r/avios

Does everyone else find the BA website absolutely unusable? I find I have to use the reward flight search on Avios and then go over to the BA site to book. Pricing up options takes about half a day and I usually just give up and come back to it and by that point the flights have gone.

Has anyone else noticed that Air India award availability is showing up on Aeroplan, but the same flights are not showing up through LifeMiles?

I actually called LifeMiles customer service and gave them my exact travel dates. They checked and told me there was no award inventory available.

However, when I mentioned that the same Air India flights were showing award availability on Aeroplan, they weren’t able to provide any explanation. They basically just confirmed that they couldn’t see any inventory on their end.

This makes me wonder if there is some issue with LifeMiles’ access/display of Air India inventory, or if Air India is releasing different inventory to Aeroplan vs. LifeMiles.

I’m also not sure the LifeMiles call center agents are fully aware of the issue, since they didn’t seem to have any concrete information beyond saying that they couldn’t see availability.

Has anyone here successfully booked Air India award tickets through LifeMiles recently? Or has anyone noticed the same discrepancy between Aeroplan and LifeMiles?

Would love to hear from anyone who understands how Air India award inventory is being distributed between the two programs.

I need help please...

Our family holiday this time next year we plan to tour Galicia and northern Spain flying from London using reward flights for 2 adults & 2 children. (We've over half a million Avios)

From what I can work out BA don't fly to Bilbao, Asturias or Santiago de Compostela (these are all by Vueling on the BA website). Therefore we can't book reward flights and Vueling offer very poor value using Avios?

So looks like flying into and out of Porto with BA is our only option paying with Avios for reward flights.

We can work out if the 2 hour drive to Galicia is worth the 'free' flights if this is the only option.

https://preview.redd.it/1widgvo57mjh1.png?width=1232&format=png&auto=webp&s=0083ab2cecfe4c07710786b1199d1fc14f5f4d50

can anyone tell me if this is worth? is there other better ways to collect avios? I travel with british and have the amex to collect points. I'm trying to get the british airways amex but still not elegible for it.

Hi, I am new to avios but know the points world well from other loyalty programmes. I am short of 20000avios to book my award flight (confirmed availability). Does the sale with bonus points happen at QR often? Any guess when would it be? Thanks!

My wife and I are planning a two-week trip to Australia in October or November 2027. We’re based in London and would prefer Sydney, as we have friends there, although Melbourne would also work if award availability is easier. Ideally, either our outbound flight would arrive in Sydney or our return flight would depart from Sydney.

I currently have:

• 490,000 Avios personally, or 517,000 across our Household Account
• 97,000 Amex Membership Rewards points
• One BA Amex Premium Plus Companion Voucher
• One BA Barclays Premier Account Upgrade Voucher
• One BA Barclays Cabin Upgrade Voucher

Our ideal redemption would be First Class in one direction and Business Class in the other. Premium Economy would be an acceptable fallback for one direction, although it wouldn’t be ideal.

What would be the best strategy for booking this while making the most of our points and vouchers?

In particular:

• Which airlines and routs should we consider?
• Would it be better to fly from London, another UK airport, or an airport elsewhere in Europe?
• Would an open-jaw itinerary such as flying into Sydney and returning from Melbourne improve our chances?
• Which vouchers would be most valuable for this trip, and can any of them be combined?
• Are there any tools that can track the relevant award availability and alert us as soon as seats are released?
• Is booking at T-355 likely to be essential, and how should we handle booking the outbound and return separately?
• Are there any taxes, surcharges, voucher restrictions or other issues we should consider in addition to what we need to pay for Avios/voucher redemption?

The amount of information and the number of different terms and conditions is becoming a little overwhelming. Are there reputable award points booking services that could review our points and vouchers, recommend the best options, monitor availability and help make the booking when the time comes?

Any advice from people who have booked a similar Australia redemption would be greatly appreciated.

I have about 140k points on my AMEX, and nearly 40k points on my avion.

I live in winnipeg, and planning to go to London (UK) in December. My tentative dates are 10th dec (+/- 2,3 days).

I understand it’ll be best for me to book a flight from Toronto to LHR.

Would someone be kind enough to tell me the best utilization of my points? I’m not necessarily looking for a business class flight using my points. Just wanna make the most of if.

Has anyone received any surveys on avios for thoughts? What is the earning rate per survey and does it depend on the location? I live in the Netherlands

As the title suggests, I want to book 3 HK-BOM Cathay reward seats through BA as I have Avios that I pool with my Amex MR points and make the booking. However, the seats that I’m looking for do not show up on BA. I have read that Cathay does not open up a lot of their reward seats to partner airlines. The same seats are available on the Cathay website. But I do not have enough Amex MR to convert to Asia Miles and book the tickets.

This booking is for 6th Dec. Is there a possibility that Cathay opens it through BA a little closer to the travel date? Does it make sense to wait?

Or the last option that I have is to top up the Asia Miles difference to book the tickets, but then it isn’t worth it really.

What do y’all suggest?

Hi all,

I just wanted to get some of your opinions with using my Avios!

I currently have around 350k Avios + 30k Amex points I can convert too.

I have the BA Premium Amex and have a companion voucher up to business class.

I wanted to fly to Australia, ideally Sydney using my points for me and my partner and wanted it to be super special as I was hoping to propose!

I liked the idea of flying out to Sydney from LGW/LHR December 2027 and proposing new years in Sydney.

I know these will be incredibly difficult to book, so wanted to get some help/feedback.

