What I’d Do With 100,000 British Airways Avios – Maximizing the Chase British Airways Visa
With an improved welcome offer, let’s re-visit maximizing the Chase British Airways Visa credit card. What are its key perks and benefits? What’s the best way to spend those 100,000 British Airways Avios? In this article, we’ll take a deep dive on the Chase British Airways Visa to look at what it offers to the consumer. After we get to know the card, I’ll show you how I would go about maximizing the Chase British Airways Visa and the Avios earned from the welcome offer.
Some Of These Offers May Have Ended Or Changed
Chase British Airways Visa Signature Card Benefits
The Chase British Airways Visa is not a card I see discussed often, which I find surprising. It offers numerous consumer protections and ongoing benefits for a low annual fee. It also has a massive welcome offer that is the same amount of points as previous but with reduced spending requirements. Here are the important details of the welcome offer:
- Type of card: personal
- Card issuer: Chase
- Application rules to follow: cannot open this card if you have opened more than 5 credit cards in the last 24 months, no more than 2 credit cards in 30 days from Chase (see more here)
- Spending requirements: $5,000 within 90 days
- Welcome offer: 100,000 British Airways Avios
- Annual fee: $95
- Learn More
NOTE: the previous welcome offer required 2 separate spending targets to get the 100,000 miles. This is a massively improved welcome offer!
Chase British Airways Visa Benefits
- 3X Points on spend with British Airways, Iberia, or Aer Lingus
- 2X Points at hotels.
- 1X Points on everything else.
Other Benefits
- Travel Together ticket for a free companion flight (any cabin, just pay taxes & fees) every year after spending $30,000
- $600 in flight credits available when booking reward flights to London and paying taxes/fees with this card
- Additional cards at no additional cost
- Additional protections like trip insurance, extended warranty, purchase protection, and rental car insurance.
- No foreign transaction fees
- Learn More
What I Would Do With 100,000 British Airways Avios
So…what would I do with 100,000 Avios in my British Airways Flying Club account? Technically, you’re going to have more than that. After earning the welcome offer on the Chase British Airways Visa, you’ll have a minimum of 105,000 Avios. I’ll use that number for our trip planning.
People sometimes are intimidated by the British Airways Flying Club program when they hear about the hefty taxes & fees sometimes added to tickets. Understanding how to reduce or avoid these fees can make this a great program. I previously talked about finding great redemptions on British Airways for less than 10,000 Avios, which is a great perk in this program. As a member of the oneworld alliance, we can fly on any of the 13 member airlines using our British Airways Avios.
It’s also important to understand that British Airways uses a distance-based award system, so know in advance that flying to city A in a country might not require the same number of points as city B (you can check flight distances here), since they price by flight segment. Enter a great tool: the British Airways Avios redemption calculator. This helps us find the option requiring the least number of Avios to go where we want to go. Maybe routing through Madrid needs less miles than routing through London, and this tool can tell us. Let’s start planning some trips in economy, business class, and first class.
Economy – Wonders of the World
A sweet spot with British Airways Avios economy flights is 3,000 miles. That covers flights like Los Angeles to New York City. It also covers Boston to Dublin, Ireland. That can also cover flights like LAX-HNL for Hawaii. This is one idea. The idea I want to show you is visiting some of the 7 Wonders of the World.
Colosseum
First, we’ll fly from JFK in New York City to FCO in Rome. We’ll pay 24,000 Avios and $134.34 in taxes/fees, and the flight connects through London. A free stop-over in London is allowed and costs nothing extra, FYI.
Petra
From Rome, we’ll take a direct flight on oneworld partner Royal Jordanian and fly directly to Amman, Jordan. I previously wrote about visiting Petra, but that was for people across an ocean. Coming from Rome, you’ll need just 11,000 Avios and $149.21 in taxes/fees. The flight is 3.5 hours.
Pyramids
From Amman, use Royal Jordanian again for a direct flight of 1.5 hours to Cairo. Here, we’ll visit the Great Pyramids in Giza, which is a suburb of Cairo. You’ll need a paltry 6,000 Avios for this flight.
Christ Redeemer
From Cairo, we’ll cross the ocean to Rio de Janeiro. Note that if flying through London you could add a free stopover here! For these flights, we’ll use 29,500 Avios + $274.42 in taxes and fees. In Rio, visit the famous Christ Redeemer, and don’t forget to visit Sugarloaf Mountain, either!
