British Airways - Avios per Mile for Business Class reward flights

Last February we created a graph looking at British Airway Avios redemptions.

Recently three mid haul routes have swapped from Long Haul widebody aircraft (or specially configured Mid Haul aeroplanes) to Short Haul single aisle aircraft - with "european" business class.  This means that where you were previously got a lovely lie flat bed or a proper business seat - now you just get a better meal and an empty middle seat!

Sensibly BA have reduced the number of Avios required for these three mid haul destinations so reflect the reduction in service.

Previously at 70,000 Avios for a business class redemption Amman, Cairo & Tel Aviv were by far the worst use of Avios (on a mile flown basis) at over 30 Avios per mile - now at 24,250 Avios one way they are some of the best at around 11 Avios per mile flown.

Obviously it's a fundamentally different product that you're buying now with just a standard seat.

As a point of comparison a reward flight from Heathrow to Dublin at 9,750 Avios costs you nearly 35 Avios per mile flown.

So the new Avios reward level of 24,250 Avios for a mid haul Business Class flight looks like a good deal - now you just need to compare it with cash flights to see if it's good value!

Qatar Airways - best use of Avios

Last year I looked at the best use of Avios in terms of miles flown for Business Class redemptions on British Airways flights.

This week Head for Points created a table of Qatar Airways redemptions, showing the Avios required for flights from London - so I thought it was time to dig out last year's spreadsheet!

The bottom line is that the further you fly, the better value the redemption, purely on a miles per Avios basis - rather than looking at the cost of cash fares.  The lower on the graph, the better the value.

Auckland and Qatar's four Australian destinations are your best options - all requiring 90,000 avios for a single redemption flight in Business Class.

Bali, Davao and Jakarta are the best options if you've got 80,000 avios available.  But all the redemptions at this level are good value.

Singapore and Kuala Lumpar are great value for 75,000 avios - but this is where things get complicated.  The six worst redemptions at this level on the graph are all in West Africa - where the backtracking element makes them bad value.  There's also three destinations in Morocco, as well as Algiers, which are so poor value that they broke the graph and aren't displayed!

At the 65,000 avios level - Colombo is the best value, and I'd be happy with any of the redemptions.  The one exception is Tunis - which again is such awful value that it's off the top of the graph.

Goa is the best value redemption at the 55,000 avios level.  The four poor value destinations on the graph are Alexandria, Beirut, Cairo and Amman.

Salalah is your top value 45,000 avios redemption - but all of destinations at this level are reasonable.

It seems slightly strange that a Doha redemption at 43,000 avios ends up worse than lots of other cities - but it's still reasonable.

Compared to the British Airways graph, the Qatar Airways graph shows much more overlap between different redemption levels.  There are good value redemption destinations at every level of the Qatar Airways reward chart.

Just make sure you avoid the five destinations which are truly awful value for redemptions!

Aer Lingus redemption flights - Avios.com closing down

Avios.com used to be your go-to site for making Aer Lingus redemption bookings.

EI redemption flights are now usually available on BA.com but the "taxes & fees" are often higher on the BA website - and sometimes BA have less redemption seats available.

Avios.com will soon be closing down - and Aer Lingus redemptions will then be bookable on the Aer Lingus website.

Before the Avios.com closure happens I want to look at redemption prices so that we can compare and contrast once AerLingus.com functionality opens up.

For this analysis I'm using the London Heathrow to Ireland West Airport at Knock route - Aer Lingus is the only airline that flies LHR-NOC

If you book a single LHR - NOC it's 4,000 avios + £27.74 on Avios.com

And it's 4,000 avios + £50.74 on BA.com

If you book a single NOC - LHR it's 4,000 avios + £14.50 on Avios.com

And it's 4,000 avios + £35.90 on BA.com

(all passengers pay 10 euro "development fee" on departure)

The price of return redemptions on Avios.com is the same as booking two singles.

The price of return redemptions on BA is almost the same as booking two singles.

Avios.com redemptions come with one free hold bag, so I've never found a reason to pay the higher fees on BA.com

The Avios.com website is pretty awful, and sometimes Amex cards aren't accepted, but if the saving is significant I usually manage to use it

Hopefully redemptions on AerLingus.com will price the same as Avios.com rather than BA.com

  

Dublin to Shanghai - part deux

I wrote previously about looking for flights to Shanghai that were cancellable for a reasonable fee, as the Chinese visa had not been obtained.

Now that the Chinese visa has been obtained, life is simpler ... and we're just looking for the usual price / timing / routing matrix!

Starting off with the basic Skyscanner query - departing at the start of February, and returning at the end of March ...

Luckily the prices have barely increase in the six weeks since we last looked

British Airways has the eight cheapest combinations - and the departure and connection timings of the BA flights look pretty good.

One aspect which complicates the comparison is that some airlines include a hold bag in their basic fee (mostly Middle East airlines) whilst most of the European airlines do not.  And then you need to work out whether it's better to add a bag separately, or accept the airline's "standard" fare.  Thankfully BA make it pretty simple - 35 euro for a bag on the way out and 34 euro for a bag on the way back, and no bundling / unbundling calculations to work out.

This gives a grand total of 577 euro for the return flights including one hold bag.

577 euro is actually cheaper than any other airline on the original Skyscanner list - so we don't have to go and see what their baggage fees are!

Looking at departures within a few days of the original dates - all the best options are still British Airways, which makes the analysis straightforward.

On the outbound journey the last few days in January are priced the same as the 1st February

On the inbound journey there are options either side of 31st March with the same price

On the BA website they offer both Aer Lingus and British Airways flights for the Dublin to Heathrow legs - but since Aer Lingus use a different terminal, it's definitely worth selecting the BA flights so that the connection between the two flights is within the same terminal.

And in the unlikely event of missing the outbound connection - China Eastern have both a mid afternoon and an evening departure from Heathrow, so I would expect BA to use one of them.  Or a night in a Heathrow hotel isn't the worst thing that could happen!

Conclusion:  all the way with BA ... now just book your flights!