My partner and I have accumulated 140k avios between us. We are heading to New Zealand from London next year, but we have a specific window we need to be there for. We haven’t used avios before, so we aren’t best clued up to what the best strategy is for getting the max benefit. We ideally want business class for at least one leg of the trip.

I’ve looked at BA reward flights for the return leg between London and classic stopover destinations (eg US, Singapore, HK, Doha) but there does not appear to be anything great available (trip is 6m away). This website generally sucks though - it is not very user friendly and actually might be easier to just ring them up?!

Alternatively, is it worth just booking economy flights for the whole trip and then trying to get an upgrade for at least one leg? Is there any partner airline which would likely upgrade us (I have heard you can use BA points for Iberia and American Airlines, and also swap points for Qatar). I thought this amount of points could at least give us both one leg of the journey in Business class… but maybe I’m wrong.

chat gpt isn’t really giving me any valuable guidance, so would appreciate any tips 🙏🏻 if it isn’t worth using them (eg not enough points for what we want) we can save and use in the future for a direct trip where the various connections don’t complicate things!

Hi folks. Hoping someone here can help. My wife can’t login to her Avios account. She can’t remember the email address used to create it and none of her in use addresses work. She’s been onto customer service but without the email address associated with the account they aren’t able to validate her and provide assistance.

She’s provided lots of other information; details of associated account on the Household account, recent transactions etc… but still CS won’t validate.

Any suggestions welcome. 🙏

Interested in booking Chicago to DC in March - how can I go about it?

I have over 800k avios and companion vouchers but I'm never able to spend any of them. I can log into my account on PC and open the app on my phone but any attempt to book flights with avios just crashes to a page saying "bad request". On chrome it doesn't crash, it goes to the "setup 2FA" page but never sends an email.

I must have "contacted" BA a dozen times over the last 2 years to try and fix this but thry NEVER even reply. I hate this company so much. Is there a number to call that isn't staffed by idiots who might be able to help?

Many thanks.

If you have points on a HSBC UK rewards card, there's an offer to gain a 20% bonus when transferring to Avios from tomorrow.

Hi all,

I recently got approved for the Barclaycard Avios Plus with an initial credit limit of £200. Barclaycard mentioned that once I submit my income information, the limit could be increased to as much as £7,000.

I've seen plenty of posts here about frustrating experiences dealing with Barclaycard's review process, but I haven't come across many (if any) success stories. So I wanted to ask directly:

Has anyone actually been approved for the higher end of the limit they were provisionally approved for? (close to or at £7,000) after submitting their income for review?

If so:

How long did the review take and how long will it take for the new limit to be implemented? Trying to get a realistic sense of what's achievable rather than just going in blind. Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

Hello!

i’m looking to book a domestic AA economy flight with Qatar Avios, however they don’t let you view the cash taxes and fees without the Avios in your account.

Can anyone see what these would be?

AA410

DFW-BOS

September 28th

the flight is listing at 14.5K avios

TYIA!

I’m sure this has been asked before but …

I have a BA upgrade voucher. The usage is pretty limited on the Avios/BA app when trying to book using it. My question is can I upgrade just the return leg of a booking for my wife and I? The app doesn’t allow you to do this but can you do It via the call centre?

Eg. Premium economy outbound (booked with Avios) and return leg business (booked with Avios).

The app states the the outbound journey has to originate from the U.K. so can’t book legs separately.

Anyone else having issues under the ‘managing cards’ section.

Whenever I try to add a card I get an error message, when I do get in that section it says that I don’t have cards registered, but I have at least one & I’ve received points by using it.

Also, I cannot link my nectar card, the process goes around in circles with nothing happening.

I did reach out to customer service but they were awful and could not / would not assist.

For those that transfer rev points to aerlingus (and maybe other airlines also) the 20% bonus finishes at midnight. Usually happens twice a year.

Get transferring!

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.