Explaining the 5+ British Airways Avios Award Charts

To compliment the recent post on Iberia’s 7 Award Charts(!), I wanted to give all 5 of the British Airways Award Charts as well.

Given that you can transfer between them, that’s 12 award charts you can “choose from”- (have to weed through).

Plus, BA Avios is one of the easiest mileage currencies to earn: you not only have the BA credit card, but can transfer from Amex MR, and Chase UR.

Explaining The Charts

Note that the first 4 award charts are priced the same and how most people are familiar with Avios now – they price segment by segment. So if you fly from Austin to NYC, and then NYC to London, you need to look up the distance on the appropriate award for each segment. (To get the distance, I use gcmap.com).

The last award chart, the “MultiCarrier” award chart, is priced by adding up the total distance flown (like most other distance based programs).

However, the other part of figuring out the appropriate award chart to use, is determined by the airline you fly on.

BA and Iberia have their own award charts. AA and Alaska share their own award chart. If you fly on any other partner you use the first “Partner” award chart. And if you fly multiple airlines, you use the last “MultiCarrier” award chart.

I’ll also put the info of which airline the award chart is for under each award chart.

BA Avios: Partner Award Chart

When do you use this award chart?:

• Any redemption with only one single partner (excluding AA, Alaska, BA, Aer Lingus and Iberia).
  • OneWorld partners that use this chart: Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines, LATAM, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines, SriLankan Airlines
  • Other partners: Comair, Air Italy, Sun-Air, Fiji Airways
• If you use two or more of the above mentioned partners, you then use the OneWorld Multi-Carrier award chart (the last award chart below).

Pricing: Using the distance of each individual segment.

BA Avios: AA & Alaska Award Chart

• When to use this award chart: When redeeming BA Avios for AA or Alaska flights.
• Pricing: Using the distance of each individual segment.

This chart is actually a slightly modified version of the first chart, in that it’s entirely the same as the partner chart, except for the first two distance rows. Really, BA just wanted us Americans to not take advantage of their sweet low tier pricing for short direct flights. However, lowest tier economy is only 1,500 Avios difference now.

BA Avios: BA (& Aer Lingus) Award Chart

• When to use this award chart: When redeeming BA Avios for BA or Aer Lingus flights.
• Pricing: Using the distance of each individual segment.

Exception: When combining BA with another partner, you take the BA segment price from this award chart, and the other price from the other applicable award chart for the partner airline. 

So if you fly NYC to London on BA, and then fly Cathay to Hong Kong: the first BA segment would use this award chart, and add the price of the Cathay flight taken from the Partner Award Chart.

BA Avios: Iberia Award Chart

• When to use this award chart: When redeeming BA Avios for Iberia flights.
• Pricing: Using the distance of each individual segment.

BA Avios: Multi-Carrier Award Chart

• When to use this award chart: When redeeming on 2 or more partner airlines.
• Pricing: Using the total distance flown.

Exception:  Again, note that when combining BA with another partner, you take the BA segment price from the BA award chart, and the other price from the other applicable award chart for the partner airline. 

You do not use this award chart when combining BA and another partner.

Conclusion

Again. While I do plan on doing more award charts (as non-featured articles), look for my real posts on JAL and BA soon.

HT to this FlyerTalk thread – Richard Kerr shared this with me to double check my BA Avios prices. Also, it’s proof that I actually used FlyerTalk for something despite my accusations of FlyerTalk’s complete failure.