Celebrating First Reward Flight Booking 🎉
I know Avios has depreciated in value but I wanted to share a positive experience for anyone new to collecting and wondering if it’s worth it.
Rewind to Jan 2026, I was first introduced to the concept of Avios (via Le Shuttle posters). After some digging on this subreddit I realised that it would be stupid to collect and spend on Le Shuttle travel and set myself a more ambitious challenge - try to save as much as possible on our dream trip to Japan in 2027.
With the 355 day seat release timeline, we only had around 4 months to go from 0 to 38,000 Avios, the lowest band of reward flight from London to Tokyo for our dates.
Fast forward to today, using only sign up bonuses and the Avios app (no spending outside of usual), we’ve just successfully redeemed our 2 economy return flights costing 38,000 points and £1,370.
That might sound like a lot to pay - but the cheapest direct flight (we only want to fly direct) on that route for those dates is £3,420. So a saving of £2,150 which will go a really long way on our trip.
Now I know many other flights and redemptions can be menial savings - so I’m not sure if we’ll go as hard on the point hunting in future, but it was absolutely worth it for this trip. Thanks all for the tips and advice in this subreddit for helping us get to where we wanted to go!