3000 to £3500 for two people - £1500-1700 each - so a big saving on the cash fare.

However look at other destinations. We went to Malaysia in Feb using the voucher and local flights are plentiful and cheap to Thailand. The seats just popped up one day when I was checking and I got my card out and booked there and then. Singapore is possible (though very popular also). We've used the Voucher to S Africa too so it's a case of being very flexible and very patient.

The USA is also relatively easy to get to. I was looking at Los Angeles this morning and there were sometimes three flights a day with Club seats on. New York is the same. Mainly because there are so many Club seats available - over 200 a day to LAX and probably around 400 to New York so they release more quite often. Also, if one is prepared to hunt around and travel from Dublin for example then you could get a Club seat to Los Angeles cheaper than using Avios, hence it's not quite such good value using Avios so less people do it.

You can also use them for Europe. Personally I don't like sitting next to people so I quite like EU Business. but. I get that most people want the long haul experience.

One final point, do not be tempted to use them for Economy Long haul as it's absolutely dreadful value. The taxes are often the same as a cash fare or not far short, and when you add in the cost of Avios (an accepted value is 1p per Avios) then it's really expensive. So if you have the Economy only voucher then use it for Europe as it's good value. If it's the PP voucher then go for Long haul.

You can use SeatSpy to send you alerts for Reward seats however it doesn't recognise the extra seats that the Amex Voucher generates so it's not super useful.

HTH

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82009728#Comment_82009728

Using Avios as a discount tends to be a very poor rate of return in comparison to booking a reward flight.

Ability to book depends very much on which class you want to travel and how particular you are with your dates/times. For example, looking at LON to NYC there are at least 6 business class seats every day in the next four weeks other than Sunday; surprisingly this week has First seats available too. In fact there are only two weeks until the end of the year where their isnt availability at least 6 out of 7 days. Change to Orlando and your good up to end September and then for the last 3 months it does get patchy

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82010023#Comment_82010023

Seat wise it's identical, they just dont sell the middle seat. Obviously you do still get access to the lounge and it's also a flexible ticket that can be changed up until the day before.

Business reward flights tend to be £30 which includes 2 hold luggage, if you need it. When looking for a flight to Italy last week EasyJet were £295 by comparison without any hold luggage. RyanAir was £420 again without hold luggage.

It's certainly worth checking but it can represent a decent saving plus a nicer flight and especially if you are travelling with luggage.