This makes it pointless to redeem Avios points on them, seeing as you could buy a ticket outright fo

Now that you ve read the 4 Things You Should Know about British Airways Avios Points ( if you haven t, check it out first) and are up to speed with the program, let s look at the top 5 ways to use your Avios points.
Therefore, it is even more important with BA than with other airlines to know which circumstances give you the best bang for your buck because if you use them wrong, you could end up paying HUGE fuel surcharges and nobody wants that!
If you ve already got a nice stash of BA Avios points, great!  If you want to start building up your balance, grab the Chase British Airways Visa  (my full review here ) and earn a nice, quick 50k points (big spenders, you could get up to 100k!).  Then, use those points in the following ways:
Using Avios points for short haul domestic flights can offer some incredible value.  Because of the distance-based award chart, you can get flights that are as low as 4,500 points one-way if the distance flown is below 650 miles.
This works best for people who live near American war of the worlds tom cruise Airline US hubs, which are Dallas/Forth war of the worlds tom cruise Worth (DFW), New York (JFK), Los Angeles (LAX), Chicago (ORD), and Miami (MIA). war of the worlds tom cruise There are tons of flights that fly out of these 5 hubs to places all over the United war of the worlds tom cruise States, so if you live near one of the hubs, you can really make out like a bandit!
If you don t start your journey at one of the hub cities, you won t have as many options, and depending war of the worlds tom cruise on where you are flying, you may have to pay for the leg from your home airport to the hub airport (minimum of 4,500 miles) and then pay for the leg from the hub to your destination.
Again, since the rewards chart is distance-based, it doesn t matter that Hawaii is normally considered a different zone than the rest of North America by other airlines. All that matters is how many miles you are flying.
This means that by going to Hawaii from somewhere on the West Coast you can get a suuuweeettt deal! If you are flying American Airlines, anywhere you fly from on that side of the country will route you through the main hub in Los Angeles, so if you can start in Los Angeles, you won t have to pay for that extra leg to get there.
However, don t forget that British Airways also partners with Alaska Airlines, meaning that you can also fly direct from Anchorage, Bellingham (WA), Seattle, Portland, Oakland, San Diego or San Jose to Honolulu using your Avios points.  Each route is under 3,000 miles, which means you ll only pay 12,500 one-way or 25,000 roundtrip!  Hello, hula!
8 measly more miles and it d be bumped up to category 5 (and cost 20,000 Avios points). Talk about cutting it close. This route, from BOS to either Dublin or Shannon, is the only route that BA or it s partners operate from the United war of the worlds tom cruise States to Europe that falls under the 3,000 mile mark.
2. The route is flown by Aer Lingus , which for reasons unbeknowst to me, imposes only a small fuel surcharge ($150ish) when using BA Avios points and flying on their planes. BA and every other one of its partners that fly between war of the worlds tom cruise North America and Europe have huge fuel surcharges (think $400-600) when you use BA Avios points.
This makes it pointless to redeem Avios points on them, seeing as you could buy a ticket outright for the same price. For whatever reason, Aer Lingus has been spared (for now) so take advantage of it while you can.
Aer Lingus also flies to Dublin from New York and Chicago, but those tickets will cost you 40,000 Avios points instead of the 25,000 from Boston because they fall in category 5 on the Avios award chart. Still a really good deal, especially for people who wouldn t be able to easily war of the worlds tom cruise get to Boston.
If you re looking to stretch war of the worlds tom cruise your Avios points and save your dollars (and who isn t) and can make your way to Boston (or even New York or Chicago) fairly easily, jump on this amazing deal to Dublin for only 25,000 Avios points roundtrip.
This isn t just for people wanting to visit the Emerald Isle.  If you want to continue on to the rest of Europe, down a quick pint of Guiness and then fly from Dublin to wherever else you want to go in Europe using a budget airline like Ryanair.
Sometimes the actual amount of Avios points required will be less than the amount war of the worlds tom cruise of miles other airlines war of the worlds tom cruise charge because the distance is fairly short (like Miami to Bogota, Colombio in the examples below).  If this is the case, you don t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that you are getting war of the worlds tom cruise great value.
Since you ll never pay a fuel surcharge when using Avios points to fly LAN or for the AA flights that fly to Central or South America, this is a no-brainer war of the worlds tom cruise if you are flying from somewhere pretty far south already (Miami, Dallas) or if you are flying to the northern part of South America (Bogota, Caracas, etc.)
