DEAL DEAD: An avios.com bug – buy 40,000 Avios for 1p each

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There is an interesting little bug on avios.com at the moment. Frankly, it is unlikely to last for long after this post goes live, but you should have time to jump on it if you’re interested.

avios.com is currently running what is, on the face of it, a rather dull offer. Instead of only being able to buy 24,000 overpriced Avios per year, you can (until 31st December) buy 35,000 overpriced Avios per year. Yippee.

British Airways BA London City Airport

However, they have made a mistake with the website which sells the points ….

24,000 Avios usually cost you £399. It looks like no-one bothered to give the web designer the price list for 25,000 to 35,000 Avios, so they just bunged in the price for 24,000!

So … the pricing currently goes …

24,000 Avios – £399
25,000 Avios – £399
26,000 Avios – £399
through to …
35,000 Avios + 5,000 bonus – £399!

This does actually work in practice. I had an email from someone who bought 35,000 via the BA site over the weekend. The full 35,000 was added to his BA account, and his credit card is showing a £399 ‘pending’ transaction. Note that the additional 5,000 will post in arrears, not with the original 35,000.

This is not, please be aware, the bargain of the century. 1p per Avios is still more than I value them at, although I am very conservative and have a lot of them already. However, if you have a definite redemption in mind and can be sure of getting good value for them, then 1p is as good as you will ever get for purchasing them directly.

You need to go to to avios.com, log in, click ‘Collect’ and then select ‘Purchase Avios’. If the price for 35,000 plus the 5,000 bonus is higher than £399 then the deal is already dead!

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

James67 says:

9 Dec9 December 21:12

I am somewhat surprized at the level of enthusiasm for this deal, even at 40k avios for £399. I hope you all had specific goals in mind and did the maths first. Given the high taxes/fees on redemptions, alternative options to generate avios and alternative options for redeeming such as 241s and UuAs, I am unconvinced buying them us ever wortwhile, even at this possibly best deal ever. On top of that, it is important not to be blinded by the redemption route, e.g. we have recently had the BA and Iberia flight sales for the Americas, IHG roons as cheap as £25, and no doubt there will be more sales such as Finnair’s £1100is returns in J to Asia. Malasia aitlinez J pricing is usually keen at any time as is forthcoming member Sri Lankan. Before using frequent flyer miles or hotel points a cost/ bebefit analysis of the miles/points option versus the revenue option for the travel goal should always be carried out, especially where purchase of 3xpensivepoints or miles are involved. Recent trends also suggest it would be wise to put emphasis on burning miles at this time.
- uk1 says:
  
  9 Dec9 December 22:11
  
  >> am somewhat surprized at the level of enthusiasm for this deal, even at 40k avios for £399. I hope you all had specific goals in mind and did the maths first. Given the high taxes/fees on redemptions, alternative options to generate avios and alternative options for redeeming such as 241s and UuAs, I am unconvinced buying them us ever wortwhile, even at this possibly best deal ever.<<
  
  Two F tickets to Singapore using an Amex 241 is 210,000 plus taxes. I do this twice a year with one in a few onto SYD.
  
  How much would you value the miles at?
  
  😉
  - James67 says:
    
    9 Dec9 December 23:37
    
    If the maths works it works but I suspect many don’t do it. In any case your deal was 210k plus tax plus fees plus whatever you spent buying avios us whatever you may or may not have spent obtaining avios fromother sources such as tesco instore preorders. I still believe you that it worked in your favour but probably as a result of the 241.
    
    I currently value avios for purchase at 0.0p as my flights for 2014 to Hong Kong, Japan, India and Thailand are already booked. Have a sum total of 1550 BA avios, 3500 avios, 83k AAdvantage miles at moment. About a £1k clubcard points and 60k MR points should see me through 2015 also barring major devaluations. So personally I’m sitting quite happily gathering freebies from 3V, credit cards etc.
Jermyn says:

9 Dec9 December 21:13

I did both but have just received the cancellation email from Avios.

Any lawyers here?
Anybody good with Twitter?
If people can get RGN mistake fares honored, we should be able to get Avios to honour their mistake too.

