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MASSIVE AVIOS SALE: 50% off ALL long-haul flights, 25% off short-haul and it works with a 241

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British Airways has launched what is possibly the biggest Avios flight sale it has ever run.

All long haul flights, in all classes, are half price. Well, half points anyway.

Full details are on this special page of ba.com.

Avios 50% discount sale

This is what you need to know:

  • ALL long-haul redemptions (all routes, all travel classes) are reduced by 50%
  • ALL short-haul redemptions (all routes, both travel classes) are reduced by 25%

Here are the key dates:

  • You must book by 13th October
  • You must travel between now and 30th June 2021
  • Full taxes and charges are due
  • The discount is valid on both one-way and return flights
  • The discount only applies to British Airways flights and not partner airlines

Can this offer be combined with a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 or Lloyds voucher?

YES. Well, with an Amex 241 anyway.

British Airways told me that it doesn’t, but it does!

This may or may be an error. The small print does say that ‘vouchers’ are excluded.

British Airways Gatwick Airport

Should I cancel and rebook existing redemptions?

This is a tricky question.

For existing long haul bookings:

Clearly there are HUGE savings to be made if you cancel existing Avios long-haul redemptions and rebook them. You’d be crazy not to, to be honest, if it meant saving 50,000 to 100,000 Avios per booking.

(Do NOT do this with a Lloyds Avios upgrade voucher. As far as I know, these are still lost if you cancel a redemption flight which uses one.)

You need to be careful, however.

If you have enough Avios to make a fresh booking and didn’t use a 2-4-1 voucher, you don’t have any risk. You can make a new booking and then cancel your original at your convenience.

(Remember that, if you cancel online, you can only receive a Future Travel Voucher. This involves wrapping up the Avios, cash and any companion voucher in a voucher. You do NOT get the Avios, cash or companion voucher back in your accounts but you don’t pay any cancellation fees. Alternatively, you can ring BA, pay the £35 per person cancellation fee and get the Avios, cash and any voucher back directly.)

If you don’t have enough Avios to rebook, or need your 2-4-1 voucher back first, you are in a trickier position.

You need to call BA, trigger a Future Travel Voucher (which usually arrives within a few minutes, but isn’t guaranteed) and then call British Airways to rebook.

You should assume that your original seats will NOT go back into redemption availability. Only do this if you can see enough fresh seats available for the dates you want and you are willing to take the risk of them disappearing before you can rebook.

Half price Avios bookings

For existing short haul bookings:

For short haul, however, I don’t think it is worth the effort. The cancellation fees will outweigh a 25% Avios saving. Cancelling for a Future Travel Voucher and then rebooking to avoid cancellation fees is a bit of a faff for a modest return, even if seats are available.

Is there a special offer to buy Avios if I’m short?

No, unfortunately not. The 50% bonus promotion ended last week and I imagine there is no chance of a new offer before 13th October.

If you are happy to pay full price (1.6p per Avios plus a £15 handling fee), you can buy Avios via this page of ba.com.

Be careful not to get carried away ….

This is an exceptionally good offer. Offering 50% off all long haul flights, to all destination and in all classes, is not something you see every day.

However …. if you end up not flying the tickets you book, you will be paying £35 per person to cancel or taking a Future Travel Voucher, which comes with its own complications when you come to rebook (no name changes etc). Book with care.

Click here to visit the special sale page of ba.com and find out more.

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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 and Avios

Comments (712)

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

  • Berneslai says:
    6 Oct6 October 18:10

    Apologies but I’ve been through the comments and I still can’t work out what the advice is for existing bookings (I’m thick…).

    I’ve got 4 x CW return seats booked for LHR-MCO in April 2021 using 2 x Amex 2-4-1 vouchers. Can I ring up and rebook at a lower Avios amount or am I taking a risk or losing the seats? It’s doubtful that the trip will go ahead but happy to take a risk on saving Avios.

    • Chrisasaurus says:
      6 Oct6 October 18:24

      Simply depends on whether the seats you cancel to rebook go back into award inventory. If they don’t then they won’t be there to rebook

      If you have the Avios, book and then cancel

      • Berneslai says:
        6 Oct6 October 19:00

        I don’t have anywhere near enough Avios and there’s no availability! I’ll leave it.

