I am not very experienced with using Avios. I have only ever done one redemption flight so I am not familiar with the purchasing power (or lack of it) of Avios. I wonder if you could give me some guidance... I have done many searches to find previous posts on the subject but haven't found anything that has helped much.

I am Gold status, I fly a few times a year to EU destinations but don't mind flying ET for flights under 4hrs, once or twice a year I will do a TATL (BOS, JFK, ORD) usually in CW. For these TATLs I try to go ex-EU.

My question then is given that I am certainly flying a few times over the next few years should I purchase the max amount of Avios in the sale at 50% bonus? That would be 300,000 Avios (200K + 100K bonus) for £3,215?

Would I then get better value by using these for redemptions, UuA or PPwA. Whenever I have priced up TATL redemptions they have still required significant cash payments for taxes etc and when I price the same flights up without using Avios the cash isn't always significantly different. I have to admit to being a bit confused as to where it is best to use Avios and whether it is worthwhile buying them in the sale?

Can you help?