British Airways 100,000 AVIOS

I did this deal a couple years ago and just redeemed the points for 4 nights at a Hilton in Key West(worth $950). You will most likely not find flights that work on AA. I tried this for a while. You could buy tickets on your own for $100 more than the fuel surcharge.

Some more benefits of Avios on domestic flights:

1) Distance-based awards on American Airlines with Avios from hub cities (like DFW) are fantastic. I can get to Vegas for 7500 miles each way, Boston or Seattle for 10000 miles each way or Austin for 4500 miles each way. Hawaii from Los Angeles is only 25000 miles each way.

2) No cancellation fees to reinstate miles if you want to cancel a flight (other than nominal $5-20 taxes on domestic flights). This is huge for flexibility and much less expensive than AA reinstatement fees of $150.

3) As someone noted, you can get from Boston to Dublin for 12500 miles each way. We booked (but later cancelled) a domestic leg from DFW to Boston for 10000 miles each way and then from Boston to Dublin in business class for just 25000 miles each way.

Avios are actually worth more than AAdvantage miles in many cases, but everyone gets hung up on the flights on BA planes that go through Heathrow that should be avoided.

So you have to spend roughly 1 million dollars to get 100,000 avios points?! Awesome!!

do you lose miles if you cancel the card after earning the miles?

I don't think this is a good deal, in that you have to spend an additional $20k to get 50k points that are not that valuable.

The previous offer was good ...100k points for $150 dollars. This one..Meh.
No offense to the OP.


As I explained in the previous thread, I'd rather do $20k of spending on other cards (and earn around 100k Ultimate Rewards..easy) than on this BA card.


But to each his own.

I got in on this the last time around. The 100k miles were great however after they changed how miles were redeemed they quickly proved of no use.

When I first got them, any availability on AA was available through BA. So any flight I found open with AA miles at 12.5k each was I could simply call up BA and book with those 100k miles.

Now, with ~50k left, finding availability is next to impossible. I got lucky and found two flights this year that burned through ~17k for flights that normally would've cost me 25k, so there was that benefit, but using them proved incredibly difficult and the availabilty is not nearly as good as AA.

Want to fly international? A smattering of itineraries can be had to other countries, provided you're flexible (searching 7 days prior to desired dates) and paying fees upon fees. I've continually looked for open flights and when I've found them it's been better to pay cash for a ticket.

Also, 20k spend for this? Much better ways to use your spend.

I did the deal 2 years ago ended up very happy. I booked 3 flights with with AA for a total of 75,000 points and still have 25,000 for another flight. Also, my recollection is that they don't expire for 3 years, even after you close the credit card account to avoid the annual fee. The three years got extended when I purchases each of my three tickets!

Quote from sawduster : I know this has been beaten to death, but for those new to the deal... My wife and I have spent many hours figuring out how to maximize our 100k miles. After a lot of good pointers from a couple of frequent flyer forums and blogs, I think the two two options that we've narrowed to are BOS(or NY) to Dublin OR a Peru trip via Miami - both come in under 100k miles for two people with very few fees and no fuel surcharges. You have to use the partner airlines, not BA. If you live near a hub and want short getaways then you can do quite a few shorter trips with 100k. Book early and take your blood pressure medicine before you start.

Thanks for summing up what I was going to say anyways! Boston-Dublin is only 25k miles RT w/ less than $150 in taxes...You could potentially take 4 RTs to Europe for less than one revenue ticket (after taxes)...Obviously you don't need to stay in Dublin. You can use BA miles intra-Europe, too!

I'm laughing at all the people who are getting no use out of their miles, I'd gladly take them off your hands. If you're even remotely flexible (flying out on a Sat instead of a Sun...and not trying to book the week of travel), you should have no issues using these within the US, Europe and South America. Also, it's very difficult to get what you want if you aren't booking a few months in advance. My final piece of advice is to check out thepointsguy.com as he has a ton of useful info on how to redeem your BA miles for little/no fees.

It's not the same as previous promotion, also I'm not an expert in FF but IMO this is one of the worst programs. Only the fuel surcharges + tax for transcontinental travel end up being more than you'll find in other carriers. Also for some reason my destinations don't work w/ their daughter BMI airways. AFAIK the best is to trade to AA but you can get AA credit cards w 50K miles i believe.

Quote from indra : 50000 miles after 1st purchase. 25000 miles after $10K purchase 25000 miles after another $10k purchase. $20K purchase required to get 100000 miles, a little hefty, but I guess you end up with 120,000 miles.

last i got in this was some 2k purchase for the remaining 50000

20k is just too much

Just remember these miles are good for trips within Europe or in the US (via AA), but NOT useful for what you would expect - US to the UK - because the fees they charge aren't much less than just buying a ticket. That is, you have to work to get the value out of these miles.

Also, the companion ticket only works on BA, so suffers all the same problems.

We've shifted all our purchases to AA, where miles go a lot farther and they don't have the fees.

True value of the miles to us were not very high.

BA avios are also useful for travel on AA to central and south america. One could travel on AA to Argentina for example for 40K avios round trip in coach. Thats a $1000+ ticket right there.

Quote from Milesman : Last time this offer was around, it was possible to get the 100k after much smaller spend using a trick on the british airways website...if I remember correctly you would go and book a refundable ticket and on the checkout page, it would ask if you want to pay with a BA card and get 100k bonus if approved.....not sure if they will bring that one back though

Correct. Last time it was much easier. I'm not sure what method I used to get the offer, might have been a simple direct link, but the spend was in the 3-5k range within 3-5 months or something, similar to the Delta promotion that just went on.

Where I've found the best use of Avios is booking short flights in the US. I only pay 4500 Avios each way for a trip from DFW to MCI. Although heavy times of the year I can't find flights, I've been able to use it quite often for weekend flights. Plus they always are through AA where I'm platinum. To avoid them from expiring, just use one of the hotel chains you may stay at in the next 3 years and apply BA. After the stay just remove it if you wish and you're good for 3 more years.