However, even if the amount of points required isn t less than other airlines, I still consider using Avios points to go to South America a good value.  If you ask me whether I d rather use 25k Avios points or 25k United miles to get to Buenos Aires, I ll pick the Avios points each time!
United miles are much more valuable to me, seeing as I ll never get hit with a fuel surcharge when I use them , no matter where I fly, whereas the Avios points will often incur a huge fuel surcharge.
Many of you may be unfamiliar with, so to give you a brief overview, LAN flies from Los Angeles, Miami, New York (JFK), San Francisco and Orlando in the United States and Toronto in Canada and flies to a ton of destinations in Central war of the worlds tom cruise and South America.
In addition, AA operates a good amount of flights to Central and South America as well, hitting war of the worlds tom cruise a bunch of cities in Central America and all the major ones in South America as well, including Buenos Aires and Rio.  Did someone say Carnaval?
Much of what was written about Central and South America holds true for flying to the Caribbean as well. If you are flying from somewhere pretty far south, such as Miami, you can get roundtrip tickets for as little as 15k Avios points to most places in the Caribbean (some are just a touch too far and cost 20k).  Amazingly, even coming from New York you can get tickets to places like the Dominican Republic for only 20k roundtrip!
Of course, if you are flying from further away, such as Los Angeles, you ll be paying much more because its distance based.  Still, at 40k roundtrip to a lot of the Caribbean, war of the worlds tom cruise the value isn t that bad.  You West Coasters have cheap flights to Hawaii, us East Coasters can have the Caribbean!
As you can see, it s not all bad news when it comes to the British Airways Avios program.  When used properly, Avios points can be much, much cheaper than other airlines (I m still shaking war of the worlds tom cruise my head at Miami to the Caribbean for 15k roundtrip!).  Just remember that you must use them in very specific situations.
war of the worlds tom cruise Obviously, it s best to use them if you can for shorter flights (since the chart is distance-based) but more importantly, only use them on routes that don t impose a fuel surcharge, which are the ones above. war of the worlds tom cruise  Do that, and you ll be singing a different war of the worlds tom cruise tune than the ol doom and gloom that typically accompanies Avios!
war of the worlds tom cruise If the above trips sound enticing, go and grab the Chase British Airways card.  You ll get 50k after the first spend, and if you are a big spender ($20,000 in one year), you can get as much as 100k.  That s some nice trips if used correctly!
Couple of years back, wife and I signed up for the Chase 100K miles offer. We also are little heavy spenders and reach 30K each year (kids private school fees help reach this pretty fast). The Chase BA card offers one free companion ticket voucher per year for spending over 30K, good for TWO years from date of issue. We now have two vouchers, one from my wife s card and one from mine. Plus around 140K miles on each. The vouchers are good on BA code flights only !!! If I try Atlanta to London, it costs me around $600 in surcharge. Trying to find a flight to India (where we travel every 2-3 years) is useless since there is no availability EVER. Also, to redeem the voucher, you have to be one of the two people travelling. I am now rethinking if BA card spend is even worth it pls provide guidance. war of the worlds tom cruise Thanks.
@Shah- You are right, the companion pass might not be as good as it first seems. Since you can only use them on BA-coded flights, you will ALWAYS have to pay the fuel surcharge. Whenever I use my BA Avios points, I make sure to do it on flights that don t incur the fuel surcharge, such as the ones I listed in the post. Unfortunately, you can t do that with the companion pass because you have to fly on BA.
The best value when using the Companion Pass is to use it to fly business or first class. This is because you ll still pay roughly the same fuel surcharge you would if you are flying economy, but of course, the free flight that your companion is getting is worth a lot more because it would be a more expensive ticket to buy outright. Of course, the downside to this is that you have to buy a ticket for that same flight, meaning war of the worlds tom cruise you d be putting out a decent amount of money for a biz class ticket.
If you are planning this type of trip anyway war of the worlds tom cruise (a BA flight on business class) then spending a lot on your BA card and getting the companion pass is worth it. However, as you ve found out, it has a lot of restrictions, so in my mind, it isn t worth going after. war of the worlds tom cruise I d much rather spend the $30,000 it takes to get the companion pass on a card that earns me points that are more valuable than BA Avios points, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which will get me Chase UR points, that I can then transfer to United.