BA launches unprecedented 75% ‘buy Avios points’ bonus – worth it?

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British Airways has launched a new ‘buy Avios’ bonus promotion – and it is the most generous we have ever seen.

Until 18th May you will receive 75% bonus Avios when you buy or gift points as long as you are a British Airways American Express cardholder. It even seems to work if you’ve had a BA Amex in the last couple of years – see below.

If you are NOT a British Airways American Express cardholder, you get a 50% bonus.

Avios wing 11

Even better, there is no minimum purchase. The bonus kicks in with the smallest 1,000 Avios transaction.

You need to visit ba.com via this page in order to buy.

IMPORTANT: The landing page shows a 50% bonus irrespective of whether you are a BA Amex cardholder or not. However, when you reach the purchase page it WILL show you the 75% bonus rather than the 50% shown on the first page.

British Airways has increased the number of Avios you can buy under this deal – the cap is now 200,000 points per year! Annual purchase limits have been reset so that everyone can buy the full 200,000 + 75%.

This means that, with the bonus, you can buy up to 350,000 Avios for a whopping £3,215 – as long as you have a BA Amex. Despite what the website says, you can pay with any American Express card.

What if I just cancelled or just got a BA Amex?

Here’s the thing. The Executive Club website appears to be offering the 75% bonus to anyone who has earned Avios from a BA Amex credit card in the last couple of years – even if you don’t still have it.

This means:

if you just took out a British Airways American Express card in the last couple of weeks, you probably WON’T be offered 75%

if you cancelled your card in the last two years you probably WILL be offered 75%, although this seems to vary looking at our comments section

Interestingly, some people who still have a Lloyds Avios credit card, but NOT a BA Amex, are also being offered 75%!

The website says that you MUST pay with a British Airways American Express card. However, ANY American Express card will work.

What does it cost if I have a BA Amex?

In general, you will pay around 0.92p per Avios under this offer. Based on my spreadsheet of the last 7.7 million Avios I redeemed, I got 1.18p of value. This is using very conservative valuations for the flights booked, eg I value a Business Class flight to Dubai at £1,500 because even if BA isn’t charging that there is usually a deal with a secondary airline.

If you don’t have a BA Amex, you will be paying nearer 1.1p as your bonus is only 50%.

As my core article on ‘What is an Avios worth?’ shows, it is easy to get a lot more than 0.92p. My 1.18p real-life valuation is low because I do a lot of Gold Priority Rewards (using double Avios to force open a seat, mainly due to school holiday restrictions) and don’t always have a BA Amex 2-4-1 voucher to use. I also tend to use Avios irrespective of the value, because I am sitting on a lot of them.

If you are strategic you should do far better than me – certainly far better than 0.92p. It is well worth thinking about at this price even if you are not normally a buyer.

The link to buy is here.

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.

Will says:

6 May6 May 10:37

I have a British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card.
It doesn’t show me the 75% offer.
I guess business Amex cards aren’t counted?
- Rob says:
  
  6 May6 May 15:55
  
  Seems not, although a reader said he’d had his Lloyds Avios trigger it (but possibly he’d also cancelled a BA Amex years ago which triggered it?).
Stefan says:

6 May6 May 10:57

Now if only you’d be able to use BA Vouchers issued for cancelled flights for this…
TB says:

6 May6 May 12:16

Thinking about buying some Avios with this offer (already have 2-4-1) so would help us book our trip for Christmas. However, what happens if BA goes bust? Do you get these points back and reappear in your points.com account to transfer elsewhere?
- TB says:
  
  6 May6 May 12:44
  
  Would be good to know if you get the points back and how can you convert Avios to IHG?
  - Chrisasaurus says:
    
    6 May6 May 15:14
    
    Do you foresee BA giving points.com the money back?
    
    And even if avios to IHG was possible the loss in value would be savage
- Anna says:
  
  6 May6 May 13:10
  
  I think this has been covered previously, I think the consensus was that basically your Avios would be worthless if BA were to go bust and you would join a long line of creditors. However, Rob seems to think this is unlikely and I hope he is correct!
  
