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I’m going to start this post with a mild rant. I find the whole “points buying” concept almost entirely without merit. They are invariably so comically overpriced that even when you get offered a juicy bonus, they’re still awful value.

Indeed pretty much the only time I will even consider buying points is in the Hilton 100% bonus sales. Joe and Craig probably disagree with me, mainly because they have various schemes for transforming a handful of obscure airline points (Joe often witters on about Alaska Mileage Plan – my eyes glaze over and I just nod) into long-haul first class trips with Etihad, but my general approach is to give an enormously wide berth to any points sales.

Plus, the fun and the “challenge” is in collecting them properly, anyway. Buying is cheating 🙂

The current deal

On the back of that ringing endorsement, I’m delighted to tell you that until the end of 11 April, BA is offering a 50% bonus when you purchase Avios. At the absolute cheapest “pence per Avios” rate, you can buy 300,000 Avios (200,000 + 100,000) for £3,125 (1.04p per Avios), while 1500 Avios (1000 + 500) will cost you a comedy £31 (2.06p per Avios).

Given that many of us are taking advantage of the 0.8p per Avios in “Sainsbury’s spend” that the Nectar tie-up has given us, it is very hard to argue in favour of spending 1.04 pence or upwards on Avios.

However, if you need a few thousand easy Avios to get you over a redemption threshold, then at least this will give you better value for doing so. For example, you want to book a long haul business class return flight from London to Japan using the BA Amex  companion (“buy one get one free”) voucher and you’re 5K Avios short. In these circumstances, there’s a clear rationale for paying £79 for 6,000 Avios to get you over the line. That aside, I am really struggling to see the value.

(Cover image courtesy of Britishairways.com)