From Rio de Janeiro, take the direct flight to JFK with American Airlines. You’ll need 25,750 Avios + $29 in taxes / fees for this flight to get home.
We’ve seen the Colosseum, Petra, Pyramids at Giza, and Christ Redeemer. This massive trip will cost 96,250 Avios. We had 105,000 to start with. We’ll pay $707.38 in taxes and fees for this trip. A good portion of that comes from routing through London on 2 segments. Playing with the itinerary could provide cheaper options by not passing through London on British Airways.
Business Class – Family Roots and A Festival In Europe
Many people are interested in exploring their family roots and history. Pair this with a festival while visiting where your ancestors came from. Many of my ancestors came from Ireland. With our 105,000 Avios, we can go to Ireland in business class. We can also time this to line up with St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland. (book early, if you want dates for those holidays!)
British Airways partner Aer Lingus flies direct from numerous cities in the U.S. to Dublin, Ireland. Flying from Boston to Dublin is a direct flight of 7 hours and will cost 37,500 Avios. Unfortunately, British Airways’ site doesn’t show Aer Lingus flights, so you’ll need to call to book.
After St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, spend time exploring the Republic of Ireland and then head up to Northern Ireland (part of the U.K.). This is only 2 hours by train or bus.
Lastly, we’ll fly home from Belfast to Boston again using Aer Lingus. Flying from Belfast with a connection in Dublin pushes us into Zone 5 on the award chart, so you’ll use 60,000 Avios for this business class ticket.
Visiting both sides of the border in Ireland, seeing a festival, and exploring some family history will cost us 97,500 Avios per person to fly in business class the whole way.
First Class
I’ve previously mentioned some great first class routes on oneworld partners that you could book with your 105,000 Avios. That includes the Qantas first class spot I mentioned here. It also includes this Christmas in the Holy Land post. Since we’re looking at British Airways Flying Club, let’s burn up our Avios with a 10.5 hour flight from Los Angeles to London.
Take a non-stop flight for 10.5 hours of luxury using only 85,000 Avios. You’ll pay $697.90 in taxes and fees to experience British Airways first class from LAX to LHR. You’ll still have 20,000 Avios left after this flight, which is a bonus!
Final Thoughts
If you’re maximizing the Chase British Airways Visa and its welcome offer of 100,000 Avios, I hope you found some good ideas here. We looked at the perks of the card and the welcome offer. We also looked at ideas for maximizing those 100,000 Avios for some great trips.
Also remember that British Airways doesn’t charge extra fees when redeeming your Avios for flights on Aer Lingus or Alaska Airlines, or LATAM (though they’re leaving oneworld, you can still book these flights via phone). Also, if you redeem your Avios for flights on American Airlines entirely within the Americas, you won’t be hit with these fees.
Let me know how you use your new British Airways Avios. I love hearing about people’s redemptions.
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Nice post in a useful series. Given that I really prefer to fly first class (who doesn’t), I’ve looked at flying BA out of places that ban or severely restrict YQ. Last year, I checked several months worth of award space for two from Hong Kong to London and found zero reward availability. When results are that bad, it feels like the fix is in. Have you seen any first class award space available well in advance from these markets?
Sorry, “these markets” being low to no YQ, not specifically Hong Kong or Asia.
my next 2 thoughts for limits on fees were Brazil to London (found nothing) and Japan to London. I used AA search so take it with a grain of salt but found WIDE open availability in Nov and Dec this year for the following route – JAL biz to PEK, spend a night, BA first to LHR. Involves a night in Beijing and then changing to PKX (the other airport) for flight to London in BA first the next morning. Coming out of Japan will really limit the fees. BA site wouldn’t show me that routing, so might need a phone call. BA did show me the first class space PKX-LHR for 170k avios, $435 in fees (if you can start in Japan, it should go down about half I think).
Ryan, I love these inspirational posts that are chock full of examples and details. Just a couple of minor updates to make. 1. In the card benefit summary you refer to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. 2. You give Oktoberfest a mention for later in the year but please note it has been canceled this year. All the best, Steve.
Thanks for the catch on the CSP. I made a template and missed that on my copy/paste 🙂 Oktoberfest – aware it was canceled for this year. I added a note about that, in case anyone started planning only to get disappointed after booking flights.