Liz F

Hoping someone can chime in and advise. Short haul flights within U.K. or west Europe were always under 4K for off peak. I came across a bunch of blogs (assume they all copy one another) that avios made changes and that Zone 1 went up 750 points. However this is not what I am seeing. I am seeing everything is above 9000 points which means it was a -200% devaluation.

is this for real? Surely a flight from Scotland to London can’t be almost the same amount of points as London to the US?

sxc

Searching today, I see GLA-LHR one way to be 9250 Avios in Y and 15000 Avios in J.

But are there redemptions London to USA for 9250??

sxc

Edit: what i see is the following. It looks like BA now gives you as the default redemption more Avios with less fees:

vintagepilot

Yes - but look at the 'taxes'. They are giving you (by default) the option to pay some of the fees with avios, so that rate will presumably be with 50p fees. If you click on 'more pricing options' you should see the standard avios + £17.50 rate amongst other options.

More in the dashboard Your guide to spending Avios | 2021 edition and here Reward Flight Savers priced from £1 - trial begins 16 July 2019

sigma421

this is exactly what is happening. 19,000 return + £1 is what’s now pulling through to the flight selection screen for say GLA-LHR but if you click through then 9,500 + £35 is still an option

Globaliser

Welcome to (posting on) FT, Liz F!I don't think it's correct any more to regard the number of Avios payable at the £17.50 rate as the "standard" rate. BA's changes mean that the £0.50 rate is now the standard, and every reduction from that number of Avios is now non-standard.

For someone who qualifies for RFS, this doesn't mean that a pure award redemption has had any devaluation beyond the extra 750 Avios added recently. So the blogs are correct to this extent.

However, the change to the £0.50 rate as standard has had a variety of other adverse effects, including on BAEC members who do not qualify for RFS. I thought of five scenarios, which I set out in the following posts, but others may recognise more:

• Your guide to spending Avios | 2021 edition
• Your guide to spending Avios | 2021 edition

See also the discussion in this thread: Rogue RFS pricing or a stealth increase? [Avios increase confirmed]

Grace B

Why would anyone bother?

I'll just burn my avios on business class redemptions on QF in Australia. Much better value IMHO.

bakera

To me Standard is the rate offered when using a Companion voucher. There are no options offered, just the single rate.

Globaliser

But companion vouchers are only one type of redemption.

Also, companion vouchers may not be immune from the effects of the standard rate going up. Presumably you qualify for RFS? If a non-RFS member books using a companion voucher, it may be true that they have no choice of Avios rate, but (unless there has been some carve-out for this specific redemption category) it looks to me like they will probably now be paying more cash than they used to.

To use the LHR-GVA example in Your guide to spending Avios | 2021 edition, it would have been 4,000 + £39.67 + £39.67 under the old system. Now it would be 4,750 + £59.67 + £59.67. The £20 increase is because of the extra cash payable to reduce the number of Avios from the new standard of 9,250 to the companion voucher rate of 4,750.

If there has been a carve-out to protect this category of redemption, then that would be a pleasant surprise.

NickB

Well, I do not know about others but my needs for business class redemptions on QF in Australia are probably as frequent as what I suspect to be your needs for second class bus tickets between Almaty and Ürümqi. I have a feeling that I am not the only BAEC member to be in this situation.

OTOH, intra-European RFS awards were pretty much my routine go-to redemption on BA before covid19 (I have not flown BA at all since March 2020), which tended to be, pound for pound, one of the most efficient use of my Avios since the programme was revamped many years ago and the sweet spot of very cheap avios upgrades from WT+ to J disappeared.

SK AAR

Well said Sir! - I was also perplexed about the comment/comparison to QF awards. I'm in the same boat as you - as would most readers of this forum be.

I fully second your views on Zone 1 awards. I have hardly used my Avios for anything else than 4,000/4,5000 Avios reward flights in the past.
4,500 Avios for BLL - OSL, BLL- MAN, BLL - DUS, BLL-LCY etc is amazing value compared to the revenue fares charged by BA/Sun Air for these flights.

ratechaser

Seconded! Or possibly thirded as I'm late to the party, but RFS in Europe was always historically one of my favourites. Will be interesting to see if that returns in the post-COVID world, although if the low cash fares on a lot of routes persist, the value per Avios would be much reduced.

I still find good value in WTP to CW by the way...

To the OPs point though, I do find it a bit sneaky of BA that the default option is not one that gives the best redemption value per Avios - yes I get that there will always be people that will burn them to save a few quid (perhaps thinking back to the old Airmiles days where there were no cash fees, only miles), but I doubt many of us regulars on here would be among them, unless you literally had millions going spare.

KeaneJohn

RFS with free domestic connection was the best. I had nested tickets with stopovers in London (where I live) to have 2 weekends away for the price of one.

I think the additional Avios is in line with the new £8.90 airport user fee for Heathrow.

Liz F

Interesting that Iberia seems to be cheaper and can still buy a zone 1 flight for 4K avios and $39 in taxes...however using avios on BA it was actually cheaper to buy the flight outright as the taxes plus avios was actually more. Makes no sense. Guess I won’t be trying to earn BA points anytime soon

Grace B

Yes, I thought these could be good value too, but I haven't flown BA since mid-2019, and am now "stuck" in Australia, so have little opportunity to qualify for RFS. I did also think that CAI-LHR avios redemptions in business class were quite good value, though perhaps not in the future if on A320/21.

I must admit I phrased my above post rather badly. What I should have said is that in the absence of anything else for foreseeable future, avios redemptions for business class on QF in Australia do look quite attractive (vs using my QFF points), and much better value than non-RFS intra-Europe (if that was even possible).

Well, it makes sense to me....