Avios points - can someone explain how we use them 🙏

[Saveusernsme]

We have collected over 260,000 points, and have three companion vouchers so far. We have spent hours looking at flights but nothing ever appears to be available. One of the vouchers expires in Feb 2025 so no chance of using it.

Is this just a complete ‘scam’ or are we doing something wrong? We have primary age children so travel is restricted to school holidays.

Would appreciate some insight if anyone has had success in using them. Thanks

There's an avios app where you can search by route and month to see reward seat availability. Popular routes where there are only a couple of flights a day need to be booked by phone a year ahead ( as soon as flight made available) and still tough.

Routes like London to NYC much easier.

We booked BA flights and then used them towards the cost.

So in my view there are two ways to use Avios, either know where you want to go 355 days in advance or be prepared to go anywhere there is late availability.

If you download Avios app you can search specific routes. There are another couple of reward flight sites, rewardflightfinder.com/ and www.seatspy.com/index. To make most of them you need to pay. I use seat spy, mainly because the other one was found to be copying them a few years ago.

On seatspy, you can give them a date range and see what Avios flights are available for those dates. If you don't want to join, tell me your dates ( best if you can have +/- a few days at either end) and I'll let you know what's available.

I could be wrong but I think you can still also convert them to Nectar points so it would be better to do this than lose the ones that expire in Feb 25. At least that way you can spend them at Sainsburys etc. I did that a couple of years ago because every flight we wanted to book didn’t seem to accept Avios points. My brother uses them a lot but he mainly uses them for upgrades which are of no use or interest to me. Good luck!

I transferred all mine to my daughter who uses them for upgrades. I no longer fly with BA so was never going to use them myself.

It’s the companion vouchers that expire, not the Avios. Avios have no expiry as long as there’s activity on your account e.g. earning or spending them.

You need to try and book as soon as flights become available (355 days ahead) or be flexible about where to go. We used 2 vouchers plus points for the 4 of us to fly to Dubai earlier this year, we didn't book far ahead but there is usually plenty of availability. We've just used 2 more vouchers to book for India next October (booked a year in advance).

@Saveusernsme Some routes rarely have companion voucher seats. We are going to Denver in May and had no issues. We have previously used them for South Africa, Japan, LA, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and India a couple of times. We fly business and always BA. We look really early but they do release them at different times - when they think a flight won’t be full!

You have to be flexible and don’t expect the busy routes. You just pay tax for the companion flights and business is definitely worth it.

If they are BA companion vouchers I think they need to be BA flights. Not sure about codeshare flights with other airlines operating them.

Sin my experience, if you are looking at school holidays you do need to be fairly planful but v possible to use.

You need to be looking when the flights are released which is 11 months before

I’ve found heading west has much more availability - so anything stateside you’re likely to find relatively easily. We’ve had NYC numerous times, San Fran, LA, Cuba, Costa Rica (when they flew direct), Barbados and a couple of weeks ago St Lucia. We’ve also used them alongside a BA holiday. We fly to Australia every other year and have never managed to even get half way with a companion ticket (and have been trying for around 15 years). There’s definitely easier destinations.

Can I ask, as I feel like I'm going crazy - we signed up to the Amex to get the companion vouchers and the avios. Found a few flights we could potentially do (a Portugal for example, fine, pay tax £4 or whatever, flights "free")

but by the time I add in an air b’n’b, or cheapy hotel, actually, I could get a better deal, hotel and flights included, with an old fashioned travel agent equivalent like easyJet holidays, booking the whole thing as a package.

am I missing something?

@GoingRoundInOvals avios redemption isn't really good value for short haul economy flights, it's long haul and upgrading where you really see the value. We are flying business class to the US for £950 (total amount for 2 of us and returning) this would ordinarily cost thousands.

Ahhh ok. So May be worth us just losing the companion vouchers but saving up the points

You can buy avios. Then use for long haul with companion voucher. You need to do the sums though. On some flights, BA business can be very reasonable - on less popular days and destinations.

We never use for short haul. Definitely use for long haul and business is better value.

As others have said, use your companion voucher and Avios points together and book 11 months ahead. We do this, but always long hall. We manage to get something we’re happy with and it’s always either premium or business for a good price (usually end up paying some money - but nowhere near what the published cost would be).

For best value use them on business class seats. If you want to use them on a popular holiday route (unless NYC or somewhere with many daily flights) you need to get them early or not be fussy.
As a parents, we've used them on weekends away where we have no kids.
I use them on girly weekends away to see friends abroad. Switzerland for £25.
They have a very flexible cancellation policy where you pay £35 per flight or lose the taxes whichever is cheaper which can sometimes be handy.

Booking a year [355 days} in advance is the only way for the more popular long haul routes

We have booked flights using Avios points for the past 15 years in school holidays and have only ever flown once with another airline. Only recently did we have to wait up until 1am for the flights to be released to bag them (that was for May half term to Cyprus). We have always managed in the 6 weeks holidays booking in the January before but you do need to be flexible (travelling Thursday to Thursday for example instead of Saturday - Saturday). We’ve only used the companion vouchers once when we fancied a Christmas market abroad and ended up in Basel - Switzerland because they had availability and good flight times. It’s saved us thousands over the years and has enabled us to have more holidays because of the savings. Just have to be organised and flexible.