  I’ve never heard of Avios being converted to IHG points but there may be someone on here who knows otherwise!
  - Rob says:
    
    6 May6 May 15:47
    
    You can’t convert to IHG. Virgin and Finnair do.
    - TB says:
      
      6 May6 May 16:41
      
      Thanks Rob. Shame.
      Unlikely I know (sure government would step in and save BA if it came to that) but what would happen to avios in the event BA go bust? Gone?
      2-4-1 voucher I can handle vanishing and you would get your taxes back (paid on AMEX) but if you are buying points to cover the cost of your next trip, it would be a shame for them to disappear with no refund if BA went bust.
      - Anna says:
        
        6 May6 May 16:51
        
        See above 🙄
      - Sean says:
        
        6 May6 May 17:23
        
        Think of them like buying a (very) restricted use gift card. BA bust = worthless like store gift cards would be.
  - MM says:
    
    7 May7 May 15:57
    
    If BA goes bankrupt, it will go intro control of the creditors.
    
    These creditors will likely put additional debtor-in-possession financing, secured against the loyalty scheme (as the credit cards will still be generating significant revenue), to continue flying (assuming that starts again).
    
    This has happened before in the US with pretty much all major airlines, and all loyalty points survived the bankruptcies as the schemes are very valuable assets to the airlines.
    
    More likely is it will sell off a stake in the loyalty scheme prior to bankruptcy.
Mark Johnston says:

7 May7 May 11:04

Surely a risk here, as with the other “points” promotions going on at the moment, is that post Corona they all devalue the loyalty schemes, leaving us all no better off or more likely, worse off…?

Bit like the voucher in lieu or a refund, what use a voucher when the price of flights will rocket in future?
KBuffett says:

8 May8 May 10:14

Are there any other plays for outsized returns on these points other than using them on BA flights?
- Rob says:
  
  8 May8 May 10:25
  
  Using them for non-BA flights with minimal surcharge 🙂
- Harry T says:
  
  8 May8 May 15:26
  
  Particularly useful for intra Asia and Australian domestic flights in premium cabins (or any cabins in Australia given some of the fares).
RB says:

9 May9 May 09:25

So I’m now stocked up on Avios, how do I use them to book my seats with BA? There is no availability for spring 2021. Even California which Rob managed to get for Easter has gone!
Any help greatly appreciated.
- Rhys says:
  
  9 May9 May 09:27
  
  Have a look at SeatSpy or Reward Flight Funder for availability. If you want to go somewhere specific, try this https://headforpoints.com/2019/01/02/when-does-british-airways-release-avios-reward-flights/
  - RB says:
    
    9 May9 May 10:05
    
    Thanks Rhys, that link is useful and I really like the ease of use of SeatSpy over the previous RFF website. Great way of quickly seeing between First and Biz classes. I’m always in Biz for work so holding out for First, which I think it’s reasonable to assume I need to pick the phone up at 1am to snap up my preferred routes of HND or LAX. May take Oct 20 as I imagine normality will have resumed more or less by then.
    - Rhys says:
      
      9 May9 May 10:10
      
      First class availability isn’t guaranteed – only economy and business are. You’re better off setting alerts for your preferred dates and seeing when they come available.
- Anna says:
  
  9 May9 May 10:06
  
  Nothing even for eastern USA? My back up option is generally to fly to NYC and get an onward connection from there.
  - RB says:
    
    9 May9 May 13:49
    
    There’s availability into IAD in March, always feel like the east coast isn’t giving me enough value for Avios though, as it’s a shorter trip. The best value for points is First, in my humble opinion anyway, or the new A350 of course.
ChrisA says:

9 May9 May 13:35

Just in case anyone else was in my situation, whereby you had only had your BA Amex for a matter of weeks and therefore were not getting the 75% bonus, I have had a positive email from BA Exec Club to say that they shall contact Amex ‘manually’ to confirm that I have a card, and will then apply the bonus to my account. Fingers crossed it actually happens.
Nick says:

9 May9 May 16:04

I had a BA Amex up until December 2018, I received the 75% offer via email however when I Clicked through to the purchase page it only give me 50% bonus unfortunately. I’m obviously one of the unlucky ones where if you had a BA Amex in the last two years it should apply but doesn’t
- ChrisA says:
  
  9 May9 May 16:25
  
  Yes it all seems a bit haphazard, for reasons described further up the thread. I have had other BAPPs in the last couple of years – and still hold a Lloyds Avios card, which seems to have worked for some people – but not eligible as yet.