MASSIVE AVIOS SALE – 50% off ALL long-haul flights, 25% off short-haul – and works with a 241

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British Airways has launched what is possibly the biggest Avios flight sale it has ever run.

All long haul flights, in all classes, are half price. Well, half points anyway.

Full details are on this special page of ba.com.

This is what you need to know:

ALL long-haul redemptions (all routes, all travel classes) are reduced by 50%

ALL short-haul redemptions (all routes, both travel classes) are reduced by 25%

Here are the key dates:

You must book by 13th October

You must travel between now and 30th June 2021

Full taxes and charges are due

The discount is valid on both one-way and return flights

The discount only applies to British Airways flights and not partner airlines

Can this offer be combined with a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 or Lloyds voucher?

YES. Well, with an Amex 241 anyway.

British Airways told me that it doesn’t, but it does!

This may or may be an error. The small print does say that ‘vouchers’ are excluded.

Should I cancel and rebook existing redemptions?

This is a tricky question.

For existing long haul bookings:

Clearly there are HUGE savings to be made if you cancel existing Avios long-haul redemptions and rebook them. You’d be crazy not to, to be honest, if it meant saving 50,000 to 100,000 Avios per booking.

(Do NOT do this with a Lloyds Avios upgrade voucher. As far as I know, these are still lost if you cancel a redemption flight which uses one.)

You need to be careful, however.

If you have enough Avios to make a fresh booking and didn’t use a 2-4-1 voucher, you don’t have any risk. You can make a new booking and then cancel your original at your convenience.

(Remember that, if you cancel online, you can only receive a Future Travel Voucher. This involves wrapping up the Avios, cash and any companion voucher in a voucher. You do NOT get the Avios, cash or companion voucher back in your accounts but you don’t pay any cancellation fees. Alternatively, you can ring BA, pay the £35 per person cancellation fee and get the Avios, cash and any voucher back directly.)

If you don’t have enough Avios to rebook, or need your 2-4-1 voucher back first, you are in a trickier position.

You need to call BA, trigger a Future Travel Voucher (which usually arrives within a few minutes, but isn’t guaranteed) and then call British Airways to rebook.

You should assume that your original seats will NOT go back into redemption availability. Only do this if you can see enough fresh seats available for the dates you want and you are willing to take the risk of them disappearing before you can rebook.

For existing short haul bookings:

For short haul, however, I don’t think it is worth the effort. The cancellation fees will outweigh a 25% Avios saving. Cancelling for a Future Travel Voucher and then rebooking to avoid cancellation fees is a bit of a faff for a modest return, even if seats are available.

Is there a special offer to buy Avios if I’m short?

No, unfortunately not. The 50% bonus promotion ended last week and I imagine there is no chance of a new offer before 13th October.

If you are happy to pay full price (1.6p per Avios plus a £15 handling fee), you can buy Avios via this page of ba.com.

Be careful not to get carried away …..

This is an exceptionally good offer. Offering 50% off all long haul flights, to all destination and in all classes, is not something you see every day.

However …. if you end up not flying the tickets you book, you will be paying £35 per person to cancel or taking a Future Travel Voucher, which comes with its own complications when you come to rebook (no name changes etc). Book with care.

Click here to visit the special sale page of ba.com and find out more.

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.

Chris says:

6 Oct6 October 22:29

Been through the comments but can’t see anyone with the same question
I’ve got flights booked via an FTV (with a 2-4-1 inside) at the moment. Anyone knows what happen if i request an FTV for this booking? (FTV inception if you like)
- FlyGuy says:
  
  6 Oct6 October 22:49
  
  They are very accomodating. You can use your FTV to book with the 50% off (incl 241 within it) and they will refund any left over avios back to your exective club account
  - Phil says:
    
    7 Oct7 October 00:35
    
    I just did this via a very helpful chap.
    1. For a booking originally using an Amex 241 vch, he held new flights for LHR-DXB in F for me (due to lack of availability in F the return was a day later than the original booking, but outbound was same flight). 2. Cancelled my existing booking which triggered the FTV. 3. Waited a few second for the FTV to arrive and used it rebook my tickets immediately. 4. He rebooked same outbound, and luckily my original flight became available in F on rebooking at it was put back into the system immediately. The upshot? For 1hr on hold and ten mins talking to the agent, I ended up with same flights, £16 refund on taxes and 68,000 Avios back. Boom.
    - Eligold says:
      
