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British Airways Avios can be an extremely useful currency, as I wrote about here. These days, I’m finding more value in them than I have in years as American has seemingly stopped blocking close-in partner award space and has made more partner award space available since going dynamic with their own miles.
For example, I often make last-minute trips to NYC, and those can cost a fortune. A one-way flight tomorrow is $434. That would translate into 28,933 Chase Sapphire Reserve® points even with their value of 1.5 cents each.
Delta wants an absurd 39,000 Skypesos+$5.60 for flights:
United wants 15K miles+$5.60 for flights:
American wants between 8.5K-10.5K+$5.60 for flights, but there are no major banks that transfer points to them:
Enter British Airways Avios, which offers all of American’s flights for just 7.5K Avios+$5.60. That’s less than 6K points with a 30% transfer bonus.
You can transfer points from AMEX, Capital One, Chase, or Citi into Avios.
The Avios currency is shared between Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, and Qatar, and you can transfer points between all of those airlines.
In early 2024 Finnair will join Avios and Finnair points will transfer into Avios at a 3:2 ratio.
If you want to buy 200,000 BA Avios, it would set you back some $4,599, or 2.3 cents per Avios.
That’s much too high of a price to pay and is why on-demand mileage transfers are so valuable.
But through September 18th, you can get double Finnair points when you buy 100K-200K points.
Buying 150,000 Finnair points will net 300,000 points and will cost $1,931.25 EUR. Currently, that’s $2,070.
Those 300,000 points will convert into 200,000 Avios early next year. That’s effectively paying 1.035 cents per Avios.
Banks run promotions for 30% bonus Avios often enough and I have enough points there that I’m not running to do this, but it certainly can make sense to buy at this price. That 7.5K+$5.60 award ticket would cost just $77+$5.60 instead of $434. Not a bad deal at all.
HT: Josh B, via HFP
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45 Comments On "Should You Buy Heavily Discounted Avios Via Finnair?"
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Isn’t there a high fuel fee with Avios?
No fees for domestic and for many other uses.
You need to be strategic with Avios, https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/get-30-bonus-points-transfer-chase-ultimate-rewards-points-ba-iberia-aer-lingus-avios-3/
Will check it out, thanks a lot!
I can never seem to find BA award availability
On which route?
CLE-PHL, CLE-LGA, usually last minute. But somehow your screenshots show flights.
See the first paragraph of this post?
Me neither on a Toronto- NYC route.
Plenty of award space:
Not when I need it.
NYC-YYZ
Almost never.
LAX/NYC/FLL
I have the same issue. Used to see lots of Avios availability (EWR-DFW) but haven’t seen a single flight in over a year. Is this still the right site: https://www.britishairways.com/en-us/executive-club/avios ?
https://www.britishairways.com/travel/echome/execclub/_gf/en_us
Plenty of award space:
what abut nyc to Miami
9K coach/16K first, wide open space:
that a good deal?
That depends on the cash price for a ticket that day.
For tomorrow, looks like JFK-MIA is $193 in coach and $865 in first, so those are great deals.
Make sure to select widebody business class if it still flies that route
Y does it only show AM flights not PM
Because my screen is only so big?
Convoluted. No offense. Appreciate the effort though.
Feature, not a bug.
Over last 2 months I’ve seen availability on almost all flights that I’ve checked. #numerous routes #numerous times
Same here. I almost gave up on them for AA domestic but just in the past 2 weeks I booked 2 RT trips for our family of 6.
i booked aa coach jfk-lax 15k aa miles for flight tomorrow. got complimentary upgrade with plat status to business almost immediately.
i think aa opens up its award space to partners close in
Correct.
if we want to fly from tlv nyc round trip dec 14 -dec 19 is this relevant? we have chase points and amex marriot? thnx in advance
It’s relevant only if you find availability.
This isn’t great advice as eventually all airlines devalue their currencies. I wouldn’t speculatively buy avios even if it’s for early next year.
I wouldn’t buy miles at the normal sale rates, but when it’s for sale for much less than normal, it’s certainly worth considering.
Not when it’s easy to generate as needed…
Right, as I said in the post.
Just curious. Is booking American with British Airways Avios better than booking united award travel at 7.5k through Turkish Smile awards?
The Turkish website rarely works properly.
Turkish website is messed up but if you find a saver award on uniteds website, you can call turkish and they should be able to book it for you. Done that.
Yes, this way you can avoid flying United.
what about air canada??
6k plus 47 Canadian
Is there value in booking awards on Finnair itself?
Did anyone buy this using an Amex? What does it code as?
Dan, you should mention the new Balance Boost option, where you can “always” buy points for less than 1.2, not great, but can come in handy when missing some points.
Gv Dan. Isn’t Air Canada the cheapest option to fly from NY to CLE.
I just checked, they have for 6K a way vs Avios is 7.5K a way.
1. AC charges a C$39 booking fee. BA doesn’t charge any booking fee.
2. There’s a 30% bonus from Chase-BA.
3. AC’s award cancel fee is $150. BA’s is just the taxes paid, or $5.60/way.
Thanks. That makes sense.
Nothing changed. Not one flight from YYZ-NYC on October 9,10,11 and ect.
They have random dates.