In an innovative way to increase income, British Airways are now selling people an Avios subscription. That means you can get frequent flyer points delivered to your account on a regular basis, as long as you’re willing to pay.
The ability to purchase Avios has been around for ages, and I’ve bought a small amount in the past to top up my account. This I didn’t see coming and could be useful for people.
Avios Subscription Details
You can pay monthly or buy an annual subscription, which is the best value as you get two months free. The kicker is that your Avios land in your account each month, no matter which type of plan you go on.
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- These are the annual amounts.
However, that is why they are so inexpensive, as you need to wait for them. Buying 200,000 Avios outright in one go is €3,601, which is roughly €1,600 more expensive than having them arrive on a regular basis.
Is There Value Here?
Yes, of course. People generally value Avios at 1p per point, so 200,000 Avios is worth £2,000. Since they are being sold for £1,789 on the annual plan, it is a very good deal.
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- Monthly plans – pay monthly, Avios arrive monthly.
When redeeming for reward flights, you use the same calculation. Sometimes you can get higher value, sometimes lower – it all depends on what you’re using them for. Simple mathematics skills will let you know when you’re getting the best out of this.
Overall Thoughts
An Avios subscription would be a no brainer for anyone serious about collecting these points. The fact you can transfer them into the Iberia Plus, Aer Lingus AerClub and Qatar Airways Privilege Club programmes may also be useful.
Purchasing an annual plan would be the way forward for the best bang for your buck. Those of us not made of money might find the monthly plans better and it’s probably what I would go for – if I decide to take the plunge, that is – and I will ponder that for a while longer.
Are you going to be purchasing an Avios subscription with British Airways? Any reason why you are doing this, or why you aren’t? I’d be interested to know. Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image via British Airways.
I was going to pull the trigger on this and I had the same offer as showing in this blog page as an email offer but when I log in it shows the prices in dollars at over $3k for the 200k avios so BA must have pulled this away.
Perhaps they are doing different things in different regions of he world. That $3k price sounds like the usual purchase 200k Avios price and not the subscription price, so make sure you’re looking in the correct place. Unless it’s only UK/Europe or something.
Yes. Even going through your link it shows what your post shows but when you login it changes (at least for me). Even using VPN to show UK, USA, etc. Very strange.
Hmm, that’s interesting!
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Avios are expensive to use for long haul international so it leaves short haul or domestic AA awards to get the best value and it seems like AA saaver awards using BA avios are harder and harder to find. I do think the 200k offer is a good deal in general.
Yes, I agree with you on that, I think they are not great value long haul but really come into their own on short haul. Thanks for the comment, I think the 200k one is good too, but it’s a large outlay at once.
It also seems that if you used a BA card to purchase this that you’d earn 3x per $ as it’s direct with the airline and not via points.com, etc. I’m starting to wonder if maybe you could use AMEX platinum annual airline fee credit towards this somehow or even other cards travel credits. Hmmmm, more study required.
I’m guessing the transaction would be from Avios.com as opposed to British Airways, but I could be wrong. Certainly worth investigating, in case you can earn on it as well and actually get more bang for your buck!