I’ve been trying to redeem some British Airways Avios for quite some time but always seem to run into obstacles.
There’s either no flight availability or when a flight is available, the taxes are just too damn high!
We’ve been thinking about Winter Break options for this year so I decided to check on BA to see if I could get lucky and find flight availability.
I looked into Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Mexico and a couple of other destinations with no luck. I then decided to check Memphis, a city I’ve long wanted to visit.
To my surprise, flights to Memphis were available for my family of four!
Each round trip ticket from NYC (LaGuardia Airport) cost 18,000 British Airways Avios + $11.20 in tax. This makes the total cost of our flights 72,000 Avios and $44.80. Not bad at all for a holiday booking.
To see if this was really a good deal, I did a search to see what it would’ve cost to purchase the tickets. On American Airlines, each ticket is currently going for approximately $320. To purchase the itinerary, it would’ve cost $1,279.24!
At that price, we would not be flying to Memphis. However, thanks to British Airways Avios, this trip is definitely affordable and a good value!
Have you had success redeeming your British Airways Avios? If so, what did you book?
DaninMCI- Right. I was beyond surprised to find any availability, especially during the holidays. I can’t recall the last time I’ve earned Avios. I just want to get rid of them already! lol
That’s all good and fine and I appreciate the value you got but we’ve known for many years that domestic short-haul flights work with Avios. I think it’s ironic or silly that I still bother to collect thousands of BA Avios when I mostly redeem for premium cabin international flights. That being said I have redeemed a few times for premium cabin (domestic first) AA flights from the midwest to Mexico City. It wasn’t awesome value per point but a good use with low taxes.