      7 Oct7 October 11:12
      
      Wow! Lucky chap
  - Josh says:
    
    7 Oct7 October 06:54
    
    Not with me. I rang and tried this and they told me they couldn’t be combined. They said I could use my 241 or the offer, which is crazy (why would I waste the 241) I’ll ring to try again today.
- Vin says:
  
  7 Oct7 October 06:49
  
  Did just that – booked tickets to Japan for June ’21 using an FTV containing a 2-4-1. Got refunded the difference in avios – 75k but had to pay £70 more in taxes. If you ring them make sure you select the ‘Book using Avios’ option or else you’ll go around circles with the agents which, for me, resulted in 2 transferred calls that were dropped. It is not easy using the FTV (‘old’ paper version) as the booking has to be done manually at took the agent 45min !
GS says:

6 Oct6 October 22:59

Can reward flights be edited (I.e. different class etc) rather than cancelled and refunded within 24 hrs of booking? If the only way is to refund, is it likely the seats will reappear straight away?
- Adil says:
  
  7 Oct7 October 03:14
  
  Going to try this in the morning and will report back. Will attempt changing class on existing outbound and if that doesn’t work then switching to an earlier flight
Dave says:

6 Oct6 October 23:47

Fantastic deal if you are prepared to accept the flights may be cancelled – and as they *can* be cancelled/changed by you, from my perspective there is nothing to lose if you think of this as banking money with BA. Just combined the deal with an AMEX 2-4-1 and bagged a couple of rtn First tickets to Beijing for 85k avios and around £550pp. Well chuffed!
Graham Walsh says:

6 Oct6 October 23:51

I’ve got flights for next year to the US, if I cancelled that and went for the FTV and rebook, then I’d get 40k Avios back. Seems a no brainer to me as it was booked with a 241. Have another voucher and points so can make a new booking.
Axil23 says:

7 Oct7 October 00:00

I wonder what will happen if you need to do a date change by a few days later on? Will they charge you the normal avios difference?
- Polly says:
  
  7 Oct7 October 18:06
  
  If you make the change after the sale ends, told today you will be charged back to normal avios..but always worth a try, if you know what l mean..give it a go and see what happens……
nickypangers says:

7 Oct7 October 07:02

Is club world catering still packed food?
- Andrew says:
  
  7 Oct7 October 08:21
  
  Yes. Cold food in a box with plastic cups.
- Lady London says:
  
  7 Oct7 October 14:40
  
  I thought BA promised to improve that in October? It’s October now.
TripRep says:

7 Oct7 October 07:46

Got Maldives flights booked using a 241.

Went to speculative look to see if it was worth considering cancelling and rebooking.

Decision made for me, availability is far less than it was just a few weeks ago. So sticking with them until I likely have to cancel nearer the time due to Gov travel restrictions.
- Ian says:
  
  7 Oct7 October 07:53
  
  Say you book this offer and BA then cancel the flight, can you ask for a date change rather than a voucher?
  - Rob says:
    
    7 Oct7 October 08:16
    
    Yes, should be fine if BA cancels.
Keith says:

7 Oct7 October 07:50

Would just be so good if you could be sure that your booked flights would be returned to the redemption pool if cancelled. That’s what’s holding me back cancelling my return in first with 241 to Sydney. That and the nagging suspicion that international travel probably is off the cards for a bit anyway (especially when there’s a stop over in Singapore involved) Hope they can sort some sort of instant testing regime up so that restrictions are lifted and so that theatre and travel can resume.
- mr_jetlag says:
  
  7 Oct7 October 07:55
  
  Same here, no additional availability over Easter to HND and don’t want to lose the 4x CW seats I already have. BA NCL was very clued up though and helped walk me through options including UUA from PE.
- TripRep says:
  
  7 Oct7 October 08:17
  
  +1, not worth the risk unless we hear feedback of accomodating Customer Services reps
  - Polly says:
    
    7 Oct7 October 09:00
    
    Def a lot of accommodating cs reps on duty yesterday, and all v knowledgeable. Very willing to help in any way, moving bookings, swooping 241s etc. Was amazed how good the experience was dealing with BA yesterday…so thumbs up to them for that improvement.