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I posted last week about a very generous looking British Airways triple Avios promotion. It looked very simple, and as I say, very generous.

The terms were then ‘clarified’, which, naturally, caused considerable confusion.

The terms have since been ‘clarified’ again, and I think we now know what BA actually means by triple Avios.

First of all, here is what you normally earn in each fare class:

If you are flying in Economy, things are relatively simple, as it really is just triple the number of Avios you would normally earn:

• Economy Lowest (Q, O, G): 75% of flown Miles
• Economy Low (K, L, M, N, S, V): 150% of flown Miles
• Economy Flexible (Y, B, H): 300% of flown Miles

So, to work out how many Avios you will earn, all you have to do is find your fare class, go to BA’s Avios calculator to see how many Avios you would normally earn on that route (search by segment) and then multiply the answer by 6. You need to multiply by 6 because the Avios calculator only shows the number of Avios earned flying one-way, not return.

For Premium Economy things are a bit more complicated.

If your fare class is E or T, just follow the steps for Economy and triple what you would normally earn.

If your fare class is W, then you would normally earn 150% of flown Miles. Rather than simply tripling that to 450%, you actually end up with 350%.

The reason for this is that BA have decided they mean triple ‘base’ Avios before any ‘cabin bonus’ rather than actually triple Avios.  Base Avios in this context means 100% of flown Miles.

Therefore, 3 x base Avios = 300%, and you then need to add the 50% cabin bonus you get for fare class W separately = 350%.

Business and First Class work in exactly the same way, so you should end up with the following:

• Business Lowest (R, I): 350% of flown Miles
• Business Flexible (J, C, D): 450% of flown Miles
• First Lowest (A): 450% of flown Miles
• First Flexible (F): 500% of flown Miles

Argh, BA! – why do you make these things so hard? It’s still a genuinely very good offer, but sloppy wording has led to confusion for many, and presumably disappointment too for some when they receive fewer Avios than they thought they would.