NEW! Pay For Your BA Holiday Using Avios!

This week BA announced that you can now pay for your BA Holiday using your Avios points. This works similarly to the part pay with Avios feature with flights but instead of reducing the cost of cash flights, you can do so on your entire BA Holiday package (flight with hotels and/or car hire.) Using Avios for your BA Holiday could see you paying as little as 50p cash per person for a hotel + flight but does it offer good value? Read on to find out!

How can I pay for my BA Holiday using Avios?

Visit the BA Holidays website and search for your desired package. Once selected under ‘Save with Avios’ you will be able to pick one of up to nine different Avios payment options at check out (if you aren’t already logged into you will need to.) Here you have the ability to choose the amount of cash and Avios you want to spend, with the cash amount starting from as little as £1. The exact figures will vary depending on the package/amount of Avios you have.

Is worth paying for my BA Holiday using Avios?

We value our Avios at 1p as we believe we can easily obtain this value when using Avios for flights. (See our guide here on how to work out your own Avios value.) Bearing this in mind here are the results from our searches…

Please note that you will only be shown options based on your Avios balance

London – Berlin

10 Nov – 13 Nov 2023, Hilton Berlin, Business Class Return From City Airport – £1,342.00 as a package. £1,373.41 if you book flights + room seperately.

Here we have two options that give us 1p or more per Avios and that is the £13 off for 1,300 Avios & £24 off for 2,225 Avios. If you include the £31.41 saving for booking as a package trip you could go up to £56 off for 7,735 Avios (£87.41 including package savings.) BUT remember if you book a hotel chain you are sacrificing any hotel status benefits & points earning. At the high end with £333 off for 75,852 Avios you are seeing a very poor 0.44p per Avios.

London – Paris

05 May – 08 May 2023, Ibis Styles Paris Bercy, Economy Class Return From Heathrow Airport – £836.00 as a package. £800.16 if you book flights + room separately.

Here we have two options that give us 1p or more per Avios and that is the £13 off for 1,300 Avios & £24 off for 2,225 Avios. If you include the fact that you are paying almost £36 more for booking as a package in this example all the options are very poor. Cost wise you’d be better off booking the flights + hotel separately and using part pay with Avios for your flight where we’re offered the following options…

Here the only option that makes sense is the £20 off for 2,000 Avios with the others offering value under 1p…

London – New York

01 July – 08 July 2023, InterContinental New York Times Square, Economy Class Return From Heathrow Airport – £3,345.00 as a package. £3,564.20 if you book flights + room separately.

Here we have three options that give us 1p or more per Avios and that is the £11 off for 1,100 Avios, £21 off for 2,100 Avios & £37 off for 3,700 Avios. If you include the £219.20 saving for booking as a package trip you could go up to £200 off for 40,450 Avios (£419.20 including package savings.) BUT remember if you book a hotel chain you are sacrificing any hotel status benefits & points earning. At the high end with £330 off for 75,852 Avios you are seeing a very poor 0.435p per Avios.

Summary

As you can see when using the lower amounts of Avios in all examples gives the best value with the value slowly decreasing as you work your way up the cost scale.

With anything below 0.67p an Avios (the value you get when redeeming Avios for Nectar points), you would be better off transferring your Avios into Nectar points and using them at Sainsbury’s, Argos or eBay etc.

Finally, don’t assume that you will be getting the best deal by booking as a package even if it says includes saving of £X. Always check and as in the case with our Paris example you can save even more and still use some of your Avios for a saving if you wish!

Conclusion

Whilst you will typically get more value using your Avios for a flight redemption (particularly at the higher amounts of Avios.) It is always useful to have another way to redeem your Avios, particularly if you struggle to find the flights you want. What do you make of the ability to book your BA Holiday using Avios?