Are Avios Worth Buying? How to answer the question

If you’ve started collecting Avios through flying, credit card spend or various other means you’ve probably come across the option to buy Avios in one form or another and wondered Are Avios Worth Buying? Let’s look at a few scenarios below

Are Avios Worth Buying?

Before you begin answering this question you need to know what your valuation of Avios is. I would recommend reading our post on Are Avios Points Worth It? to give yourself an understanding of how you may start to value Avios points in your situation.

I value Avios points at 1p simply because I know, for the majority of the bookings I make, I can easily get 1p worth of value per point. I would also pay the cash rate if I didn’t have the Avios. This means the 1p per Avios is a real cash saving for me. If you would happily travel on a budget carrier if it weren’t for Avios points your valuation is likely to be completely different, particularly when travelling short-haul.

Needless to say, if you would never pay cash i.e. you are booking an aspirational trip in business class, the valuation doesn’t matter too much, just aim for 1p+!

It is possible to get much more value then this when using things such as a BA companion voucher or if cash rates are particularly high (Avios pricing is fixed peak/off-peak.) As you might expect it’s also possible to get a lot less value than this… Buying wine could see you netting only 0.3p an Avios or redeeming for hotels you could see you getting between 0.5p – 0.6p an Avios.

What’s the cost of buying Avios?

If you buy from BA without a sale or special offer the price is 3.1p when buying 1,000, 2p when buying 5,000 and 1.6p when buying 35,000. You can purchase them here – https://www.britishairways.com/travel/purchase-avios/execclub/_gf/en_gb?

As you can see even at the lowest cost per Avios point you are still paying 1.6p an Avios. Well above my valuation! And as such, generally speaking, I would avoid buying Avios except in two circumstances.

1) If I knew I could get outsized value from my purchase e.g. I was getting more value than what I paid.

2) I needed a small number of points for a redemption I wanted to make.

In both cases, I would need to be travelling or booking in the near future to consider doing this. Why? It’s possible a redemptions value goes down if the cash price drops, there could be a devaluation of Avios points or you may not be able to get Avios availability on the route you want.

If you are looking to kick-start your Avios with a huge 200,000 haul don’t forget to take a look at our guide to fast track yourself to a rather cool 200,000 Avios points – https://pointsuncovered.com/american-express/fast-track-yourself-to-2000000-avios-points/

Have you considered buying Avios points in the past? What do you think… Are Avios Worth Buying?