British Airways Avios: 25 Percent Off Sale on Long Haul Award Travel

British Airways must really dislike U.S.-based Executive Club members. Or enjoy keeping secrets from them. How else do you explain running a 6 day 25% off sale on long haul Avios award redemptions to and from London without mentioning it on the British Airways U.S. Web site, or promoting it in an email? 

And yet, if you're doing searches for Spring travel dates, you find that there's a 25% discount in the number of Avios required (although sadly, no discount in the taxes and fees):

On the above first class one way from NYC to London, it would be 45,000 Avios + taxes, rather than the usual 60,000 Avios. Oh, and the “Show me the original price” link to click if you don't want to see the discount? Cheeky, as the British would say! (Ok, joking about the last one–if you're not normally doing these searches and don't already know how many Avios are normally required, I guess it's helpful).

Actually it's little wonder British Airways isn't exactly shouting this from the rooftops to U.S. based members, given that the 25% off is supposed to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of Avios. As you'll remember if you were reading TravelSort posts last year, exactly one year ago our post was British Airways Avios: Goodbye First Class on Cathay, Hello Coach on American which confirmed that with the release of the new Avios award chart, British Airways miles-turned-Avios were significantly devalued for long haul travel, such as the Cathay First Class to Bali via Hong Kong award I recently reviewed.

And even though we'd been expecting the Avios devaluation since September 2011 (see Time to Redeem British Airways Miles for Cathay First Class), it still stung that British Airways refused to reveal anything about the new award chart apart from a few example awards, leaving folks to guess until the devalued chart was released. Given the bitterness of many U.S. flyers, I guess it's unsurprising British Airways didn't want to reopen Pandora's Box by pushing its Avios 1 year anniversary celebration, but wow, talk about lack of communication.

Anyway, here are the details and link to the UK-targeted site:

• Book through Monday, November 19, 2012
• Travel now through May 31 2013
• 25% discount is on Avios only: no discount on taxes/fees, no discount on cash portion if you book Avios + Cash
• Discount is only on British Airways and Iberia flights, NOT on partners
• Discount is only on longhaul flights to/from London, but not on any shorthaul segments
• Discount is valid for both one ways and roundtrips
• May use in conjunction with a British Airways companion voucher
• You can simply login to the British Airways site to book, and the 25% off will automatically be reflected for qualifying long haul flights

Full terms (click on image to view full size):

Is 25% Off Avios Long Haul Redemptions Worth It?
It depends. If you already had a bunch of Avios in your account and wanted to head to Europe this winter or spring anyway in first class, it's a decent deal. The other good first class options to Europe are on Lufthansa and Swiss, and Lufthansa is only available at the last minute (and often just one first class award seat) and Swiss first class for all practical purposes just isn't available at all, unless you use Miles & More miles, which is an expensive award chart. 

The best deal is if you have a British Airways companion certificate, because then you could get 2 roundtrip first class award tickets from the East Coast to London for a total of 90,000 Avios + ~$2300 in fees. Yes, it's a lot in fees (you pay taxes and fees on the companion certificate) but these are first class tickets, after all. And yes, I'd recommend booking first both to (hopefully) experience the New First Class, but also so that you can select your seats ahead of time. Even Business Class passengers have to pay to select seats, see British Airways Phone Ticketing and Assigned Seating Fees. The good thing is that cancellation and redeposit fees are less than for most U.S. airlines even for non-elites: just $40 if done online.

Is it worth it if you don't have any Avios at the moment and had to transfer in from AMEX Membership Rewards or Ultimate Rewards? In my view, no. Not unless you have a zillion AMEX Membership Rewards points you don't know what to do with (but in that case, you should have taken advantage of prior 50% and 40% AMEX Membership Rewards to British Airways Avios transfer bonuses).

As for us, since I have some Avios in our household account, I would have taken advantage of this if the sale was valid for travel booked for later than May 31, since we do plan to go to Europe at some point next year, but not during that time frame.