Avios Subscriptions - offer ends 30th April 2023

Yesterday British Airways announced a new Avios "Subscription" service

There are four different levels - and two different ways to pay - either an Annual payment or Monthly payments

Whilst it's clearly better value to make a one off Annual payment - I wanted to see just how big a difference it made ... so I ran the numbers ...

Wow - the difference really is huge - roughly 20% extra to pay by monthly instalments at each level

But the real shocker is that paying monthly for 200,000 Avios is 16% more expensive than making a one off payment for 20,000 Avios

So the moral of the story - if you do need some extra Avios, make a one off payment ... even though the Avios will still arrive month by month into your account

Tube Fares to Heathrow

Transport for London recently slipped out the news that all journeys to and from Heathrow stations through central London will be charged at peak rates from today.

There doesn't seem to be any official announcement of the bad news from either TfL or the Mayor's office - they seem to have chosen to brief journalists without a detailed press release.

So from today a single fare from Oxford Circus to Debden (Zone 6) will continue to cost you £3.50 off peak, the same journey to Heathrow (Zone 6) will cost you £5.50 at all times.

This only applies to/from or through Zone 1, so if you're west of Zone 1 you're in luck, or if your normal Heathrow journey skirts Zone 1 (using Overground for example) you're also in luck.

Just like how Gatwick journeys are usually cheaper if you change trains at East Croydon and circle the gate line, it's also now cheaper to change trains for Heathrow journeys.

But there are so many different stations where you could split your journey - which should you choose?  It turns out that the answer is simple - Hatton Cross.  Because there's free travel between Hatton Cross and the Heathrow stations, the answer is always Hatton Cross!

The only journey where the answer is anything other than Hatton Cross, is if you are starting in Zone 1 during Peak, and you can change train during Off Peak at a Zone 1/2 boundary station (e.g. Earls Court)

Peak:  From Zone 1 to Zone 1/2 boundary (e.g. Earls Court)  £2.50

Off Peak:  From Zone 1/2 boundary (e.g. Earls Court) to Heathrow  £1.90

Save £1.10

Conclusion

If you want to avoid the £2 fare increase for Off Peak travel between Heathrow and Central London, then for almost everybody changing at Hatton Cross and circling the gate line is the answer.  

And don't forget the East Croydon trick to reduce the cost of your Gatwick travel.

Updated: Countries and Cities to visit ...

Africa
Cape Verde islands - stay a bit longer this time
Botswana
Ethiopia - including the mountains
Libya - Roman ruins, and desert
Madagascar - lemurs permitting
Namibia - including Okavango Delta, Kolmanskop ghost town
Zimbabwe - including Victoria Falls

Americas
Brazil - Rio including Fasano hotel infinity pool, Niteroi art gallery, grilled steak at Rubaiyat restaurant; Amazon
Canada - including polar bears
Colombia
Costa Rica - done!
Cuba - including Havana and Vinales - done!
Equador - Galapagos
Mexico - Mayan stuff around Cancun
Panama - including canal
Peru - Inca Trail / Machu Pichu
USA - including Washington DC (done!), Grand Canyon (done!), Boston - including Opera House, Chicago - including Frank Lloyd Wright buildings (such as Fallingwater), Denali NP, Total Solar Eclipse Aug-17

Venezuela - maybe a tepui

Antarctica
The Peninsula - done!
South Georgia - done!


Asia
Armenia
Bhutan
Georgia - including the soviet architecture in Tbilisi

Indonesia - including Borneo
Iran - including Isfahan and Persepolis, Tehran - including Contemporary Art Gallery

Japan - Hashima Island near Nagasaki, Yokohama
Laos

Lebanon - including skiing

Malaysia

Philippines
Kuwait - to fill in the gaps
South Korea
Sri Lanka - including blue whales
Syria - if there's anything left
Thailand
Turkey - Istanbul
Vietnam


Australasia
Australia - Tasmania, Western, Central and Northern, GBR
New Zealand - all


Europe
Aland Islands - done !
Austria - Vienna - including Opera

Azores - maybe this walking trip or this self guided one
Belgium - Antwerp - including 5 Continents house
Croatia - including Zagreb
Cyprus - including border area and countryside
Denmark - Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen
Finland - the lakes, the north
France - Corsica; the bridge in the sky; Matisse chapel at Vence; Lille; Chateau de Chambord - for the double helix staircase; Versailles - including the Royal Opera (done!); Nice - including Opera; Paris - L'Acajou restaurant, Jazz Club; Roubaix - including La Piscine museum; Ronchamp - Le Corbusier's chapel of Notre Dame du Haut; Chamonix - nice looking hotel; Noirmoutier including Plages des Dames - and nearby islands; Oradour-sur-Glane (near Limoges)
Germany - Prora and Dessau, Dresden (including the Royal Castle), and Hamburg (for the funny tunnel, and miniature airport)
Gibraltar - airport and back walk up rock (done!)
Greece - Athens, Mount Athos, island hopping
Ireland - Cork - including butter museum, harbour tour, Titanic Experience, Crawford gallery, Hook Head lighthouse

