British Airways Avios hasn’t seen a significant devaluation since 2015, so their latest plans to (most likely) devalue redemptions on a bunch of One World partner airlines came as no surprise.
From 30 May 2019, British Airways will be changing their Avios prices on reward flights with the following partner airlines: Alaska Airlines, Air Italy, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines, LATAM, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, S7, Sri Lankan and Royal Jordanian Airlines.
Changing prices generally means one thing: Cost goes up.
Why should I care?
While British Airways Avios is generally pretty shit on long haul redemptions, their pricing on short-haul business and even economy flights are outstanding.
For example, a business class flight from Melbourne to Sydney only costs 9,000 Avios one way with Qantas. Considering you can often buy Avios at a discount, this offers incredible value (roughly $200 – one way).
The same goes for partner flights on Cathay Pacific within Asia, here you can score business class for only 15,000 Avios between Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh City for example.
What isn’t changing
This upcoming change will only affect partner redemptions so you will still be able to take advantage of redemption on British Airways (which are great value for short flights within Europe).
Avios Devaluation Conclusion
It’s pretty clear to me that British Airways will increase the prices of the sweet spots in their award chart. Hopefully they will offer some concrete info before May 30th but in any case, if you are holding onto Avios miles for a partner redemption; book now.
It’s also important to keep in mind that if you book now and decide to change your dates later on, you will be charged at the new price. So even if for some miraculous reason British Airways decided to reduce their partner award costs, you could simply rebook at a lower rate. The chance of that happening is probably 0.00001% though.
You can read the full press release here: https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/news/air-partner-changes
