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British Airways adds £60 – £100+ to the taxes and charges on business class Avios redemptions

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British Airways has introduced further stealth price increases in the cost of Avios redemptions as it raises the ‘taxes and fees’ element on Club World seats.

The price increase is not standard across the board. The biggest jump I have found is £113 return, with other routes ‘only’ seeing an increase of £60.

Let’s take a look.

British Airways increases Avios taxes and charges

On Friday, Michele at Turning Left for Less flagged that the charges had increased by over £100 on transatlantic routes.

I thought it was worth a closer look, and with the help of some historical pricing data from readers in the forums I’ve managed to put together a more comprehensive picture of what is happening. The bad news is that the increased pricing seems to have occurred across BA’s network, and not just on transatlantic flights.

What is not entirely clear is why this has been done.

Heathrow has increased its passenger charges sharply, with Air Passenger Duty also increasing. British Airways is not pocketing the full amount of the increase in taxes and charges. It may be, for those routes where the increase is around £60, that BA is not taking any of the extra money.

This is not the case of transatlantic routes, however, where there is no justification for £100+ increases in taxes and charges.

How have BA Avios redemption prices changed in 2022?

Here are the taxes and fees charged by British Airways for a number of key routes.

In each case I have used pricing data from across 2021 – dates vary depending on what reader data we could source – and compared it to prices that ba.com is charging now for flights in January 2023.

Bangkok

I originally booked a redemption to Bangkok in February 2021 for travel this month and paid £598 in taxes and fees per person.

Checking the BA website again you’d now be charged £657, an increase of £59.

Avios taxes and charges increase

Dubai

Dubai has increased by £63, an increase of 11% year on year. Taxes and fees are now £605, up from £542 for an example we found in 2021.

Hong Kong

Flights to Hong Kong have increased by a similarly modest amount. Taxes and charges are now £653, an increase of £62 or just over 10% year on year.

Hong Kong is an unusual case. Unless you are using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, it is cheaper to book two one-way tickets than a return due to the extremely low taxes charged on the return sector.

Johannesburg

Johannesburg pricing is the outlier here, with prices hovering around their 2021 rates. If anything, it has decreased by a couple of pounds, with taxes and fees around £647 in 2021 versus £643 now. We can possibly peg this down to currency movements.

Bizarrely, Cape Town redemptions do appear to be higher. Reader George K booked a redemption to Cape Town with £599 charges in 2021 but the route now prices at £663, a similar increase to both Dubai and Hong Kong.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles is now at £789 return. We don’t have a 2021 number for comparison, but we know that Las Vegas is also now £789 versus £672 last year.

Maldives

The Maldives have also seen a £100+ price increase, with the cash element of a redemption totalling £616 in 2021 versus £728 now. That’s an increase of £112 or 18%.

New York

We often benchmark our pricing against New York given how hugely influential the route is for British Airways. This is another big riser, with an increase of £113, or 15%. Charges were £675 in 2021 but are now £788.

It is worth remembering that we have seen cash fares on TAP Portugal as low as £900 recently, and it is not unusual for BA Holidays to sell Club World flights plus three nights in a decent hotel for as low as £1,299 in a sale.

Rio de Janeiro

Let’s take a look at South American flights, with Rio as an example. If you want to enjoy the samba it looks like you’ll be paying £75 more than you would had you booked your flights in 2021, with taxes and charges now at £648 per person versus £573 in 2021. That’s a 13% increase.

San Francisco

Here’s another North American example. Interestingly, it looks like British Airways now charges a flat rate of £788 for all flights to the United States, regardless of whether they are East or West Coast.

You would have paid £676 in late 2021 (Rob paid £661 in early 2021) so that’s another 16% increase or £112 in total.

Singapore

Similar to Hong Kong, taxes and charges to Singapore have increased by a more moderate 10% or £64 in the past year. You are now charged £671.

Inverness Airport

What about flights starting outside the UK?

Historically, one of the easiest ways to avoid the sky-high British Airways taxes and charges is to start your journey outside the UK.

This is partly because there is no Air Passenger Duty if you transit through the UK rather than starting your journey here. In addition, Inverness and Jersey – the latter technically not in the UK of course – also price cheaper because no APD is due there.

I did a dummy booking to New York, originating in Inverness and connecting in London, and the taxes and charges came to £621. This is substantially less than the £788 charged if you start your journey in London, although of course you need to factor in the cost of getting to Inverness.

What conclusions can we draw from the data?

Having looked at a range of routes from BA’s long haul network there are some clear patterns emerging:

  • In all cases except one, British Airways is adding above-inflationary increases.
  • The biggest change to redemption pricing has happened on flights to the United States, with rates increasing by £100+ to all the cities we checked. You can now expect to pay c.15% more in taxes and charges than you would have done last year.
  • Asia is less severely impacted, with a change of ‘just’ 10% or so.

