Avios part payment just got more flexible
 

Got an email from BA saying that you can now use avios part payment to bring any flight down to £1 when booking as a cash flight, giving you "more flexibility at your fingertips".

I presume the rate you get is still unchanged (terrible), so not really much of an enhancement for anyone who knows how to play the reward seat game.

Saw one example in some email from another travel site and was a good 600k+ Avios for F from LAX-LHR.

Suppose if you had millions you couldn't find redemptions for, this might be a way of dumping them.

I have 100,000's of Avios, but I've never part-paid using Avios. The amount of Avios they want is just not value-for-money. Nor is paying for a seat with Avois worth considering either.

I've done something like 13k Avios to save £100 before. Earned those back anyway, so it felt like saving cash with no losses.

It might be attractive to those earning 100,000s Avios from credit card spends (possibly US based)?

Rather than improve their IT system, they spend money on figuring how to take away value....

I used a small pay with points (agree with "xenole") it was 10-15K but at a reasonable price with immediate earn back. None of the larger amounts seemed reasonable to me.

Ive recently used avios to get a CE ticket after buying cash economy seat. c180gbp for econ, 480+gbp for CE. I upgraded with avios and it cost 9gbp plus 6500 avios (one way), which i though was fair value. Just a datapoint on Avios value.

Wish they hadn't used the word flexibility, as I wonder if we will have some folks soon complaining that they thought their tickets were flexible.

It seems though that you can now pay as little as £1 in cash and the rest in Avios and you still earn Avios and TP on the underlying commercial fare. And you can use it for BA Holidays bookings. So for Avios rich people it might allow you to combine with the double TP offer and earn status for little cash but a lot of Avios. Whether it is a sensible approach is another issue.

Edit. Not sure you can combine with the double TP offer as Term #13 states Avios payment may not be used in conjunction with any other promotional offers, unless expressly stated otherwise.

As someone who does part pay with Avios, this is useful to know. I know it's not for everyone (or the most efficient way to use them), but I use it to make Club SH more affordable while accruing status for when I travel LH - normally below Club. So this is potentially a motivation to be a bit more creative in accruing Avios, for me at least.

There's a small devaluation built in here; 10,400 used to get £70 off, now 10,160 takes £68 off. But it's less than a penny, I think.

This is not altogether a particularly bad idea. I hadn't thought of using PPwA for that.

Take Newcastle booking now for November with all the cheap fares available. On certain flights I see:
CE for £154.41 which reduces to £1 plus 30,470 avios (80 TP’s awarded and a saucerful of avios).
CE avios ticket is £1 plus 30,000 (0 TP’s but flexibility to cancel)

In ET the fare is £61.41 which reduces to £1 plus 10,990 avios (earning 10 TP’s)
Avios ticket is £1 plus a whopping 18,500 avios, or £35 plus 9,500 avios

Cash fare with avios wins if you collect TP’s and can live without the flexibility, and choose to spend your avios this way, and in ET a cash fare using avios can use fewer avios than an avios ticket.

How does this work with being able to cancel. If you paid £1 + x Avios. Would all the Avios be refunded (for a fee) and lose the £1.

I tend to book Reward Flights if possible as able to cancel or change and be refunded both Avios and cash for £35 fee. Rather than cash fare that not refundable.

Sorry, I not up to date with the changes if silly question.

Part pay with Avios means the normal ticket rules apply. It does not make an inflexible ticket flexible.

I just bought two trips completely with Avios just to use them. What good are hundreds of thousands of them otherwise?
Maybe those trips aren't a great value but they are free which is good in my book.

If valuing 1 avios at 1p, then I make this buying 80tp @ £150 (304-154) - which seems a good deal? Assuming you were happy to pay the revenue fare in the first place.