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.
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- Here’s how many points you need by zone on each airline.
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.
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- In Economy, Aer Lingus are cheapest across the board, with British Airways also great value, especially on long haul. Iberia is best to be avoided unless you can find something in Discount Economy.
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- When it comes to Premium Economy, it’s Iberia all the way, except on shorter flights where you can only choose BA.
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- Business Class redemptions are cheapest on British Airways for shorter flights and Iberia for everything else.
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- Just to be complete, here is First Class, only offered at BA.
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!
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- Aer Lingus has a lot of off peak.
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- British Airways is more nuanced, but they do have off peak available in summer.
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- Iberia’s version.
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.
well done! thank you
Thanks very much! You’re welcome.
Are these all on a per-segment cost? I know that BA does this but the extremely limited business class options on Aer Lingus strike me as a bit odd. Why not offer short range business class redemptions from DUB?
Yes, these amounts are per flight segment. Aer Lingus don’t offer business class on European flights – it’s only on flights to and from the United States.
Hi Trent. Not sure where you’re getting the Aer Lingus Business Class award info from? As you know they only offer Business on US flights so there aren’t any routes in the 01-2000 categories you’ve highlighted, or am I missing something?
Plus even though DUB/SNN-BOS is under 3,000 miles they charge 50,000 off peak and 60,000 peak for it. According to their own info they don’t seem to base it on actual mileage, they allocate each route to a category, where 50,000 is the minimum business class redemption.
https://www.aerlingus.com/media/pdfs/EI_routes_avios_amounts.pdf
Hey Declan! Thanks for the reminder about the Dublin to Boston – I remember when that was “moved”, because it ruined a perfectly nice sweet spot in the programme. I just checked AerClub there and interestingly they are only offering Aer Lingus flights now. Previously you could book onto the British Airways services between Dublin and London in business class. After looking at a few dates, it is only showing Aer Lingus now, so you’d have to transfer the points to be able to book with BA (on that route at least!) Thanks for the link, that’s really very handy!!… Read more »