Italy - Sicilian volcanos, Greek Theatre on Sicily, Poggioreale ghost town on Sicily, Sardinia, Tuscany including Montepulciano, Naples, Verona, La Scala in Milano, Como - La baia di Moltrasio bar and restaurant (try fish with Riso in Cagnone) - terrace in summer, Florence - Vasari Corridor will soon be open, Room of Paradise at the recently reopened Museo dell'Opera del Duomo; Calcata town; Castel Gandolfo (train from within Vatican) - must be booked in advance; French Church in Rome; Palio di Siena ; Craco - far south

Netherlands - Amsterdam Modern Art Gallery and other galleries, a concert at Concertgebouw, Panorama Mesdag in The Hague, Delft, Leiden, Het Loo palace
Poland - medieval cities (Krakow done!)
Portugal - including Oporto
Romania - rural parts (sort of done). Crazy road.
Serbia - Belgrade
Spain - including the Moorish bits, Grand Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona
Slovenia - try skiing
Svalbard - done!
Sweden - Stockholm always worth another visit
Ukraine - Kiev, Chernobyl
UK - Falkirk Wheel, Cramond island, Ironbridge, Ludlow in Shropshire, Norwich for Europe's largest medieval street plan, Chatsworth House, Orford Ness reserve ...

British Airways Avios Peak 2023 analysis

British Airways have now released their peak / off peak dates for 2023 - as covered on Head For Points

Last year I explained BA's big shift, away focusing their peak days around holiday months, to now focus on weekends in shoulder months - whilst keeping roughly the same number of peak days

For 2023 British Airways have continued the weekend (peak) / weekday (off peak) split

Firstly the total peak days peak year:

2020  138
2021  138
2022  140
2023  139

In a world of points inflation - there's nothing much to complain about here!

Now looking month by month - here is the confirmation that last year's move to reduce peak days in July & August, and shift them to the rest of the year, has been maintained

In 2023 most months only change by one or two days - with April being the only month to change by three days:

And then there's the day of the week view

Last year's shift towards more weekend days being peak continues - with 33 Sundays and 34 Saturdays in 2023 requiring extra Avios for redemptions

At the other end - just 8 Tuesdays and 5 Wednesdays in 2023 are classed as peak

Last year I concluded by saying:

So if you can fly midweek in the Summer, you should be happy with the 2022 British Airways Avios calendar

But if you like weekend flights, or getting away in June, then you need to budget for some extra Avios in 2022

That analysis holds for 2023 as well

Gatwick to London by Train - East Croydon trick

24/2/22  Updated with carriage details

In a previous post about the pricing quirks of travelling from Gatwick to Zone 1 or Zone 2, I mentioned that you could also reduce the price by exiting at East Croydon and reentering straight away.

Since I used it recently, I thought it was worth going through in more detail.

The standard price between Gatwick and Zone 2 in London is £12.90 peak and £8.70 off peak

But if you break your journey at East Croydon, the price between Gatwick and East Croydon is £5.50 peak or £3.40 off peak

And the price between East Croydon and Zone 2 is £4 peak or £3 off peak (as long as you don't travel through Zone 1)

So that's a total of £9.50 peak or £6.40 off peak with the East Croydon break - compared with £12.90 peak and £8.70 off peak if you don't break your journey.

You may say that it's just not worth the hassle to save £3.40 peak of £2.30 off peak ... but actually it may not be much hassle at all (if you're only travelling with hand luggage).

Trains from Gatwick to East Croydon mostly end in either Victoria or Blackfriars - so you may find that the first train from Gatwick goes to the wrong destination.  In which case, take it, do the barrier trick at East Croydon, and return to the same platform at East Croydon for the train that you actually want!  I did this recently and it worked a treat.

And if you're really lucky, at East Croydon you can get up the ramp from the platform to the ticket barrier, out and in, and back down the ramp to the same train that you just arrived on - although I've only managed this once on a busy train that was slow to depart.

The prices are the same either to or from Gatwick - although if you're rushing for a flight, you probably don't want to do this!

With Zone 1, the non change pricing is £18.30 peak or £11.10 off peak

And with the change in East Croydon it's £7.30 + £5.50 peak or £5.20 + £3.40 off peak

So the Zone 1 savings are £5.50 peak or £2.50 off peak

If you are jumping out at East Croydon, on the journey towards London, in a 12 carriage train you want the rear of the 11th carriage.  Then it's up the ramp on your right, turn right at the top, through the gateline and back again.

