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Avios sale – £1 Reward Flight Saver routes launch and are bookable now

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Today sees the launch of one of the most interesting parts of the 2014 Avios ‘sale’!

(Don’t forget, though, that until noon today – Monday – the previous offer is still running.  Until 12pm, you can still book a hotel in Vienna, Dubrovnik, Prague, Copenhagen, Berlin, Budapest, Istanbul and The Algarve for 50% off!  The 50% discount applies whether you pay by Avios or by cash, and you can stay up to 30th September.  Full details are in this article.)

These flights are already bookable – at least for some routes – as at 8am on Monday!  Until noon on Wednesday, the taxes on Reward Flight Saver tickets will be dropped from £35 to just £1.

The following routes are included:

Amsterdam

Barcelona

Dublin

Jersey

Lisbon

Madrid

Nice

Rome

You will need to fly between 31 January and 31 May.

Only economy seats are available.

One way flights are available for 4,500 Avios plus 50p.

It works OK with UK connections as well, so a one-way Manchester-Heathrow-Amsterdam is still just 4,500 Avios plus 50p.

Remember that avios.com has greater reward availability than ba.com for economy short-haul flights.  (I think avios.com can access G availability, if these things mean anything to you!)  You should therefore look via avios.com and not ba.com, and use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move your points across.

ba.com should only be used for open-jaws (if allowed) or stopovers (if allowed in London on regional departures) which avios.com cannot handle.  The only exception to this is for BA Executive Club Gold card holders, who get additional economy seats made available to them and will therefore be better off looking at ba.com.

Remember, though, that you can only book Reward Flight Saver tickets on avios.com if you have ‘earned’ an Avios point in that scheme in the last 12 months.

There is little point opening an avios.com account today (with the intent to make a transfer of Avios from ba.com) because you will not be able to book Reward Flight Saver tickets. Unless, that is, you spend £31 to buy 1,000 Avios in avios.com to activate the account – although this may make sense if you want to make a number of bookings and can see availability at avios.com which is not at ba.com.

The avios.com flight booking page is here.

If you need to cancel, the standard £25 fee should not apply as long as you cancel online.  You will only lose your £1.  All your Avios points will be returned.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways American Express

Comments (167)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Ken says:
    13 Jan13 January 12:02

    Irritating that EDI-LHR is still £17.50 when you get the longer zone one journey for 50p – is it possible to book EDI_LHR_AMS for 50p then just not use the european connections?

    • squills says:
      13 Jan13 January 12:05

      It’s perfectly possible, just don’t do it too often 😉

    • CV says:
      13 Jan13 January 12:16

      Watch out on the return flight – some airlines will cancel the remainder of the booking if you miss one of the flights, you would need to tell them you intend making the return leg, from LHR and not AMS, perhaps make up some excuse.

      Seen this happen with friend on Emirates, there flight was delayed, meaning they missed their connecting (Emirates) flight. Emirates put them on a different airline to get them to destination (which was nice) but then their system automatically cancelled their return flight as they hadn’t shown for their original flight! They didn’t find this out until checking in for their flight home.

      • John says:
        13 Jan13 January 19:28

        Not a problem here as you can book it as one way. But the return from LHR will be at normal prices.

    • Rob says:
      13 Jan13 January 14:13

      Yes, no problem, as long as you don’t check in luggage

      • Andrew says:
        13 Jan13 January 14:22

        Yes, or I put in a stopover to make sure there was no confusion. So the final leg to AMS (in the eg above) was a week after landing in London from Edinburgh.

  • John says:
    13 Jan13 January 13:06

    The small print of this offer simply states that it is for flights from “london to selected destinations” – no indication that London City was not included!!!

  • John says:
    13 Jan13 January 13:12

    You’re saying “London City” is not in the offer because you’ve seen that somewhere or simply that you’ve done the same as me (tried and found it shows £35)?

    • Howard says:
      13 Jan13 January 13:37

      BA website states flight from London included in the £1 offer. However, there is none from City for the £1

    • nux says:
      13 Jan13 January 13:46

      T&C’s state it must be a British Airways flight.
      LCY flights are operated by BA CityFlyer, so that is probably why they can not include it and still claim it applies to all British Airways London flights.

