The British Airways Club has just launched an award sale, whereby travelers can save up to 40% on the cost of award tickets. It’s not often we see British Airways offer discounts on award tickets, so this is cool, even if the lack of details puzzles me.
In this post:
Get a deal when redeeming British Airways Avios
The British Airways Club is offering up to 40% off the number of Avios required for redemptions:
- You need to book between July 16 and July 23, 2025
- You need to travel between August 1 and December 18, 2025, or between January 5 and February 11, 2026
- This applies to both peak and off-peak Avios Reward Flights in World Traveller (long haul economy), Euro Traveller (short haul economy), and Club Europe (short haul business class)
- The number of Avios required for redemptions will be reduced by up to 40%, though there’s no mention of what percent discount particular routes get
- Only the Avios portion of the ticket will be discontinued, and not any cash component
- Savings will automatically be applied when the price is published, and there’s no registration required
For example, an off-peak business class ticket from London to Paris would ordinarily cost 15,000 Avios plus $25…
…while a flight eligible for this promotion would cost 9,000 Avios plus $25.
I’m happy to see an award sale, but…
It’s great to see British Airways offer an award sale, since it’s not often we see this from the program. Sure, there are of course major limitations in terms of the eligible routes, but I’m sure some people will still get value from this, whether traveling in a premium cabin on a short haul flight, or in economy on a long haul flight.
That being said, the actual execution of this promotion doesn’t make much sense to me, and it seems that there might be something to learn the next time such a promotion is offered.
For one, there’s just not much transparency to this promotion, even in the terms & conditions. The promotion offers “up to 40% off,” but it’s not clear which routes are 40% off, and which provide less of a discount. Furthermore, you’d think there would be some sort of an indicator that there’s a discount applied during the search process, rather than just making assumptions.
For that matter, the terms don’t actually make sense. The terms state that the promotion is only valid for flights “from” London, but they also seem to be valid on flights to London. Or what does this part of the terms even mean?
The relevant savings will appear after you have chosen your flights and will be relative to your Avios balance.
So the savings vary based on how many Avios you have in your account? Anyway, we’ll take the promotion, but the execution could be a bit better, in my opinion.
Bottom line
The British Airways Club is offering up to a 40% discount on award tickets. This seems to be valid for many routes globally in economy, and for business class on short haul flights. If there are any redemptions you’re considering, this could represent a good deal.
Do you plan on taking advantage of this British Airways promotion?
"Only the Avios portion of the ticket will be discontinued" - little typo there, Ben, albeit a rather hilarious one...if only they'd discontinue all Avios portions of tickets ;-)
I tried booking business class NYC to London and Montreal to London using December dates that were flagged for the promotion. Both priced at 80,000 Avios per person in each direction plus $800. I checked a few dates in October with the exact same pricing. Those are the normal award prices from what I remember
That's because long haul business is not in the promotion as Ben pointed out.
If you could just learn how to read beyond the first few sentences.
Not sure if it is just part of the process of getting this set up, but frequent miler is reporting that flights to/from the US are showing increased fees for flights that are discounted in points
Shorter terms: "The price is the price."
@Ben - I have some Avios expiring with Qatar Airways in December. I want to extend their expiration. Would buying miles with this promotion be the best way to do that?
What if I was to transfer Capital One miles to BA and then QR? Would that be qualifying activity to extend miles expiration for QR? Or do I need to purchase miles?
Or could I just transfer the avios from QR to BA and the expiration would automatically be extended?