The final page shows us that it will cost only 20,000 Avios and $2,047 to book the roundtrip ticket.

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This is the next installment on my new Maximizing British Airways Avios series. Other posts include Master FAQ Post on British Airways 100,000 Mile Offer , Spotlight on Taxes and Fees , Distance-Based Awards , Travel Together Companion Ticket , Household Accounts , The Avios and Cash Option ,  Save Money on Fuel Surcharges by Transferring British Airways Avios to Iberia ,  Using Avios For Non-Flight Redemptions .
One of the least talked about ways to leverage the absolute best value of Avios is to use them to upgrade on paid tickets. British southwest airlines special fares Airways upgrade program is honestly one of the most generous out there and they make it very easy to price out upgradeable award itineraries and book them online southwest airlines special fares . As you ll see in my example below, it can be cheaper to book a paid ticket and upgrade with Avios than to simply book an Avios award ticket plus you earn Avios and elite credits on paid tickets!
You can use Avios to upgrade to the next cabin when you make a cash booking with British Airways, Iberia or American Airlines, although southwest airlines special fares the next cabin varies by airline and route British Airways has up to four classes of service (Economy, Premium Economy, Business southwest airlines special fares and First) whereas Iberia only has Economy and Business and American has Economy, Business and sometimes southwest airlines special fares First. Upgrades are dependent on the type of booking southwest airlines special fares you have and there must be availability in the class you want to upgrade to. The amount of Avios needed to upgrade to the next class of service is based on the base number of Avios needed to book an economy award ticket on that flight. For example, economy one-way awards from JFK to London cost 20,000 miles each. To upgrade one class of service you d multiple that by .5, so you d need 10,000 Avios to go from Economy to Premium Economy. A little bit confusing, I know, but you ll get the hang of it.
American Airlines and Iberia: J, C, D, Y, B (note the partner fare classes are generally more expensive than British southwest airlines special fares Airways- especially compared to BA s Premium southwest airlines special fares Economy T class fares, which can be downright dirt cheap)
I think the situation in which this benefit makes the most sense is upgrading from a World Traveller Plus (Premium southwest airlines special fares Economy) T class ticket to Club World (Business). Upgrading from economy to World Traveller southwest airlines special fares Plus or Business usually doesn t make sense because you need to buy expensive southwest airlines special fares Y, B or H fares, which can be even more expensive than World Traveller Plus T fares. So for our purposes, let s take the good old JFK-London route.
To check to see if a flight is available for an Avios upgrade, log-in to your britishairways.com account with your Executive Club number at the top right and then Executive Club - Spending Avios - Book Flights with Avios
The screen will automatically default to Book with Avios, so you ll need to click on the tab Book and upgrade.  Then enter the route and class of service you are looking southwest airlines special fares to purchase and upgrade from (you ll note that First class isn t an option because you can t upgrade to a class of service beyond First). In this case we are looking to purchase Premium Economy and upgrade to Business, so I selected Premium Economy from the dropdown.
The final page shows us that it will cost only 20,000 Avios and $2,047 to book the roundtrip ticket. Plus, since this is a paid T class fare, we d earn 8,646 Avios and 180 tier points on the roundtrip.
To simply purchase the World Traveller Plus ticket it would cost us $1,707, southwest airlines special fares so there are about $300 in extra fees mostly because the UK charges a surcharge on premium cabin tickets leaving the UK. However, this still beats paying $5,248 which is what it would cost to buy this itinerary southwest airlines special fares outright. So those measly 20,000 Avios save $3,201 in this scenario 16 cents per Avios in value! Granted, I understand not everyone is used to paying over $5,000 for business class, but there are certainly many businesses and luxury travelers that do and I m sure there will be people flying on this exact itinerary in just a couple weeks that have no idea they could have saved thousands of dollars/pounds by simply paying attention to the British Airways frequent flyer program.
Booking this itinerary with only Avios would cost 80,000 Avios and $1,101 in taxes/fees. Using the Cash Miles feature, it would cost 40,000 southwest airlines special fares miles and $2,131- southwest airlines special fares more than buying and upgrading a Premium Economy ticket with only 20,000 Avios (and you forego miles on award tickets)
As always, you need to do the math to see if upgrading with Avios makes sense for you. I looked and the cheapest coach fare on this itinerary was $840, so you d be paying a $1,200 premium plus 20,000 Avios to upgrade your flight southwest airlines special fares from economy to business class. You can upgrade two classes of service and use twice the Avios, but it can t be done online and you d have to call. However, as mentioned earlier, you need to book Y,B,H fares and the cheapest fare in this example was O, so it wouldn t have been upgradeable.
United also had no upgrade availability at the time of my search, but the cheapest way to upgrade would be to buy an $822 K class coach fare and then waitlist for an upgrade, which would cost a copay of $1,100 and 40,000 miles roundtrip .
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