  • Chilibenny says:
    13 Jan13 January 12:20

    Sorry if this is a silly question but I am still fairly new to getting reward flights. I have booked returns from LHR to DUB on ba.com as I had no avios in my avios account.
    How do I go about getting seat allocations as I wasn’t given an option when I got the tickets. I don’t have any BA priviliges as just an ordinary Exec Blue member but I wouldn’t want to pay if I can avoid.

    • squills says:
      13 Jan13 January 12:26

      If you don’t want to pay, you can log in to online check in 24 hrs before your flight & choose seat(s). Sometimes opens up a little early (not recently, gotta be said).

  • smriti says:
    13 Jan13 January 12:25

    When booking on the avios site a trip from Lon-Madrid and back was showing me about £200 in taxes. I dont understand it. Isnt this the whole point of reward point saver? No taxes? It shows me 30K avios + £200 taxes which makes it quite unattractive.

  • Leo says:
    13 Jan13 January 12:40

    hey guys

    Wanted to order but had 0 balance on Avios.com.

    I have plenty on both BA.com and Tesco, so exchanged £2.50 Tesco’s into 600 but nothing happened. Can’t see where and how the Tesco acc is linked to my Avios.com acc, so what’s next, please?

    • squills says:
      13 Jan13 January 12:58

      Either order from BAEC a/c or if flights not available: your best bet would be to transfer the BAEC Avs to your Avios.com a/c as that is instant. Just go into ‘Combine my Avios’ on either BAEC or Avios.com and move the Avs to Avios.com.

      Tesco to Avios.com or to BAEC can take 24-48 hrs or so.

      What happens if you do not nominate an a/c to transfer the Tesco Avs to, is that either Avios.com or BAEC will open a new a/c for you.

      • Leo says:
        13 Jan13 January 13:13

        @squills thanks a mill, managed to transfer from BA to Avios.com but can’t get RFS as haven’t earned 1 Avios on Avios.com

        To overcome this problem I made a Tesco transfer which DOES count towards the ! Avios required, but this might take 48 hours. Am I correct?

        • squills says:
          13 Jan13 January 13:25

          Fairly sure it counts as ‘earning’. 48 hrs should be OK, I’ve had much quicker.

        • nux says:
          13 Jan13 January 13:41

          Yes a Tesco transfer can count.
          However if it is a first transfer, it may transfer to a new avios.com account which Tesco opens if all the details do not match exactly. You then need to call avios.com to merge the accounts.

    • Rob says:
      13 Jan13 January 14:12

      It should happen overnight tonight or Tuesday, as long as the name and address details match exactly between your Tesco and avios.com accounts.

    • Jonny says:
      13 Jan13 January 16:09

      Hi Leo
      worth also doing Avios Suitcase on Facebook – you’ll get various avios for free (around 400) which will post into your account first thing tomorrow morning in case Tesco doesn;t come across in time

  • Russell Evans says:
    13 Jan13 January 12:43

    Positioned myself in advance of this offer by redeeming AMEX MR points to other half’s BAEC. BIGGEST schoolboy error in creating a household account on avios.com to enable me to share our collective totals. Am now advised that I cannot use “combine my avios” to move from BAEC to Avios.com (where there is availability on our route).
    Wanted to warn everyone of the pitfalls of creating an avios.com household account, seems like a waste of time as you’ll have to fill out a form and post it to them to break up the household and enable the facility to combine avios across. Anyone happen to know of a workaround? We are short of Avios of late given recent long haul redemptions so having to scratch around for a portly 19K avios is a bit of a mission. Roll on Tesco bonus – got a tidalwave of avios lying in wait in my Clubcard balance!

    • pauldb says:
      13 Jan13 January 13:40

      If your OH’s avios.com HHA account is on no value to you, just create a new one with another email address. Unlikely to cause you any trouble.

  • Clive J says:
    13 Jan13 January 12:53

    Just bagged myself a weekend in Dublin for March. 9k +£1. Took a couple of goes to switch from BA to Avios.com but worked in the end. Now to find a hotel.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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