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British Airways Executive Club has launched a “buy Avios” bonus promotion that is as good as I can recall, at least when buying Avios directly and not via Groupon…
Between now and 18 May you will receive a 75% bonus when you buy or gift Avios, provided you are a British Airways co-branded American Express cardholder. Everybody else gets a 50% bonus.
As always, you will pay 1.6p per Avios, with a £15 transaction fee. As a result, the more Avios you buy, the cheaper they will be, although we’re talking decimal points once that £15 is spread across enough Avios.
If you buy 100,000 Avios, for example, you will pay £1,615. As a non cardholder, you’ll receive 150,000 Avios once the bonus is added – for 1.076p per Avios. As a cardholder, you’ll receive 175,000 Avios – for 0.923p per Avios.
I don’t believe that you must actually use your BA Amex to make the purchase, although most people naturally will want to earn a few more Avios on top…
In order to buy Avios directly, you need to click here and log in to your Executive Club account. If you have a co-branded credit card, your extra bonus should be automatically picked up, unless potentially the card is very new…
You can buy a maximum of 200,000 Avios PRE-BONUS.
Should I Bother?
Well… if you think that we are at “maximum panic”, then you might want to pounce on BA’s best ever offer. If you think that things might get worse, then you’ll probably be wondering:
- Whether BA will become even more desperate for money and reduce the price even further
- Whether BA will go bust before you can get around to redeeming the Avios
Personally, I don’t think it’s time to be adding to mileage balances. Whenever travel starts returning, I suspect that we’ll see some very interesting fare sales in all cabins. 0.92p is a decent price, but the numbers often still don’t add up once you start adding in BA’s outrageous taxes and surcharges. (even with a 2-for-1 voucher) And I wouldn’t want to speculate about when we’ll feel comfortable “positioning” on separate tickets for better-value Avios redemptions such as Iberia Business Class.
What do you think? Are you tempted to buy? Let us know in the comments section…
I’m not a buyer at this price. If I needed the Avios for a redemption on a partner airline with low taxes and fees (Cathay, JAL, Qantas domestic etc) I might consider it. I’m hoping for a bonus on transfers from HSBC to Avios. The most recent bonus was 25% but they have had much higher ones in the past. I seem to remember a 100% bonus in the early days of the World Elite card. There may well also be a bonus for transfers of Amex Membership rewards at some point. BA could do with the cash now and they can worry about having the Avios liability on their books further down the line (or just devalue it away!).
I would certainly expect a deal where BA pre-sells Avios to Amex at a cheap price. Then Amex could run conversion bonuses and promos on the co-branded cards.
I also tend to agree that a devaluation is coming. Either now whilst people have bigger things to worry about, including the screwing of BA’s employees, or later on when there are far fewer seats being flown around the world…
Craig, I just noticed your new avatar. Does that mean that “Travel Hacker” might be coming out in English?
Unfortunately not… But if I’m inspired to do a similar project in the future, I’ll definitely just stick to English and an online delivery method.
P.S. I’ve had the avatar that way for awhile now…
Looks to me is more expensive when you use the same Avios points plus 75% bonus will no get you the same blue when you redeem !! BIG Con again …..
As Iberia have had bail out would moving avios to there for now be a good idea and then moving back to BA once their situation is settled?
I doubt that it matters. I haven’t studied the labyrinth of IAG companies in much detail, but I think that Avios the loyalty programme is legally separate from British Airways the airline. Whether that is just Executive Club or all of the loyalty programmes I don’t know…
Nonetheless, BA is “too big to fail” and would be bailed out eventually by the UK government.
I feel the same. Less than 1p per avois is cheap but is BA the most competitive airline out there? I’m looking at flights over December LHR – HKG and CX is selling direct flights as low as £330. Plus if the whole social distancing policy will apply to airlines then then maybe the flight prices / redemption rates will go up the roof. Nobody knows.
BA tax alone is almost £300! Is it worth it? I guess we can all try to be a judge of that.
Even with my two for one voucher, I wouldn’t regard 1p per Avios as worth it for long haul usage. The only real value is short haul saver rewards, where Easyjet or Ryanair don’t fly or are unusually expensive, or I need lounge access. Then, again, it’s rare that Avios are worth much more than 1p. I would consider at 0.5p, but 0.9 is massively too high.