I originally wanted to transfer my Avios to Qatar and fly via their QSuite but I have seen the flexi prices are double meaning I will need 700k points. I struggle to find the normal tickets even now let alone in December. Do you think it’s worth trying Qatar and flying via another airport such as Perth?

Alternatively should I try to book with BA? My concern is the cabins and service look a little dated from YouTube videos and I wanted this to be special given the circumstances and we likely will never get the chance to fly at this class again!

If it’s too unrealistic, should I aim for US flights instead? The goal is a nice holiday with a scenic location to propose and Sydney at new years seemed to tick a lot of those boxes and was on the bucket list.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Morning all,

I have almost 800,000 Avios that I am just not going to use. If I hadn’t previously used them for flights and upgrades then I’d be closer to double that now too! We continue to earn through Amex and Avios but not on flights anymore.

We have a young child and not planning on anything long haul in the coming years and even then and when we do, it’ll be Club World with companion voucher so wouldn’t make a huge dent.

I’m also in the lucky position that there isn’t really anything I need in the shop so now wondering what the best route to converting to cash is?!

Currently thinking an iPhone 17 Pro Max in the shop is c.164k Avios + c.£400 for a £1,099 device. Get that and put on eBay could convert to £500-£600? Doesn’t seem a great conversion compared to a return Club World flight!

Any other ideas?

TIA

Email received today said:

From 7 October 2026, we'll be making these changes to your Avios Earn Rate:

we'll reduce the rate at which you earn Avios from 1.5 Avios to 1.25 Avios for every £1 spent on purchases. You'll still earn 1.5 Avios per £1 spent on purchases made before 7 October 2026, provided the transactions are charged to your account by 6 October 2026

we'll reduce the rate at which you earn Avios on purchases made directly with British Airways or British Airways Holidays from 3 Avios to 1.25 Avios for every £1 spent. You'll still earn 3 Avios per £1 spent on British Airways and British Airways Holidays purchases made before 7 October 2026, provided the transactions are charged to your account by 6 October 2026

From 1 April 2027, we’ll be introducing a new Card benefit where you will earn British Airways tier points on your purchases:

you'll earn 1 British Airways tier point for every £10 spent on purchases on your Card between 1 April and 31 March each year. This is The British Airways Club collection year you can earn up to a maximum of 3,000 tier points every British Airways Club collection year from purchases on your Card you'll be automatically enrolled into this benefit from 1 April 2027

earning tier points allows you to qualify for tiers within The British Airways Club. You can find more information about tier points on the British Airways Club website

until 1 February 2027, you can earn up to 2,500 tier points from our promotional offer (spend requirements apply and enrolment required by 25 January 2027)

I mean theyre tightening their strings every year. Annual fee increases. But only the premium card gives you access to business class reward flights plus you can still maximise avios via the app. The tier points I just find kinda pointless since BA revamped the whole system.

Because avios can get you such a good deal on flights I don't see the card getting to a point where its necessarily useless. But if the annual fee keeps increasing would people just switch to regular amex?

Hi,

I booked a Qatar business class award flight using Avios points and cash. I want to change my departure date to January 2027. I called the customer service number and the agent I spoke to told me there were no business award flights until July 2027. I checked award ticket finder and there are multiple options for January 2027. I asked the agent that it shows so many options for January 2027, why can you not rebook me into one of those award flights? She told me those are only for new bookings and not available for changes. Does this even make sense?

Has anyone had the same issue before with rebooking an award ticket? Or did the agent I spoke to have no clue what they are talking about?

Current departure date October 27 from Montreal to

Colombo.

On a side note, has anyone else noticed the Avios program has gone downhill compared to what it was a few years ago? I've had an entire return flight for my family not receive Avios points after completing the trip. After multiple mission Avios inquiries and calls where Qatar refused to credit the Avios points, I finally gave up.

Bit of a niche question maybe, but I'm hoping someone clever can please help me out.

I am in Australia. I have just created an Avios account for the first time and I need to somehow earn at least a tiny bit in order to trigger activation. Ideally I would love to do some kind of digital purchase (sign up to a streaming service for a month?) to earn a point or two. I don't have a UK address so I can't purchase a physical item or go to a UK based store or use a UK based credit card.

It would be possible to book a hotel room through booking.com or agoda but I believe that might take a while to credit to the account.

Suggestions please?

I booked a hotel on Booking com using the Aerclub link for Avios but subsequently cancelled the booking. They've now awarded me the Avios for the cancelled booking, anyone experienced anything similar?

Usually they've not awarded me the Avios when the booking was cancelled

Hi, Apologies in advance if this has been asked here before. I have avios accounts with different airlines. How do I keep all my avios points in one place and not have them divide accross different airlines? I seem to have some in an Aerclub account with Air Lingus and some in my British Airways Club?

Hi. I’ve got just over 400,000 Avios and want to get me and my wife to New Zealand and back using them. Ideally we’d stop off in Singapore for a few days either on the way there or the way back.

I’ve looked at the Qatar airline and they might be a good choice, but I’ve never used Avios to pay for a flight before and I’m not sure what to watch out for or even how to go about using them sensibly!

Any advice much appreciated.

Hi! I’m moving to the UK as an international student this September for around 4 years, and my main goal is to collect as many Avios as possible from the start.

I’m looking specifically for ways to link my British Airways Club account and earn Avios on things I’m already spending money on.

What are all the services/apps/cards/loyalty programmes you’d recommend setting up? Especially ones useful for a student in the UK.

Or things that can be turned into avios, for example Revoults RevPoints. Is there other things like that?