DominicB

I've been trying to plan out some family trips in the summer, in the hope of vaccine-instigated resumption of some kind of normality. I was astonished to find that the taxes etc for an Avios redemption between Chicago and London round-trip were about $1800..... but that I could buy a round-trip in First (no upgrades used - regular, albeit low, fares on the website) for less than $3k. Just feels crazy.

Mwenenzi

Are you confusing real taxes with carrier imposed award surcharges (~100% airline profit)?
Departures from most UK airports have the APD. First class is at top rate. The same cost is in revenue tickets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passenger_Duty
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-an...passenger-duty

Jagboi

It's not real taxes, the BA "carrier surcharge", aka additional profit that BA adds for North American departures is very high. It's one of the reasons that I value Avios at almost zero, as the cost to use them is very high, plus the restrictions in finding dates and flights are significant.

Freddorick

Yes you are right. BA fees (as others pointed out, its a carrier surcharge) are insane. Add to that the current low cash prices and there is no reason to book with avios apart from the flexibility.

I think there are great redemptions out there, European flights with BA, domestic flights in the US, CX flights to and from HK, domestic JL flights etc.

But I agree, if you are just looking at a round trip long haul flight ex LON avios tend to be terrible.

In general there seem to be much better programs out there for redemptions (AA and AS seem to be popular).

Jagboi

The surcharges are substantially higher to do an ex Canada return to LHR than an ex LHR to Canada. For those not living in the UK Avios are not a great value. My chances of doing an inter-Europe trip without a trans-Atlantic portion are vanishingly small. I appreciate there may be some good values out there, but ex- North America to Europe is not one of them.

Freddorick

Didn’t know about Taxes ex Canada. Do these also apply to upgrades, e.g. C->F?

Jagboi

I have never done the upgrade that way, as there must be Avios seats available in order to do it, and usually there is no availability. My usual way is book WTP and upgrade with cash at the airport check in. Returning from LHR I'm happy to be in WTP as it's a daytime flight.

The last time I was able to find an Avios CW seat (YYC-LHR return) on dates I wanted to travel was in 2015, and then the fees were approx $1200 (about £750 then).

dougzz

Never really considered the accuracy of this, but many comment the surcharges are so high because USA credit card offers are so generous with Avios bonuses. Regardless those Avios are bought from BA generating revenue, and I suspect like any price ‘carrier surcharges’ are high because they can be.
As ever you really need to compare like with like, and a discounted non-refundable ticket compared to a flex Avios redemption which can cheaply be cancelled is not like with like.
There is great value to be found in using Avios, but I believe seldom in using them ex-USA to London. Maybe the time to question the value of something is before you start collecting them, when I assume there would be other alternatives, crediting to other programmes or using cash back credit cards.

etiene

Oh for an Avios whinge thread where very regular posters can tell the difference between “profit” and “revenue”.

wesport

I agree. Using my 2 for 1 voucher a round trip from MIA to LHR is $1800 pp in taxes. Right now I could buy club world round trip for $2400. Spending $30000 to get the voucher and 95 dollars for the annual fee does not seem worth it. The advantage is you can cancel and get it all back except for $55. Also flights around Europe using Avios are quite good. I am rethinking the Chase BA card for next year.

PUCCI GALORE

Welcome my Dear to the wonderful world of Taxes (APD) charges and all that goes to make a "free" ticket really quite an expensive experience. I have long decided that I keep a bank of Avios for the days when tickets from Spain (which is where I live mostly) and the UK are exorbitant in the summer. Then they are very useful to me. Other than that, there are so many deals out there as others point out, that it really is not worthwhile. I always have looked at them and thought what I might have paid had I not used them - that way I feel better about the whole thing.

fotographer

I was under the impression.. that at one point BA was going to reduce quite a bit these so called surcharges.... must have been in my dream

Duck1981

We booked a London to Palma/ Majorca this late summer with an expiring 2-4-1 in Club Europe and it was 10k points and I believe £96 in surcharges. Ticket price would have been about £640 otherwise.

So as others said still good value intra-Europe and I guess the whole thing is mostly designed for UK/ European citizens. I still have 30k AA points though (solely delay compensations) which I hope to redeem next summer so I will have an opinion about the US system by then

gpp1

Booking the inbound separately reduces the pain a bit but not much. UUA from WT+ is just as bad. $900 surcharge for a return from the East Coast is significant.

PointsPanda

I think blaming american credit cards for avios policy of charging outrageous taxes is a bit of a stretch. Especially since Americans mainly use avios to book American Airlines flights, which have virtually zero or extremely low taxes. If the problem was really those pesky Americans then they would tax the AA flights really bad not BA flights, which hasn't been the case. Also keep in mind BA's generous bonus for US credit cards is more then offset by the super high fees they rake from americans using the card. They might make 2% per transaction, whereas with europe card they might make 0.2% per transaction (I don't have the exact numbers but its something like this)

Try flying on a partner carrier, AA redemptions using avios have much lower taxes. Also avoid flying out/to of London you always get nailed with high taxes/surcharges, and thats true for most point redemptions, not just avios.

Also don't forget if you book a british airways flight in cash you can wipe off some of the cost in cash at 1US cent per avios, which at this point is not a halfway bad way of getting rid of some avios.

Generally speaking though, I agree Avios are really hard to redeem for good value, especially too and from europe. If you aren't going for status perhaps crediting all your one world flights to American Airlines which still has some really good sweet spots. LATAM leaving one world took a hit to avios as well, for those of us living in the americas. But anyways, this topic has been covered ad infinitum on 100+ other threads on this site.