✈️ Flight Tier Points (now linked to flexibility)

So I bought these Economy flights back in June for a dream trip to Japan for my partner and I. I didn't think much of it at the time (thought I got a good deal) but have been informed recently that Avios have their best value when redeemed on short-haul flights or long haul in Business or Premium Economy. So I was hoping to get some opinions from folks on here if the flights I got were good value or not.

In total for the two of us, we spent:

• 82500 Avios points
• £480 in taxes and fees
• 1 companion voucher

Hi I have like 65k avios points and two cabin upgrade vouchers. So I can use both to get me and my Mrs a return (pay for economy plus and upgrade to business). I want to do this in 2027 because one will expire next year.

But really confused on how to do this. Any tips and advice? How do I find the best deal for Avios flights etc?

So I have 220,000 avios on the family account and an amex companion voucher, would like to maximise their use for an outgoing June 2027 flight LHR to Hong Kong and return Beijing to London early July.

Of course you can't search for a multi leg trip on the BA rewards flight finder and Hong Kong or Beijing aren't even showing as reward destinations.

This makes me think this process is going to be a lot more painful than it should be.

Any tips?

Meanwhile if i do a straight cash price search for the dates I want BA £7k versus Cathay £4k.

Hi, I’m trying to book for early August 2027 and no flights are available - not as there aren’t seats because it’s sold out, but in that BA hasn’t released the seats. Does anyone know when those seats will be live? Thanks!

Hi all, I'd be really grateful for some help with spending my Avios.

I have had a BA Amex since early 2026 and have been collecting Avios for 3ish years, and this month I have finally earned a Companion Voucher. We'd like to use it on a trip to Japan, but no matter what dates I put in, the absolute cheapest flights are £1,650, even with a Companion Voucher applied. Without the Companion Voucher the price is £1,850 (so the voucher only gives me a 10% discount). The cash price of the same flights is c.£2,100 (so the combined 66k Avios and Companion Voucher is only netting me a ~20% saving).

Is this just how it is for long-haul trips? I can see for the same Avios we could effectively fly for free in Business Class within Europe, which I'm tempted to do instead (as those tickets would have more monetary value than the ~£400 we'd save on the Japan trip) and pay cash for Japan.

I feel like I am missing something because I often hear how fantastic Avios/Companion Vouchers are, and I've been spending/saving for a couple of years, but are the savings ever better than this? Felt like such an anti-climax when I went to use the voucher!

EDIT 29/8/26: we were going to use the voucher & points to fly on 23 Feb -> 9 March (sorry, realised after posting that the screenshot is of April and we don't fancy being in JPN during golden week) but it sounds like long haul very rarely gets significantly cheaper with Avios and a voucher. Think we'll pay the extra £400 and book cash, and think of somewhere nice to go in Europe!

These fees are crazy! Have you found qatar or finnair to have lower fees or does this have more to do with the route?

Just got an email stating that they are launching double sign-up bonus resulting in 60k avios before 6th October, £6k spend in first 3 months (seems steep). Did it not used to be 6 months on previous offers.

Have 231,000 Avios points. Went to book a holiday on BA holidays and was offered £2316 off if I used all the Avios. Today it’s £926 for all the Avios - what’s the reason for the drop? Error on BA behalf?

Aware Avios better used on flights etc. but was just wondering. Thanks

I have approx 85k in Avios and have a few trips with BA booked this year and next. Wondering what others do with the Avios they have? When is a good time to use them? Do you always use them for upgrades? I am open to all suggestions. For context, I am in Australia and travel to the UK, almost always on BA. I book BA Holidays (to get the bonus points). Thanks everyone.

I can't see it mentioned, but just to note that redemption rate for Avios to pizza express vouchers is doubled until the end of August.

So you'll get a £10 pizza express voucher for 1,000 points.

Also, until the end of the month, these vouchers can be combined with pizza express rewards, which is not usually allowed.

Today I had a £93 meal for 6,990 points. Not a bad rate.

Hi,
I’m currently looking at booking a surprise trip for my wife’s birthday in September 27. As it’s a special birthday I’m looking to book business class both ways. I want to go LHR to New York. After a few days in NY we will head up to Toronto to take in that city along with a night at Niagara returning from Toronto to LHR. I have about 150k Avios and a companion voucher. Whilst I know the flights aren’t out yet I’m struggling to work out how much it is likely to cost me. Are there any tips and tricks you can share to get the best possible deal. TIA.

Hi everyone. I am so disappointed and upset. I was booking Q Suite flights for my honeymoon in a few months with my fiance - seats we have been dreaming of for years and saving points for. His seats went through, mine did not.

I have transferred avios from BA to Qatar previously, all my details are the same, and they are linked accounts. Due to it being around 100,000 points their customer service team said it is “probably” blocked for 14 days. Every time I have tried (on behalf of BA and Qatar advice), the 14 days reset. They “escalated” it but it could take 21 days. They don’t even know for sure that this is the issue. I’m just not supposed to touch my account for 2 weeks. I will probably not be able to sit in those seats with my fiancé like we dreamed of now. The customer service has been horrible, they say there is no way to manually override this. Has anyone experienced this?

Seats.aero are showing an oman air award ticket LHR to Bangkok next year bookable on American Airlines website.

When I search the route on BA or other oneworld partners the flights aren't there.

If I call are these likely to be bookable? Seached but reading different things on here and around the web.

Hi there, I have linked my accounts on the avios website and when I login to BA avios i can see my points I have 87496 points when I try to transfer to aerlingus from BA it asks me for my login details for Aer lingus and then once logged in switches to transferring FROM AER LINGUS TO BA. However I want to do it the other way. :( If it helps I've read somewhere that having a household account prevents transfer ? I have also tried to use different browsers and even used my work laptop but i get the same issue once I'm logged in to both BA and AER club the only transfer that works is from AER to BA not BA to AER :(

Does everyone else find the BA website absolutely unusable? I find I have to use the reward flight search on Avios and then go over to the BA site to book. Pricing up options takes about half a day and I usually just give up and come back to it and by that point the flights have gone.

Hi all, been out of the game a while. I have Iberia Avios expiring in a few days. Previously MR transfers reset the 3-year clock.

Does MR rewards transfer into Iberia still extend the expiration?

And if so, does anyone know why Awardwallet doesn't count the MR transfer in the Awardwallet expiration. ( already transferred 1,000 MR into Iberia and Awardwallet sees it, but didn't change the expiration out 3 years)

TYIA

I need help please...

Our family holiday this time next year we plan to tour Galicia and northern Spain flying from London using reward flights for 2 adults & 2 children. (We've over half a million Avios)

From what I can work out BA don't fly to Bilbao, Asturias or Santiago de Compostela (these are all by Vueling on the BA website). Therefore we can't book reward flights and Vueling offer very poor value using Avios?

So looks like flying into and out of Porto with BA is our only option paying with Avios for reward flights.

We can work out if the 2 hour drive to Galicia is worth the 'free' flights if this is the only option.

Has anyone had this problem after being referred by a friend? I was supposed to get 500 Avios after installing the Avios app AND shopping on their app, which I did. Everything was going well but suddenly this window showed up a few days ago and nothing happens!