I recently scored two business class flights to Stockholm for just £85. How did I do it?
I used the Lloyds Bank AVIOS Rewards Credit Card, which gives you an AVIOS upgrade voucher when you spend £7,000. This voucher lets two people upgrade one class of travel, like from Economy to World Traveller Plus or from World Traveller Plus to Club. However, you can’t use it to upgrade from Club to First. The voucher is valid for one way, so you either have to fly economy one way (which I did since it’s a short haul) or get two upgrade vouchers using two cards.
You need a spouse, partner, best friend, or family member to help you out with this. You can’t just create an alter ego and apply for two cards. The two cards must be from separate accounts, not just two cards on the same account.
Using the European Reward Flight Saver offers, I redeemed 26,000 AVIOS points for two flights from London to Stockholm. For European flights, there’s a flat rate tax of £35 in economy (£17.50 each way) and £50 in business class (£25 each way), totaling £85 in taxes. This seemed like a great deal to me when I booked.
But is it really a good deal? In a recent comparison between this card and the British Airways Premium Plus Credit Card, the latter was found to offer better value. So why did I go for this? Honestly, I hadn’t researched the card benefits properly. I earned the voucher and was trying to use it without spending a fortune.
Long haul wasn’t an option due to higher taxes and fees. I would also need to redeem enough AVIOS for two flights, unlike the British Airways companion voucher which covers one flight.
Was it worth it? The same flights I booked were priced at £1,068.22 on September 2nd, including business flights outbound and economy flights inbound for two people. I paid £85, saving £983.22. Thus, my 26,000 points were worth approximately 0.037p each in this transaction.
For comparison, flights I booked to Montreal cost me £1,048.06, 80,000 AVIOS, and another companion voucher. This saved me £5,074 off a price of £6,122.06 for two business class seats from Manchester to Montreal, making the value per AVIOS 0.063p. So, I felt like I got a great deal for that trip!
Using this formula for all flights shows that my short haul flights were reasonable value, though some argue that anything less than 0.05p is poor value. Psychologically, I wouldn’t have gone to Stockholm without using this voucher and points. I had no other use for my points this year and am already accumulating enough points for my next business class long haul flight.
Redeeming this way gave me a chance for a weekend getaway I wouldn’t have booked otherwise. It felt like a free weekend (that’s what I tell my husband anyway!).
This exercise highlights an important lesson: to get the best value from your points, do some simple calculations. Here’s the process:
1. Get a quote for the cost of your flights without using AVIOS. (For a realistic quote, use Skyscanner as I would never pay over £1,000 for short haul flights.)
2. Calculate the difference between the cash price and the price you pay for taxes when booking with AVIOS.
3. Divide the pounds saved by the number of points redeemed.
4. This gives the value in pence of each AVIOS, helping you make an informed decision.
I can only see myself using this type of voucher for short haul flights. With only two classes of travel, I paid for economy fares and upgraded to business. For long haul flights, this upgrade would only get me to World Traveller Plus, and having flown business several times, I’m too spoiled to settle for less!
I could pay for World Traveller Plus tickets and then upgrade, but I’d need to redeem enough points for two people. My British Airways companion voucher offers better value in my opinion, but I’m open to debate.
If you have a Lloyds Bank Rewards Credit Card, my advice is to use the voucher and then invest in the British Airways Premium Plus Card. Keep the Lloyds AVIOS cards as there’s no need to recycle them (no sign-up bonus). Use them if you find yourself without a British Airways Card, especially during the six-month gap between closing and reopening an account to secure a new sign-up bonus.