An Easy Way to See Where You Can Go With British Airways Avios Points
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Update: One or more card offers in this post are no longer available. Check our Hot Deals for the latest offers. Update: Beginning February 2, 2016, British Airways will no longer offer 1-way, short-haul (under 650 miles) coach award tickets on partner airlines in North America for 4,500 British Airways Avios points. Instead these flights will cost 7,500 British Airways Avios points.First, I must say, I love maps! So I am very biased in favor of this free tool that quickly shows where you can fly with British Airways Avios points!
One of the best uses of British Airways Avios points is for short-haul domestic flights on partner airlines like American Airlines, US Airways, and Alaska Airlines.
That’s because they have a distance-based award chart, which means you’ll pay fewer points (and no fuel surcharges) for shorter trips.
The visual map tool by Wandering Aramean makes it much easier to figure out how many British Airways Avios points you’ll need for a short-haul, nonstop award flight.
The site will save you a lot of time. Now you don’t have to look up distances (by using Great Circle Mapper for example) or award charts. I’ll show you how to use it!
And I’ll remind you of 3 easy ways to collect lots of British Airways Avios points for your flights!
How Does It Work?
Link: Wandering Aramean Avios Tool
Specify a city, and the Wandering Aramean Avios Tool will show you all the destinations you can fly to for under 12,500 points 1-way.
And it’s color-coded to show which destinations require different numbers of points. Very handy if you’re looking for cheap short-haul award flights under 650 miles (because they only cost 4,500 points 1-way in coach)!
Enter your departure city in the search box to find out where you can fly with British Airways Avios points! You can search by city name, airport name, or airport code. Then click “Go!“
I entered Chicago (which is an American Airlines hub airport) as my starting point. You can zoom in and out or drag the map to get the view you want.
The destination cities are color-coded so you can easily see the number of points required. For example, cities in light green are only 4,500 Avios points 1-way.
If you prefer, you can scroll through a list of cities on the right hand side of the screen, and see how many Avios points you’ll need.
When you click on a destination (either on the map or on the list), a whole new map will open up showing all the places you can fly from that city.
I searched from Austin and there aren’t a lot of available cities! That’s because American Airlines, US Airways, and Alaska Airlines don’t serve many destinations from Austin nonstop.
I checked Boston, and you can see the 12,500 point 1-way flight on Aer Lingus to Dublin that so many folks like to book. It’s 1 of the cheapest ways to get to Europe using miles and points!
Tip: If you know the airport code for your city, you can type it onto the end of the URL for the website instead of entering it in the search box. For example:- https://wandr.me/Award-Search/Avios-Map/JFK (New York JFK)
- https://wandr.me/Award-Search/Avios-Map/SEA (Seattle)
- https://wandr.me/Award-Search/Avios-Map/MIA (Miami)
The results aren’t quite as pretty, but they’ll still save you the time of figuring out the distance between airports and checking award charts for the number of required points!
Award tickets booked with British Airways Avios points are priced segment-by-segment, which means you’ll pay for each leg of your trip (not the straight-line distance between your starting and destination airport). Connecting flights are almost always more expensive, so avoid them if you can!
3 Easy Ways to Earn British Airways Avios Points
Remember, there are lots of ways to get British Airways Avios points, including:
- The Chase British Airways card
- Transferring American Express Membership Rewards points (sometimes there are transfer bonuses!)
- Transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to British Airways at a 1:1 ratio when you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Ink Plus, or Chase Freedom (if you have 1 of the other cards)
I really like this tool! Now I just wish I lived in a city that had more nonstop flights on British Airways partner airlines!
Bottom Line
You’ll save time when you use the Wandering Aramean Avios Tool. It shows a map of the destinations you can fly to nonstop using British Airways Avios points from a specific airport.
And you won’t have look up award charts, because it color-codes airports by the number of required points. There’s also an option to search for connecting itineraries.
Emily and I will use this tool from now on when we book award tickets using British Airways Avios points! Thanks, Wandering Aramean!
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