Interesting to hear about everybody's input. (Again, I never criticised BA as an airline, but personally my experience with Avios has been quite poor). Most of my flights are long-haul (JFK, SFO, Caribbean, GIG) and booked about 4/5 months in advance (my job makes it impossible to book a year in advance). I have also noticed lately that the long-haul redemptions are not really worth it, since tax makes it quite close to the actual cash ticket. Please note that this is my experience when comparing to the SkyTeam SkyMiles system I was (10 years ago!) part of. The SkyMiles are worth less than Avios but there is no restriction on the percentage of seats per flight, and I really liked that flexibility. But living in London, you are kind of stuck with BA.

Also, I do not seem to be alone thinking this - as I've had on the phone yesterday an amazing customer service rep from BA Holidays who confirmed to me that the miscontent on Avios availability has never been this high.

Second comment, APR does matter! In the UK alone, the unpaid outstanding personal credit card balance is £67.9 billion! I personally have none, but you never know what can happen.