You can buy British Airways Executive Club Avios for as little as 1.3 cents with a subscription to The Economist

 
There are a few times per year when British Airways Executive Club and The Economist provide a increased bonus for subscribing to the latter. That bonus has returned and awards up to 18,000 Avios for new subscriptions. Unlike some other frequent flyer programs that team up with The Economist, BA's offer is available to Canadians. Why is this noteworthy? It's actually a way to 'buy Avios' cheaper than truly buying Avios through BA! Although you are limited to earning only up to 18,000 Avios with this offer rather than being able to purchase hundreds of thousands of Avios in one go. That being said this is a good way to top off an account for an award, to keep your account active or even for a short haul redemption as we show below.

Subscription Options

There are two subscription options with two separate bonuses that are part of this offer:

• Annual Digital Subscription: C$199 per year + 15,000 bonus Avios
• Annual Digital+Print subscription: C$255 per year + 18,000 bonus Avios

At $199 for 15,000 Avios you are effectively buying the Avios for 1.33 cents each and C$255 for 18,000 is actually not as good at 1.42 cents a piece. Compare this to about 2.31 cents (C$) when buying Avios with a 50% bonus. To earn the Avios you must purchase a subscription by March 21, 2022

Example of utilizing this bonus to save more than 50% on a flight

You may be asking what can 15,000 Avios get me since that is the best deal? As mentioned above, you can use it to top off your account for an award you are nearing with your Avios balance, to keep your account active if you near are expiry or to use it for some of British Airways' shorter flight redemptions. Those shorter flight redemptions (up to 650 miles) even work from Canada since you can redeem on British Airways partner airlines Alaska Airlines and American Airlines. Those flights start at only 7,500 Avios each way.

Take this flight on American Airlines as an example, Toronto to Charlotte, North Carolina in August 2022:

You only need 15,000 Avios + $70.96 in taxes to redeem for it. And what sort of value does this redemption provide? Let's look at the cash price of the same flights taken from AA.com:

In this case the ticket is US$440.34 or approximately C$555.  A quick check of Google Flights shows other airlines pricing at same price level. So as you can see, you could subscribe to The Economist for C$199 add in the fees from the Avios award ticket and you are buying this $555 ticket for roughly $270. That's more than a 50% savings and you get to read The Economist for a year on top of that. 

This is just one example - there are many more that can be found and in fact you could potentially redeem for even more flights out of the 15,000 Avios. Those 15,000 Avios can get you three short haul (1-650 miles) one way flights on British Airways in the UK or between the UK and Europe. Think London-Glasgow, London-Amsterdam etc.

Earn even more with household Accounts

British Airways Executive Club provides the option to have household accounts for people who live at the same address. This means that if you have two, three, four or even up to seven people in your household you could technically each get a subscription to The Economist and pool all those Avios together.

Wrapping it up

Although it may not be a ton of Avios, this promotion to subscribe to The Economist is one of the cheapest ways for Canadians to add 15,000 or 18,000 more Avios to their British Airways Executive Club accounts. If you do want to take advantage of the offer you have until March 21, 2022 to so.

Click here for more details on this offer

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Looking to earn even more Avios here in Canada? You could consider using a credit card that earns Avios or points that can be converted to Avios. These are the options available:

 

American Express Cobalt Card (C$1 = 1 to 5 Avios)
American Express Gold Rewards Card (C$1 = 1 to 2 Avios)
American Express Green Card (C$1 = 1 Avios)
HSBC World Elite Mastercard (C$1 = 1.2 to 2.4 Avios)
Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express®* Card (C$1 = 0.67 to 2.08 Avios)
mbna Best Western Rewards Mastercard (C$1= 0.20 to 1 Avios)
RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card (C$1 = 1 to 2 Avios)
RBC Avion Visa Infinite Privilege (C$1 = 1.25 Avios)
RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card (C$1 = 1 to 1.25 Avios)
RBC Visa Platinum Avion Card (C$1 = 1 Avios)
The Platinum Card from American Express (C$1 = 1 to 3 Avios)