Conclusion

Are reward flights still good value? That depends on how you value your Avios. If you earn most of your Avios from business travel then you earn them at no cost to you. Of course, you still have the opportunity to cash out for 0.8p per point via Nectar so you need to be aware of the value you get.

It is different for anyone who earns the bulk of their points from credit card spend, for example. This is because you are effectively ‘buying’ the Avios by choosing to use an Avios-earning credit card rather than a cashback card.

It is, with a bit of ingenuity, still possible to find good Avios redemptions. By starting in a neighbouring country, for example, you can combine a long-haul trip with a visit to Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam or another city.

And, of course, you can still use your Avios for low-tax redemptions from Spain with Iberia.

Avios flights are flexible, of course. This has been less important during covid due to BA’s ‘Book With Confidence’ guarantee but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that pulled soon. Don’t underestimate the value of flexibility.

By increasing the taxes and charges on redemption flights BA makes redeeming your Avios on partner airlines more attractive, which tend to charge less. You can now book Avios redemptions on 25 global airlines including Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways and more. You can find out more about redeeming on partner airlines and the Avios partner reward chart here.

If you have any other good examples of price rises, please let us know in the comments.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (244)

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

  • Dawn says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:18

    Is there an article about how to fly using the 241 starting outside the UK?
    Although I don’t like the charges going up, the 241 is still useful to me as I’m not a high Avios earner and don’t shop in Sainsburys as there’s none local to me. So just to be able to do a yearly business class trip long haul means a lot as I’d never be able to afford it otherwise.

    • Rhys says:
      14 Feb14 February 10:22

      No, because until September it wasn’t possible.

      Shouldn’t be particularly difficult – just start your search from Inverness, Jersey or somewhere in Europe.

      • James says:
        14 Feb14 February 12:01

        This seems like a much more worthwhile/interesting idea for an article than the endless credit card articles.

        On the change, I’m sure Sainsbury’s will be rubbing their hands while AmEx wring theirs.

      • Willmo says:
        14 Feb14 February 17:45

        I’d also appreciate this article. Came up stuck trying to book BA TATAL ex AMS

    • sayling says:
      14 Feb14 February 10:31

      That suggestion is ripe for entry in a survey… if only there was one being carried out 😉

    • BuildBackBetter says:
      14 Feb14 February 12:43

      How long is a piece of string…

  • Joe says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:23

    To echo what everyone else has said – save for when you’re using a 241, the value is just not there any more.

    Booked CW to GCM over the weekend with a 241. £690 taxes per person. Not awful value with the 241 as even economy return fares to GCM are £650-700, but still a big hike. Not sure I would have booked 2xCW without the 241 – not enough value there.

  • Jeff77 says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:26

    Avios is dead. Long love the 0.8p per point transfer to nectar and not having to book 12 months in advance to get the most out of avios

    • sayling says:
      14 Feb14 February 10:32

      Long live less demand for redemption seats…

      • Andrew J says:
        14 Feb14 February 10:52

        Why would you want a redemption seat when it’s clear there’s no value in them?

        • Rob says:
          14 Feb14 February 11:12

          The value is there at the right time. £500 for an economy seat to a ski resort over Feb half term? I think not. £4000 Club World because you are not willing to stay over a Saturday night? I think not. Ticket you can refund because BA has stopped (as it will) Book With Confidence and your kids are in covid-filled schools every day? Yes please. Ticket you can refund because you often get swamped with a work crisis and need to cancel/postpone and your employer won’t cover the replacement cost of 4J flights? Yes please. Ticket you can book at 24 hours notice without being fleeced? Yes please.

          • BuildBackBetter says:
            14 Feb14 February 12:44

            Shhh Rob…

          • memesweeper says:
            14 Feb14 February 13:09

            These are, with exception of skiing, rare corner cases for the long-haul leisure traveller. Yes, I’ve done a same-day Avios redemption in an emergency and saved a fortune, but this is not why people collect miles. It’s for a long-planned holiday in most cases.

            The release of more availability with the companion voucher is welcome, and short haul, can be great value, but I’ll not be booking with BA Avios for long-haul.

            The potential effect is similar to the part-pay article you wrote recently: if people think they’ve got a bargain they tell their friends and encourage them to sign up (win-win); if they think they’ve been fleeced they will no longer bother, and discourage others (loose-loose). BA clearly don’t worry about this risk — otherwise things like cashing in Avios for hotels, or part pay, or seat selection, would now be fixed at or close to 0.8p.

