Which airline offers the cheapest Avios redemptions – Aer Lingus, British Airways or Iberia?

Aer Lingus, British Airways and Iberia all use Avios as the points currency in their frequent flyer programmes. Members can easily transfer points from one to another, as long as they have an account on either side. Who offers the cheapest Avios redemptions on reward flights though?

Since they all use the same currency, you would think that the rates would be the same, but they’re not. There are no charts available showing this, so I pulled together some information to show it all at once.

Redemption Charts

When it comes to Avios, the airlines divide the redemption amounts into nine zones based on distance. The further you fly, the more points you need to spend, which is straightforward enough.

As you can see above, each airline specifies an off peak and peak amount. There is more explanation on these further down, but essentially it is what you would expect – peak is busy times and off peak is the opposite.

Who Has The Cheapest Avios Redemptions?

The short answer is, it depends. Your travel class and distance will determine which airline offers the cheapest Avios redemptions and I’ve marked them below.

Naturally the time of year that you travel is also a determining factor. The difference between peak and off peak is not huge, but when collecting miles and points, it can seem like a vast gap, so following the saving is recommended.

So What Are The Peak and Off Peak Dates?

The good people at Head For Points handily put together and sourced the calendars for each of the three airlines. You can see how vastly different they are, with Aer Lingus having much of the year off peak, while British Airways is… well… peaky!

Peak periods are usually school holidays, the European summer, Christmas and New Year, things like that. They do vary as each airline’s country differs as to when breaks fall.

Overall Thoughts

People who are serious about getting the most bang for their buck should consider these charts when booking reward flights. After all, now it’s simple for you to find the cheapest Avios redemptions.

You do need to pay taxes and charges in addition to the points. It is generally accepted that British Airways will slug you the most, sometimes almost as much as just paying the airfare outright. Even if you do spend slightly more Avios with another carrier, you may find the cash component to be hundreds of pounds/euro/dollars cheaper, so keep that in mind when looking around.

Qatar Airways are joining Avios soon, which will add another quality airline to the mix. Their chart is expected to be the same as it is now, which should prove interesting and I’ll write about that when it comes about.

Do you transfer your points between carriers to take advantage of the cheapest Avios redemptions? Or do you just keep your points in one place and use them there? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image via Cedar.