Published: 11 August 2026
This page is part of our British Airways Club Hub which pulls together all our articles on BA & Avios
Your Guide to the British Airways Club: Using Avios in Part Payment for Flights
Avios held in a British Airways Club account can be used for reward flights or flight upgrades. However, there is another option: using Avios as part payment towards the cost of a cash flight or British Airways Holiday.
It’s incredibly easy to do and can reduce the cash cost of your booking – potentially all the way down to just £1. However, there is a catch: the value you get per Avios varies considerably depending on how many points you use.
In this guide we explain how Avios Part Payment works, what the rules are and, most importantly, whether it actually represents good value for your Avios.
How do I use Avios to pay for a flight?
Using Avios in payment towards British Airways flight booking or against a BA Holiday is fairly straightforward. Log in to your BA account, search for the flight you want and at the payment stage you are presented with the option of using different amounts of points to reduce the price of your flight or holiday.
if you have enough Avios, you can even reduce the price of the flight down to £1 (BA’s systems apparently need to take a payment as part of the transaction).
Here is an example:
The More Avios You Use, the Less They’re Worth
The important thing to notice is that the number of Avios required doesn’t increase proportionately with the cash discount.
In our example, using 2,000 Avios saves £20, giving you a decent return of 1p per Avios. However, spending more than seven times as many points – 14,030 Avios – only increases the saving to £70. At that level, you’re getting only 0.5p per Avios.
We tested a number of bookings at five different price points, ranging from a £395 Economy return from London to Rome to a £10,000 First Class return from London to New York, to see whether the same pattern appeared elsewhere.
The answer is clear: in general, the more Avios you use for Part Payment, the worse the value becomes.
On most flights we tested, BA offered the opportunity to use a relatively small number of Avios at a value of around 1p each. After that, the return fell away quite quickly, eventually reaching around 0.4p per Avios on many of our examples.
Interestingly, the value held up slightly better on some of the more expensive bookings, but the overall pattern remained the same. In addition, using Avios against the price of a British Airways Holiday returned similar results.
Never Take Less Than 0.5p Per Avios
The great thing about Avios is that they can be converted into Nectar points which can be used in (among other places) Sainsbury’s and Argos. The conversion rate from Avios to Nectar is 1:1 and as 500 Nectar points gives £2.50 off your shopping, this effectively makes Avios worth 0.5p each.
With this in mind, you should never redeem your Avios and get less than 0.5p each.
Do I Earn Avios and Tier Points When Using Part Payment?
Yes, this is an important advantage over using Avios to book a conventional reward flight. First of all, there are no restrictions on award flight availability – if BA has a seat for sale, you can use your Avios to buy it.
Secondly, as you are buying a normal cash ticket and merely reducing the amount paid with Avios, you will still earn the same Avios and Tier points as you would for a straight cash booking. If you factor in the Avios earned on the flight, the redemption value of the Avios used does increase slightly, but not enough to radically change the maths.
Quick Reminder for using Avios in Part Payment
- 1p per Avios → potentially attractive
- 0.8p → questionable
- 0.5p → Nectar equivalent value
- below 0.5p → avoid
Our Take
Avios Part Payment is simple and convenient, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a good use of your points.
The key is to look at the value BA is offering for each Avios rather than simply being tempted by the reduction in the cash price. Our research found that using a relatively small number of Avios can sometimes deliver around 1p per point, which we think represents reasonable value.
However, the value generally falls as you use more Avios. I personally would not be inclined to use my Avios for much less than 1p each but there are some people who are Avios rich through their work travel who may decide that they are getting value at 0.7p or 0.6p per point. Anything below 0.5p should absolutely be avoided, as you can get that value simply by converting your Avios into Nectar points.
Part Payment is useful if you want to knock £20 or £30 off the cost of a flight by using a relatively small number of Avios (which I have done a few times myself). But be very wary of using thousands more points as whilst it can make a large dent in the ticket price, it doesn’t necessarily represent better value.
As with most things involving Avios, having more ways to spend your points is useful – but it pays to do your maths before clicking the button.