          • Panda Mick says:
            14 Feb14 February 13:32

            ^^^^^^^ This…

            For reasons I still can’t comprehend (I missed my flight at MXP on friday night despite being sat at B50 for the best part of an hour), so had to book a flight for the next day.

            Price was £400 ish economy one way for the next day

            Avios cost for Club Europe was 9425 ish avios + £25.
            Avios cost for economy was 8500 ish avios + £0.50

            An obvious choice 🙂

          • lumma says:
            14 Feb14 February 13:48

            The day before economy short haul redemption is my go to use for Avios in normal times – you can usually get a late Ryanair flight back to the UK for an extremely cheap short break.

            Especially now with Sainbury’s giving out Nectar points like confetti, a few weeks of buying the same few pizzas and ready meals and you’ve got a cheap zone one ticket!

          • Jeff77 says:
            14 Feb14 February 20:45

            I don’t ski. Got travel insurance that covers covid (HSBC, I believe it’s the only one that does). If there’s a work crisis, one of the hundreds of other people who work for my company can deal with it, not really my problem at that point.

          • tony says:
            14 Feb14 February 20:56

            @Jeff77 not sure where this will come up in the lost but you’re in cloud cuckoo land if you believe that there’s only one insurer who will cover against COVID-19 some two years into the game.

            I feel Rob’s defence of Avios is exceptionally weak (aside from the ski point. maybe, but even then creativity with EZY can solve that issue) and for years have seen the spiralling YQ as a reason to mean even long haul J class redemptions only become marginal with a 2-4-1. My Prem Plus Amex is up for renewal in May, at £295 vs the old £30 rate. I was already pretty convinced that it was time to cash out, but this only serves to underline the point.

          • Jeff77 says:
            14 Feb14 February 21:05

            Must have been thinking of something else when it comes to travel insurance. Possibly if a country won’t let you in. Makes avios even more useless really.

          • Londonsteve says:
            14 Feb14 February 23:41

            @tony I disagree and thought Rob did an excellent job pointing out the benefits of Avios. Granted, not everyone will see the advantage in each and every one of these aspects but there’s enough there to please most folks. I do consider my Avios balance an insurance policy in case I need a flight at the last minute and can avoid hideous cash fares in the process. Mostly I would only ever need to fly to or from zone 2 or 3 and because of the ability to buy a reward flight with relatively few Avios and more cash (usually the best value on flights to those zones) I only feel obliged to keep a modest Avios balance on a just-in-case basis, I’m comfortable spending the rest if a sufficiently appealing reward option becomes available. You won’t get a cheap fare from an LCC at peak times on ski flights, this is exactly when they jack up prices and make their best margins. Perhaps departing on the Wednesday evening service, getting in to Salzburg at 23:30, long after public transport has shut down and any hotel is disinterested in collecting you from the airport for a modest fee at that late hour.

  • Gavin454 says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:33

    I already thought that Club World on BA with Avios (including with 241) was bad value in most cases, compared to paying cash during a sale, booking ex-EU, or UUA from a cheap WT+ fare. So now I’m even less likely to use my 241 that’s been sitting in my account since 2019 – I may end up using it short haul to at least get something back.

  • Thywillbedone says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:55

    Much has been said already about redemption availability. But it’s important not to forget that is that BA F product is way behind the F products of most other airlines you can care to mention …thus it isn’t really something worth striving for …it is business plus at best. In J, the new Club Suite is good but still unavailable on many routes leaving the rubbish existing product. Remind me again why I am collecting Avios??

    When the conclusion of a travel loyalty website is as weak as this: “It is, with a bit of ingenuity, still possible to find good Avios redemptions.” …you know the game is virtually up.

    • Richie says:
      14 Feb14 February 11:05

      Some individuals may be too tall for BA’s J flat bed to sleep well enough. If they are time poor and Avios rich, an F class redemption may be a clear winner for them.

    • Andrew says:
      14 Feb14 February 14:11

      >> When the conclusion of a travel loyalty website is as weak as this: “It is, with a bit of ingenuity, still possible to find good Avios redemptions.” …you know the game is virtually up.

      One of the more stark and well-made comments I’ve seen in a while!

  • Lee says:
    14 Feb14 February 11:01

    When you compare the taxes of say using krisflyer miles from London to Singapore to Ba the difference is ridiculous and the standards on Singapore airlines are obviously much higher .

    As a side note virgin taxes on redemptions seems very high also .

  • ashic says:
    14 Feb14 February 11:03

    I guess we’re getting a glimpse of what it means to be a “more premium airline”. Same hard product (club suite was well underway before the premium airline announcement), pretty much the same food, same service, same staff pay… just having to pay a “premium”.

  • Mick S says:
    14 Feb14 February 11:12

    I assume you can start outside the UK with a Barclays upgrade voucher too?

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