British Airways Club has announced that the cost of award flights — both on BA metal and partner airlines such as American and Qatar Airways — will be increasing effective 15 December 2025.
What’s concerning is that we don’t know the exact impact at the moment, though from the very limited examples provided, it seems to be in the wheelhouse of 8-10%. At stake for members in Singapore are lucrative sweet spots for travel with Cathay Pacific and Finnair, as well as the possibility of a “contagion” effect whereby other Avios-based programmes like Qatar Privilege Club follow suit.
British Airways Club announces Avios devaluation
British Airways has announced that the cost of reward flights will be increasing from 15 December 2025.
We wanted to let you know that from December 15, 2025, the price of Reward Flights will increase. This will affect both the Avios and cash elements of the fare.
We’ve kept our Reward Flight prices at the same level for some time, but we’re having to make these changes as a result of increasing Air Passenger Duty and third-party charges, as well as changing market conditions and ongoing inflation.
We want to reassure you that any Reward Flights booked prior to the price change will remain at the current price.
-British Airways
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to tell just how bad the devaluation will be, given that BA has only provided the following examples.
That said, judging from this alone, we can expect to see an 8-10% increase in redemption costs for BA flights.
Members with reward flights booked before 15 December 2025 will not be required to top-up Avios if they make changes to the time or date of flight. However, the new rates will apply if they wish to change destination, cabin, or seasonality (e.g. changing from off-peak to a peak date).
| ❓ Reward Flight Changes from 15 December 2025 | |
| Top-up not required | Top-up required |
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The last major BA devaluation came in May 2019, but since then there have been stealthy, unannounced devaluations to Cathay Pacific and JAL awards. That’s the problem with BA Club: since there’s no published award chart, the price is whatever they say it is!
Partner awards will also be increasing in cost
BA has also confirmed that awards with partner airlines will be increasing in price. However, it’s not given any examples of this, so we’ll just have to wait and see how bad the devaluation is.
For example, you can currently redeem Finnair Business Class from Singapore to Helsinki for 62,500 Avios in Business Class, which is a heck of a deal. I’m hoping this emerges unscathed, though realistically speaking, the best we can hope for is that the 8-10% devaluation also applies here, and nothing more.
Will this affect other Avios currency programmes?
British Airways is not the only frequent flyer programme using Avios, of course. It’s also the legal tender for Qatar Privilege Club, Finnair Plus, Iberia Plus and a few other programmes.
Avios can be transferred at a 1:1 ratio between all these programmes, using a British Airways Club account as a central hub (e.g. if I want to convert from Qatar Privilege Club to Finnair Plus, I must convert Qatar > British > Finnair).
It remains to be seen whether these will hike their award costs as well, in response to the British Airways devaluation. Historically, we have seen Qatar Airways harmonising its partner award chart with British Airways, though pricing differences still exist among Avios-based programmes, creating arbitrage opportunities.
Conclusion
British Airways has announced that the cost of reward flights will be increasing on 15 December 2025, and from the examples it’s shared, the increase looks to be in the magnitude of 8-10%.
However, we don’t know whether these examples are representative, or whether the same increase will apply to partner awards with oneworld airlines.
If you have Avios in your account, you might want to consider making bookings before 15 December 2025, in order to lock in the current pricing. Any date or time changes made subsequent to this cutoff will not require a top-up, though changes to cabin, destination and seasonality will.