Enjoy the saving whilst this trick still works.

Avios.com vs British Airways Executive Club

I've written before about the ever changing taxes/surcharges charged on Aer Lingus reward flights - and the difference between booking through British Airways Executive club telephone line, and using the Avios.com website.

I was just looking at a simple Heathrow to Dublin one way flight and phoned up BA to compare prices.  What's really weird is the structure of the Avios/price combination - BA's work in the opposite direction that Avios.com use.

For simplicity let's value each Avios at 1p

On Avios.com the Avios/price combinations are:

4,000 avios + £27.82

3,676 avios + £32.82

3,136 avios + £37.82

2,055 avios + £47.82

1,600 avios + £62.82

1,276 avios + £72.82

Using 1p per Avios value, the 4,000 avios option is the best, with the 2,054 avios option close behind.  The 1,276 avios option is by far the worst.

Assuming the British Airways telephone operator gave me the correct prices - their Avios/price combinations are:

4,000 avios + £40.33

3,676 avios + £43.08

3,136 avios + £47.08

2,055 avios + £55.33

1,600 avios + £60.33

1,276 avios + £65.33

Again using 1p per Avios value, the 2,054 avios option is the best, with the 1,600 avios option close behind.  The 4,000 avios option is the worst.

The best option on Avios.com is significantly cheaper than the best option that the British Airways call agent offered.

But if you only have 1,600 avios to use, then the best option is to book using a British Airways phone operator.

Whilst the Aer Lingus reward flights are still more expensive than the flat Reward Flight Saver option on BA reward flights - at least the Aer Lingus taxes/fees are cheaper than the £39 they were charging a few years ago!

Ryanair Boeing 737 MAX routes

Since Ryanair announced their acquisition of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft I've blogged about their seat plan (which is quite different to their standard 737), and their first revenue flight.

I've flown Ryanair quite a few times since they introduced the MAX, but I've never flown on the new type, so I thought it would be interesting to see where they are using it.

According to Airfleets.net Ryanair currently have 11 of the MAX aircraft in their fleet: HEN, HEZ, HGG, HGP, HAT, HAW, HAY, HAX, HGT, HGO and HGR.

For today's analysis I've simply used the last 7 days of data for each aircraft from FlightRadar24 - here is EI-HEZ for example

The last 7 days may not be typical for the season - but should give us some idea of what the newbies are up to.

The 11 aircraft flew a total of 166 sectors in the past 7 days - so the first point is that considering the size of Ryanair, your chance of getting a MAX is pretty small.

All the aircraft are based in London Stansted, and whilst Ryanair fly plenty of W routings with their standard B737s, of these 83 return flights just two were on non Stansted routes (a Dublin-Salzburg return, and an Eindhoven-Lisbon trip).

So if you want to fly on the MAX, you really need to fly in or out of London Stansted.

Next up is figure out which route they're most likely to be flow on from Stansted - and here it gets tricky.

17 routes from Stansted had just a single MAX flight in the past 7 days: Bari (BRI), Brno (BRQ), Bucharest (OTP), Bydgoszcz (BZG), Copenhagen (CPH), Cork (ORK), Eindhoven (EIN), Faro (FAO), Gothenburg (GOT), Helsinki (HEL), Katowice (KTW), Luqa (MLA), Milan (BGY), Nantes (NTE), Plovdiv (PDV), Valencia (VLC) and Vilnius (VNO)

Another 8 routes had just two MAX flights in the past 7 days: Alicante (ALC), Cagliari (CAG), Dublin (DUB), Fuerteventura (FUE), Gran Canaria (LPA), Malaga (AGP), Salzburg (SZG) and Stockholm (ARN)

A further 5 routes had three MAX flights in the past 7 days: Lanzarote (ACE), Milan (MXP), Riga (RIX), Thessaloniki (SKG) and Treviso (TSF)

That leaves just 7 routes with four or more MAX flights in the past 7 days.

Athens (ATH), Pafos (PFO), Palermo (PMO) and Rome (CIA) - each had four flights

Sofia (SOF) and Tenerife (TFS) - both had five flights

But the winner with 6 return flights in the past 7 days is Lisbon

Looking at the Lisbon - Stansted route in detail:

FR1882/3 has been flown by a MAX in 4 out of the last 7 days

FR1884/5 has been flown by a MAX in 2 out of the last 7 days

With 38 different airports receiving Ryanair Boeing 737 MAX flights in the past 7 days, it looks like the airline is trying it out across the network.  So it's very hard to book a particular flight with anything like a decent chance of flying on the new plane.

Your best chance (but still barely over 50/50) is on the evening Stansted - Lisbon sector.

Good luck!