Making The Most Of The British Airways 100,000 Bonus

The British Airways 100,000 Avios card is back, after a two year hiatus. I want to discuss the details of the 100,000 bonus, and why I’m excited about it.

The exciting part I’ll discuss more, but in short, I came up with this “round the world” style route only using Avios that I could do with this bonus. And the 100,000 bonus used to be a thing year after year. After a long time of waiting, I assumed it was gone… and now here it is.

So let’s start with the details of the card.

Card Details

• 50,000 bonus Avios after you spend $2,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.

• Plus earn an additional 25,000 bonus Avios when you spend $10,000 on purchases for a total of 75,000 bonus Avios.

• Plus earn another 25,000 bonus Avios when you spend a total of $20,000 on purchases within your first year for a total of 100,000 bonus Avios.

$95 annual fee is not waived.

 

The bonus comes in tiers.

The first tier is 50,000 Avios. Know that the card is normally 50,000 bonus Avios as a sign up bonus.

The next tier is a bonus of an additional 25,000 Avios after $10,000 of total spending.

The next tier is a bonus of another additional 25,000 Avios after $20,000 of total spending. But in this case, you have an entire year to meet the $20,000 spend requirement for the final bonus.

120,000 Avios total, after $20,000 of spending (within a year).

It’s a generous offer, and it’s also possible for you to still get a good deal, even if you only chase the first 75,000 Avios after $10,000 of spend.

 

Is the card worth getting?

We will both be getting this card. The spend requirement doesn’t scare me. If you have a cheap way of meeting spend requirement, i.e. RedBird or even something cheaper, then it is doable for cheap/free. Plus, you have a year to reach the $20,000 spend, if you even want to go for it.

I personally will go for the $20,000 spend. Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s the right card for everyone.

The fuel surcharges that get passed on with most partner airlines make this not the best option for Africa, Asia, Oceania, and even Europe. While not all partners will pass on fuel surcharges (like Air Berlin doesn’t have fuel surcharges at all), it still means you have less options than United miles, for example.

For domestic flights and flights to the Caribbean or to Central/South America, it’s probably the best credit card bonus option, and the best program for those flights around. Period. And I’ll share why.

 

Best Uses of 120,000 Avios

There are so many examples of good Avios uses, but I’ll take a look at a few.

 

12,500 Avios for west coast (LAX, SFO, SEA, etc…) to Hawaii.

That’s almost 5 roundtrip tickets to Hawaii. Any families of 5 on the west coast? I say almost because it would cost 125,000… but remember British Airways is a transfer partner of Chase and Amex. An extra 5k should be easy. Or the spending to get the Companion Ticket would bring you to 130,000 Avios.

 

4,500 Avios for Miami to Caribbean (Jamaica, Cancun, Grand Cayman, etc…).

That’s more than enough for 13 roundtrip tickets from Miami to Cancun. Any family of 13 in Flordia? Although realisticly, you could see multiple destinations. Or more realistically, you don’t live in Miami. So with a single connection, the price would at least double. But even if it costs 18,000 Avios for a roundtrip, that’s still 6.5 roundtrips.

I’ll explain pricing in a second.

 

Other great uses of Avios:

• Boston to Dublin for 12,500 Avios
• Domestic flights starting at 4,500 Avios.
• Miami to Lima, Peru for 12,500 Avios
• New York to Bermuda for 7,500 Avios

 

There are so many examples and the list just goes on and on. But these really are fantastic deals.

With most airlines a flight to Cancun or Bermuda is 17,500 miles one way, not 4,500.

Or most flights to Dublin would be 30,000 miles not, 12,500.

The savings are huge, but I think it gets better with stopovers.

 

Pricing & Tools

Pricing is kind of odd.

First, it’s based on the distance. The more you fly, in distance, the more you pay.

They price every segment of the flight individually and then add them up. So a flight from Atlanta to Cancun via Miami is priced out in two segments. Atlanta to Miami is 4,500 Avios. Miami to Cancun is another 4,500 Avios. Total, the oneway flight would be 9,000 Avios.

But don’t worry there are tools to do this distance calculation and pricing for you.

 

Avios Calculator

First, you have the Avios Calculator. This is important because it not only prices things out, it also tells you the different route options available.

