johnnie69

As a confirmed Economy passenger for many years any flight with a bed without a £4k dent in my wallet is worth it. Thanks to FT this dream has come true and I have enjoyed 4 x LH flights in CW over the last 12 months for either the price of air tax or a WT+ ticket

malkie

I once spent 35k BA Miles on a miles+money economy TATL flight because I literally had no idea what I was doing with the BAEC programme. Then I found FT, and changed into a job which offered employer-paid CW flights.

Combination of the two allows regular redemptions. Best value was probably the 80k miles I used to MFU myself and Mrs Malkie out to PEK and back from NRT.

Did an F redemption to YYZ last year for our honeymoon, and at the weekend booked a F redemption to NYC for a weekend in November.

Absolutely no way I'd be geared up to do that without FT assistance (and obviously my employer flying me in CW).

Globaliser

Running this search will get you a lot of threads along these lines.This is a dangerous road to go down, as you can end up knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

I'd do a quick mental estimate to see whether I'd be bonkers to use miles/Avios rather than cash, but beyond that, precise pence-per-mile shouldn't enter into it.

It is in any event a difficult calculation to do precisely because you're frequently comparing unlike conditions. The fare conditions of a pure redemption ticket are different from the fare conditions of an MFU ticket, and are different from the fare conditions of a pure cash ticket.

However, I'm pretty sure that my best value redemptions have been W --> J MFUs on routes on which we earn more miles/Avios from the underlying ticket than we spend on the MFU.Why is "I would not have booked this without points" incompatible with saving money? I've done three round-trips in F, which I would not have booked without miles. But I would not have booked the cash tickets because I wouldn't spend money buying F tickets.

Professor Yaffle

Two Club returns to LAS - this was a trip with inflexible dates not including a Sat night stay, so list price of tickets was approaching £9k. Still felt rough shelling out £1k in surcharges and taxes though

simonspear

Any F redemption on a 241 is exceptional value and that's what we normally spend ours on.

nwmgc

Well now, how about going where you want to go on the dates you want? I have written elsewhere, but I have 3 J returns to SAN for Christmas all courtesy of Avios. I'm about half an hour from LHR and my sister 20 minutes from SAN. Under 15 hours total travel time to the Pacific Ocean , in CW direct, certainly takes some beating - oh, and I save several thousand pounds...

PanGalactic

Especially if it's a last minute booking as the cash prices are cranked right up at around T-14 days.

sdorling

I did an ex-LIS MFU from WT+ to CW routing LIS-LHR-SFO,EWR-LHR,LGW-DFW back in 2006 for about £750 for the WT+ fare and approx. 40k miles all on BA with a 3 month gap between the EWR-LHR and LGW-DFW legs

Swanhunter

Well it was the first form of BA miles rather than Avios, but

160,000 miles + my first Amex 241. Concorde to JFK and return.

2 F trips to SYD were also rather pleasing as they lead to happy holidays wandering the South Pacific.

T8191

I'm with Globaliser and johnny69 … those MFUs from WT+ to CW can be exceptionally good value, especially when the Avios earned are factored in.

It helps if you're willing to pay for WT+ in the first place, of course. I doubt I pay for CW to MFU to FIRST, but I suppose I might get tempted by a super sale offer one day

PanGalactic

Agreed, although an extra 10% discount like the chase card gets and a "normal" sale would probably do it for me

Geordie405

For me it was probably two CW returns for me and a good friend from BRU to ORD via LHR in March this year to celebrate my 40th birthday. The OpUp to F on the way back was an added bonus too! Apart from that I'd say NCL - LHR - SFO a couple of years earlier with miles and a 241 voucher for another birthday trip

What I'd also point out is that the new Reward Saver is exceptionally good value too and not to be sniffed at. I have a trip booked from BRU to GLA next month for 4500 miles plus £13.50 and my trip back to NCL for Christmas is also booked for 9000 miles / points plus £27.

The MFU is also - as T8191 says - great value. I upgraded from J to F one way to LAX a month or so ago and that was superb, and WT+ to J is also great value and generally miles neutral!

nh1980

So far my best value redemption has been a CE flight to Geneva a few years ago and receiving more Avios back (than I had redeemed) as compensation for complaining about several things that went wrong - this was T5 in the nadir of 2008. Best otherwise has been a MFU CW to F on LHR-JFK recently for just 20k Avios, definitely great value even when looking at an F sale price or a true "F" cash price.

Only regret is not finding this site a LOT earlier! Now looking to get first big value redemption through a longhaul 2-4-1 next year

LTN Phobia

60,000 Avios for c. £2,200 return flight, CX F, HKG-HND-HKG.
I had never flown CX before.

The scary thing is CX was so good and led to my genuine enjoyment of the flights (which is highly unusual as I fundamentally do not like being a passenger on a flight) on those flights that they have gained a cash customer for this route - I'd pay cash for it if I can't find redemptions I never thought I'd ever even contemplate paying that much cash for short flights.

HIDDY

No F on the EZE route I'm afraid but you could go F to GRU and fly CW back to LHR from EZE.