Booking flights with Avios

So you’ve got loads of British Airways Avios to use up and want to book a reward flight.

You know we’re all about getting a good deal here at Buymyupgrade, so this is how to do it.

As with any booking using Avios, including upgrades, you should always check what the booking would cost using cash before you start.

For this example, I have chosen a flight from London to Los Angeles for a 2 week trip flying out in March 2023 and back in April.

The cash price for this ticket would be £3,268.

Let’s go and find the Avios flight to see what it’s going to cost.

First of all, you need to find flights with reward seats. BA limits the number of Avios seats on each flight, so booking early is recommended. There are tools on the BA website to help you find seats and we offer a tool to find reward seats too. Checkout our homepage for information on accessing the tool.

To start, make sure you are logged into your BA Executive Club on the website. Click on Book, followed by Book a Flight with Avios.

By default, the page should take you to the Book with Avios section, not the book and upgrade section.

If you have any vouchers to use the system will automatically select them, so make sure you deselect them before you start if you don’t want them used up.

Next, fill out the search form as usual and choose which Class you want to fly in, then hit Get Flights.

Now you can see what’s available and choose your flights.

Once you’ve chosen your flights, you will get a summary.

You will see there’s a link that says More Pricing Options, if you click that you will see more options.

Now let’s look at the value. If we take the rough price of Avios to be 1p each, we can work out how much our flights are really worth.

You can see that compared to the cash cost of £3,268 you are getting a good deal and the deal is better with the more Avios you spend.

For reference, this same booking booked in Premium Economy would cost:
60000 Avios plus £1836, which equals roughly £2,436, so you can see in this case you get a better deal buying the Avios flight.

You should compare Avios to Cash on all flights you take, to make sure you get the best possible deal. We’ve got loads of other tips as well, so be sure to read the rest of the blog.