Because each segment is priced out separately, it doesn’t change the price to stop in a connection city… for as long as you want. So on that roundtrip to Cancun, you could spend a day or two in Miami, and it doesn’t change the price at all.

The Avios Calculator will tell you your route options.

However, there is a big disadvantage to the Avios Calculator, which is that it doesn’t show more than 1 connection. It’s fine if you live in a hub or are going to a hub. But many routes aren’t going to show all the route options, and possibly not even the cheapest route option.

 

Also, if you’re curious about the cheapest routes from your city, check out this Avios Map.

 

Award Calculator

I introduced this calculator that my friends made as a feature placement on our resource page. It calculates all different award prices across a number of airlines.

It doesn’t show multiple route options, but it does show multiple connections. So you know you’re getting the best price when you check it.

 

Companion Ticket

I’ll quickly mention that the Companion Ticket is the biggest rip off ever. This is an advertised bonus for spending $30,000. However, you have to fly BA, and the fuel surcharges get passed on and are so high that it’s often cheaper to book a full fare ticket than an award ticket or a “free companion ticket” with BA. It’s crazy. There’s no good use.

Some people use it to fly in First Class, but it’s still an expensive use of Avios AND a good ~$1,600 per person (?). I can’t understand this decision given that there are way cheaper ways to get miles for a flight.

 

My Round The World Trip idea

I was hoping that the bonus would have been around a long time ago, but it just took a few years off.

My thinking was that this fall I could have done this round the world ticket I’m about to share. It’s obviously not going to happen this fall now, but it’s something I’ll consider in the future… if I can time it right.

See, the sweet spot in the British Airways Avios pricing are flights that are just under 3,000 miles long. They end up costing 12,500 Avios. What’s crazy is that a 6,000 mile flight (twice as far) would cost 30,000 Avios (more than twice the price for twice the distance).

This is the concept behind my Breaking British Airways Avios with Stopovers posts. That you could actually save miles by booking a stopover.

But then I started coming up with different routes that would get me around the world with these 12,500 Avios flights. Seattle to Boston. Boston to Dublin.

There are many other great examples, like Berlin to Abu Dhabi. It’s just this sweet spot in the distance based pricing, where you’re getting a pretty long flight for only 12,500 Avios.

 

Here’s what I suggested as my ideal route.

Boston – Dublin – Amman – Delhi – Kuala Lumpur – Perth – Sydney – Hawaii – Seattle – Boston = 112,500 Avios

Although to make it full circle, add another 12,500 Avios to do Seattle to Boston. Although, if it really happens, I’ll use Southwest points (and Southwest Companion Pass (if we get it again)) to get to/from Boston and Seattle. So roundtrip to Boston would be 125,000 Avios.

 

Understand that this is my route, but these are all places I could go.

Spend a week in Dublin, a week in Amman, a week in Delhi, a week in Kuala Lumpur, etc…

Or 2 days, or 2 months. It doesn’t matter and it doesn’t change the price.

 

I’m trying to come up with some alternative routes that stick within 130,000 Avios.

There are many other variations possible. Like Dublin to Moscow, to Dubai/Abu Dhabi, to Sri Lanka, to the Maldives, to Kuala Lumpur. That’s a little crazy, but you can cut short where you want, and ultimately, that route isn’t that expensive.

Another option would be Dublin to Berlin, and then Berlin to Abu Dhabi.

 

So many route possibilities and various options within a route.

If you have any route suggestions or ideas, that are round-the-world and under 130,000 Avios, please chime in.

I couldn’t get anything that really connected JNB-MRU or something hopping over from Africa. Getting across the Pacific is limited (it’s a big gap). Getting to Tahiti is possible via Easter Island and South America… but you can’t really connect otherwise.

Again, any suggestions of your own route are totally welcome!

 

Conclusion

Again, we’ll definitely be getting the British Airways card, and have been waiting for possibly years for the 100,000 bonus to come back.

It’s back. The spend requirement is high, but the “best uses” are phenomenal.

Will I actually take the round the world trip? It really depends on my schedule next year and fuel surcharges. If I can’t price it out so it’s fairly cheap, it’s not worth doing. Some short flights can have $200 in fuel surcharges per person. This is at least the case for some partners.