Buy Avios for 1.43 Cents Each with This One Trick

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Through 11:59 PM tomorrow February 25, 2015, British Airways is offering a 50% bonus on the purchase of Avios. This is the biggest bonus ever offered on the purchase of Avios.

The maximum Avios you can purchase in a year is 35,000. With a 50% bonus, that means you can add 52,500 Avios to your account. Americans are being offered those Avios for 1.88 cents each, but with one simple trick, you can drop the price to 1.43 cents per Avios!

The Trick

If you set your British Airways account address to a country that uses the euro, say France, you will be sold Avios in euros instead of dollars. The euro price on this sale is way cheaper! (Hat tip this Flyertalk thread and user Lefly)

The cost to purchase 52,500 Avios for people with an American address is $988 or 1.88 cents per Avios.

To change your address, click “Manage my account under Executive Club on any page.

Click “Update my personal information” on the left side of the screen.

Give an address in a euro-using country.

Hit Continue about three times. The first time I tried to make the change, I stopped a screen short. You’ll know if you succeeded because when you go back to the Purchase Miles screen, you will be offered the Avios in euros.

The price of 52,500 euros is 661 euros or $749.30 after the dramatic slide in the euro. That’s under 1.43 cents per Avios. If you purchase in euros–actually any purchase from BA.com–make sure you use a card that charges no foreign transaction fees. If I purchase my Avios–and I’m on the fence, it’s really close for me–I’ll use the Citi ThankYou® Premier Card because it has no foreign transaction fees, and I am working on my 30,000 point bonus for spending $3,000 in the first three months of the second year of having the card.

Does Putting Your Account in France Mess It Up?

There was an interesting question in the FlyerTalk thread: if I set my British Airways account to France, will I mess up my ability to transfer in Membership Rewards and Ultimate Rewards?

After setting my account to France, I initiated a 1,000 Ultimate Rewards transfer to my British Airways account that was already stored on chase.com. The transfer went through instantly as usual, so changing your address doesn’t appear to mess this up.

Eventually you can change your address back to your home address, but British Airways makes you wait six months between address changes.

Is This a Good Deal?

The best uses of Avios are short, direct, economy flights on partners without fuel surcharges. This is doubly so in view of the impending devaluation of Business and First Class awards that is coming in April.

At 1.43 cents per Avios, domestic (including Hawaii) one way awards that cost XXX Avios plus $5.60 in taxes one way would cost:

• 4,500 Avios (like Tampa to Charlotte): $69.8 all in
• 7,500 Avios (like Dallas to Chicago): $112.9
• 10,000 Avios (like Dallas to New York): $148.6
• 12,500 Avios (like Seattle to Honolulu): $184.4

Those are pretty good deals. I’ve seen cheaper with cash on every route, and I’ve also seen a lot more expensive.

The bottom line with all miles sales is that they are a good deal if you have an immediate, high value use for the miles, and a poor deal otherwise. As I said, I’m on the fence, though I do think I can burn about 50,000 Avios by the end of the summer.

Bottom Line

The biggest ever bonus on purchasing Avios ends tomorrow. Ignore the 1.88 cent price for Americans. Anyone with a euro-zone address on file with British Airways and a no-foreign-transaction-fee credit card can get the Avios for 1.43 cents each. The sales are consummated by points.com, so there is no bonus for an airline or travel purchase on your credit card.

The best deals with Avios are short, direct, economy flights on routes/airlines without fuel surcharges. That includes all domestic flights and all these flights.