  • John says:
    6 Oct6 October 18:14

    Sitting on a humble 1m Avios, nothing compared to many here and just not tempted. I was already skeptical and used for RFS preferring cash tickets for long haul. I’m also not loyal because that is for idiots. If LX or LH have another £2k deal somewhere nice in F that’s still a better deal. I’d bet my left foot there will be exceptional deals.

    While Rob is Avios-invested, he knows that LX and LH have the better product.

    There’s someone on Flyertalk who posted a like for like review of BA F vs LH F even during Covid and to use his word… it’s major LOL.

    • Jack says:
      7 Oct7 October 00:22

      Genuine question, if you don’t want to use your 1m Avios LH, what is your plan for them? Just continue to accumulate? I only have around 100k, but I always try and spend them when possible. Who knows when Alex Cruz will decide devaluing them is a great idea…

  • Pablo says:
    6 Oct6 October 18:15

    Hi everybody, I’m trying to make sense of this, I’m searching on BA for flights to tokyo of-peak and it shows 75k in avios, is that any good? I thin I read somewhere that was the default price for business in terms of avios, 75k plus taxes that in these case get over £500

    • Bob says:
      6 Oct6 October 18:41

      yes with the current 50% offer, it is 37.5k one way and 75k return. If that’s what you’re seeing then that’s correct under the current offers. Do note taxes originating Tokyo are much less – around £30 approx so it may work out cheaper booking as two singles – London to Tokyo and then Tokyo to London to benefit from this.

      • simon says:
        6 Oct6 October 18:57

        Doh! i totally forgot this rule when i made my booking…now is it worth the pain and effort to cancel and rebook…

        can you cancel online and pay the £35 cancellation fee or must it be over the phone?

  • John says:
    6 Oct6 October 18:25

    Is the cancellation fee also £35 for infants?

    • dan says:
      6 Oct6 October 18:49

      No cancellation fee for infants.

    • Nadeshka says:
      6 Oct6 October 19:29

      I haven’t tested it yet but when I booked it I was told not. I didn’t have to pay a change fee for an infant just the adults if that is a useful data point.

  • Elizabeth Forrest says:
    6 Oct6 October 18:40

    Hi, baffled by this when your saying it could be combined with a 241 voucher. I have a 241 voucher which I was saving for the last 23,000 avios to book a return flight totalling 100,000 ! How do I combine a 241 and this new offer, how many avios would I need ? Are you saying 50,000 for 2 people ?

    • Rob says:
      6 Oct6 October 21:22

      Do a test booking. It should show as 50k for two if you select ‘use my voucher’.

  • Michael C says:
    6 Oct6 October 18:44

    Offer + 2-4-1 came out at 100k Avios + GBP1500 for LHR-GRU/GIG-LHR in Club x 3 over Easter: that’ll do me. Nightmare flight otherwise, and 2-4-1 about to expire anyway!

  • Brad Flack says:
    6 Oct6 October 18:47

    I’ve called them 6 times so far, been on hold an average of an hour each time, then they hang up on me. I already have my FTV from earlier in the year so presume I need to select New Booking, Book with Avios option? And presume it can’t be done online (FTV, Avios Amex 241 booking)?

    • JohnT says:
      6 Oct6 October 18:48

      Try the 0800 number and don’t select any options..

      • Brad Flack says:
        6 Oct6 October 18:51

        I did that too, eventually spoke with someone, went through it all, confirmed availability, then he said he’ll need to transfer me to the Avios Booking team, then got cut off. 🙁

  • JohnT says:
    6 Oct6 October 18:48

    Wow – after a 35 minute wait (including being transferred across to BA Exec Club team) got a lovely helpful agent who cancelled the old 241 open-jaw booking to USA for April (ok £75 fee) and immediately rebooked the new one at new avios rate (we chose a couple of weeks later into May). Brilliant service. Who knows if we will be able to fly then, but at least we saved some avios and in fact going from Peak to Offpeak for outbound meant we “saved” the canx fee in lower taxes.

    • Polly says:
      6 Oct6 October 21:13

      Agree, got a great agent today who did it all, but slipped the phone charge in, l think by accident. But will chance another call to get it removed…but yes, chanced feb to kul in J, as no F anywhere to Asia.

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