Has avios.com removed its ‘extra’ award availability?

One of more interesting quirks of the separate avios.com and British Airways Executive Club schemes is that avios.com had additional reward availability for European economy flights.

This goes back to the days of the old Air Miles scheme, when it was run totally separately from BA Miles.  Because Air Miles was designed to appeal to the ‘man in the street’, it was made more attractive by making European economy flights – the core redemption product of the Air Miles scheme – easier to get.

This was done by making Economy ticket bucket ‘G’ – one of the cheaper price bands for cash tickets – also available for Air Miles redemptions.

When Air Miles became avios.com, this practice continued.  You had the odd situation where ba.com would not show any reward availability but – by using Combine My Avios – you could still book by moving the required points over to avios.com and booking from there!

This now seems to be over.

Various discussions over at Flyertalk, one of which references a conversation with an Avios phone representative, confirm that ‘G’ class availability is no more.

(One extra benefit of these ‘G’ seats, if you got one, was that you would earn Avios points and British Airways tier points when you flew it.)

Whilst I can see the logic for standardising the two systems, this does devalue the avios.com product.  By making it harder for low volume Avios collectors to get the flights they want – which will usually be economy European flights – they are more likely to stop collecting.

I understand that a recent BA survey found that under a third of British Airways Executive Club members were happy with how easy it was to spend their Avios points.  I have no idea what the figure is for avios.com, but it will be heading downwards.

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 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 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.)