I actually have a transcript from a web chat that I did, straight after making the purchase, where the Avios representative said the miles would be posting in the next 72 hours.

He said everything was fine and never mentioned any problems with my order.

I would say that in cancelling our orders and then raising the price, Avios.com has acted in bad faith.
- Ralph says:
  
  9 Dec9 December 23:13
  
  Avios UK are on Facebook with their silly Suitcase, if my order is reversed I will be posting and complaining there and suggest everyone that lost out do likewise.
Aceman says:

9 Dec9 December 22:15

My friend has his post, and he bought his an hour after mine… Grrr
- uk1 says:
  
  9 Dec9 December 22:28
  
  Avios or BA.?
  - Aceman says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 09:56
    
    Avios.com
Ralph says:

9 Dec9 December 22:32

Not had my avios post but not had the cancellation either. I would say an order is an order. The deal was there, we bought in good faith it should be honored. The £399 hit my AmEx Gold Card as a pending transaction from Avios by Points almost right away this morning and in fact is still showing as pending as I write. If BA can honour them, as it seems they have, then so too should Avios
rakehey says:

10 Dec10 December 09:23

I too was rejected by Avios.com.

Long call with Avios this morning. They have agreed to honour the original deal and are “putting it through manually”.

35,000 will hit account today with the bonus 5000 hitting w/c 6th Jan.

Cost of £399
- Points to be Made says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 10:01
  
  Nice work! What resistance did they try on you, and what was your response?
  - rakehey says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 10:19
    
    To be fair, they didn’t fight it at all – just kept me on hold for a long time whilst they sorted it out. I was reasonably firm about it being their issue rather than mine…and that I had acted in good faith. They didn’t give any reason as to why it hadn’t gone through yesterday, so it could be a genuine glitch…or it could be they can’t justify the decision that was taken.
    
    Either way, a good outcome.
    - aceman says:
      
      10 Dec10 December 12:02
      
      sent them an email today, wish I’d read this first since I got a little firm with them!
  - Jermyn says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 10:49
    
    I contacted Avios via Chat. this morning. They admitted there were problems on their side. I was told to email, asking for the original price to be honoured.
    
    I’ll be sure to report back once I receive a follow up.
uk1 says:

10 Dec10 December 09:46

Great news … well done.

Still not received any rejection email yet. Strange, Anyone else not received it?
- Tim C says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 14:06
  
  Mine was rejected yesterday and my partners has still not been rejected. I have emailed via avois.com asking from mine to reinstated.
  
  What email address have others user to contact them?
Ralph says:

10 Dec10 December 19:19

100th comment…any bonus Avios for that Raffles? 😉

Called Avios and spoke with a nice lady a couple of hours ago. Now, just received this email:

PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL
Your order confirmation
Dear Ralph,
Thanks for buying Avios – your order’s now complete.
Check out our website for ideas on how to spend them.

Your order details
Confirmation number:
Order date: Dec 09, 2013
First name: Ralph
Last name:
Membership number:
Avios bought: 35,000 + 5,000 Bonus
Total cost: £399.00
Thanks again for your order.

Result and I of course hope that Avios honors everyone’s purchase.
- Ralph says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 19:25
  
  Better than that, have just checked my Avios account and the 35,000 Avios + 5,000 bonus Avios for a total of 40,000 Avios have been posted at once! Has this happened to anyone else?
  - KARFA says:
    
    11 Dec11 December 16:31
    
    Well done Ralph. I ordered on Mondya morning, and got teh cancellation email at 8.30pm on Monday. Just spoke to someone who advised emailing the accounts team to try and resolve. They seem to be honouring the original price so hopefully I will get my 40k avios.
    - Ralph says:
      
      11 Dec11 December 17:34
      
      Good luck Karfa, I even got a follow up call from an Avios Customer Service person this afternoon apologising for my inconvenience so it should be with you calling and chatting to them too
Tim C says:

11 Dec11 December 18:07

I have not had a reply to my email and my partner has not had a cancellation email for hers, neither of us has any points allocated to our accounts though.