Flash Sale: Save up to $200 on Aer Lingus flights from Toronto to Ireland, the UK and Europe (Book by June 17)

Aer Lingus has once again brought back their offer that provides an additional discount off of their flights. This time it is once again up to $100 on Economy Class flights but this time for Business Class they have doubled the amount to up to $200! The discount is available fares booked by June 17 for travel between Toronto and Ireland, the UK and Europe between July 1 - September 30, 2022.

Qatar Airways Privilege Club has officially made Avios its loyalty currency and includes easy transfers from British Airways Executive Club

Back in February Qatar Airways announced they will be adopting Avios in place of Qmiles as the loyalty currency in their Privilege Club program. That time has come and as of March 22 the switch has been made. Qatar Airways Privilege Club members now earn and burn Avios and any Qmiles in accounts up to this date have been converted 1:1 to Avios. 

Aer Lingus AerClub - Up to a 45% bonus when you buy Avios until November 11

 This purchase bonus is being advertised on Aer Lingus' AerClub site but is essentially buying Avios for the Avios.com portion of the program which is where you go to redeem for Aer Lingus. You can always buy these and transfer to British Airways or Iberia. For this promotion they have also doubled the amount of Avios you can buy from 100,000 to 200,000. At the 100,000 level it costs 1,800 EUR which with the bonus you'll be buying Avios for 1.20 EUR apiece. 145,000 Avios is enough for 7 round trip flights in Economy class on Aer Lingus between Montreal and Dublin during the off-peak season.

Offer details
Earn up to 45% Bonus Avios when you buy or gift Avios.  Buy and gift Avios here.  Until Nov 11, 18

You Buy	Your Bonus
1,000 - 15,000 Avios	20% bonus
20,000 - 35,000 Avios	30% bonus
40,000 - 90,000 Avios	35% bonus
100,000 - 200,000 Avios	45% bonus

Avios is now the official program for British Airways and Iberia

It had been announced awhile ago that the FFPs of British Airways (Executive Club) and Iberia (Plus) would be merged into one big loyalty program which also would bring in the Air Miles UK program. When the announcement came out the news hit many North American's members of BA's Executive Club hard as some of the great redemption opportunities in that program (North America to Asia and South America) were lost as the new redemption schedule is based on distance and not to a set reward chart. All day today I have been reading various frequent flyer blogs looking at the new Avios system and while those great offers mentioned above may be gone there are some new gems to be had within the program, in particular for flights within North America on BA's partners.

Since the Avios program now works on distance rather then the set reward chart a lot of the shorter haul redemptions have actually gone done in price. For example a one-way flight between Toronto and New York can be had for only 4,500 Avios points (9,000 round trip) and used to be 12,500 miles (25,000 round trip), compare this to 15,000 Aeroplan Miles, 25,000 AAdvantage Miles etc.. Toronto to London has also become cheaper as it used to 50,000 miles for a round-trip redemption in economy and that is now 40,000. These lower redemption rates make the semi annual RBC Avion 50% transfer bonus to BA even more attractive (that is if they keep the bonus around)

Another issue that seems to arise in addition to the redemptions that became more expensive is the fact the if you want to build an itinerary with a connection (think stopover in previous Executive Club terms) you have to price out each connection separately. So where you used to be able to get a round trip flight Calgary to Paris for 50,000 miles with a connection in London (and the option to stopover in London for a few days) now has to be priced at Calgary-London for 50,000 miles and London-Paris for 9,000 miles so in the new program it will cost you 9,000 more points.

What do you think of the changes to the program? For those of you who are BA flyers will it make you shy away from BA and take your business to another airline or will you take it as it is and continue with your loyalty to BA?

To see some more news on the good and the bad of the new Avios program here are some other blog posts made today (bear in mind all of these are U.S. based but do hold some merit for Canada):
Dan's Deals has a good run down of redemptions that have gone down, stayed the same and increased
View from the Wing - it always good to hear Gary's take on programs
One Mile at a time had numerous posts today: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

British Airways adds new Elite level: Bronze

Not too long ago BA announced that it will be changing and updating their Executive Club program which also includes the integration of the U.K. Air Miles program and Spain's Iberia Plus program into one program called Avios. Some of the changes, most notably some reward ticket redemption levels have already been released that have not been well received by the frequent flyer community in North America because of the increases doled out for mileage redemption.

That being said, the latest news to be released about the program is the addition of a new elite tier from British Airways. This new tier fills a large gap between Blue (non-status) members and the old first tier level called Silver. Qualification for the new Bronze tier will require half the number of points and/or flights then is required for Silver, namely to reach Bronze you will require 300 tier points or 25 single flights.

The benefits included with the new Bronze tier are:
Business class check-in
Seat selection seven days before departure
Earning 1.25 Avios (formerly Air Miles) for every mile flown
Dedicated telephone number (UK & US)
Bronze tier luggage tags