Avios Avaliações 453

Total waste of money . I have 90000 avios. 3 companion vouchers. Can never get an upgrade. Plus kept waiting on the phone 30 minutes

Title: American Express Avios Program: A Costly and Frustrating Disappointment
Title: American Express Avios Program: A Costly and Frustrating Disappointment

I have been a participant in the American Express Avios Program for quite some time, and it's safe to say that it has been nothing short of a financial black hole. The exorbitant annual fee of over £200 is an absolute joke, especially considering the dismal partnership with British Airways that accompanies it.

One of the major grievances I have with this program is the companion voucher that supposedly adds value. However, it's more of a tease than a benefit. Despite diligently checking the website for available flights for months, I find myself unable to utilize the voucher before its June expiration. It's like having a golden ticket with no access to the chocolate factory.

The limited flight options available are a slap in the face. Even when flights do miraculously appear, the prices are indistinguishable from what you can easily find on Google Flights. The supposed partnership with British Airways is a farce, offering no real advantage over budget airlines like Ryanair.

Navigating the program's website is a Herculean task. It's convoluted, counterintuitive, and an overall nightmare to use. Seeking assistance from customer service proved to be a futile exercise. Hours spent on the phone with both American Express and BA resulted in absolute incompetence and zero solutions. It's as if their aim is to drive customers to the brink of insanity.

Booking a business class ticket, touted as a luxury experience, was a grave mistake. The reality? A regular chair with an empty seat in the middle – hardly a business class offering. Access to the lounge, another so-called perk, was abruptly cut short during a flight delay, leaving us stranded in a crowded airport. The whole experience was a far cry from the promised premium service.

Now, with two companion vouchers set to expire before I can even use them, the program's flaws become even more glaring. The lack of available flights during peak months for a school teacher like myself, July and August, renders the entire program utterly pointless.

Attempting to leave the program only adds insult to injury. They casually inform you that you will receive nothing for the unused companion voucher and Avios points. It's a slap in the face for those who invested time and money into this debacle.

To be fair, using Avios for hotels seems to be the only redeeming aspect of the program. However, this solitary positive cannot salvage the sinking ship that is the American Express Avios Program. This experience has not only soured my opinion of British Airways but has also left me despising anything associated with this abysmal program. The service is abysmal, and the lack of solutions from customer service is a testament to the utter failure of this ill-conceived program. Save your money and sanity – steer clear of the American Express Avios Program.

Previous reviews are true. Useless agents, British airways executive club avios system is total sham from the word go when you want to transfer avios points to nectar. Avoid.

Trying to swap Avios to Nectar points, BA blocked my account due to 'suspicious activity'. Having sorted that out successfully I find that BA have now instructed Nectar to block my account with them too. After numerous phone calls to both companies, plus written complaints to both, BA are telling me that I have to contact Nectar to sort it out (due to GDPR) and Nectar are telling me I have to contact BA to sort it out, as they were the ones who put the block on. Have tried to escalate to no avail, meanwhile LOTS of points stuck in the middle, and I'm not able to use or access them. Where do I go from here - standing up to a faceless beaurocratic bunch of untrained staff who won't take responsibility or help in any way (or even try to understand the issue) is wearing a bit thin.

Daylight robbery. I had absolutely THOUSANDS of points but suddenly they have all disappeared. It seems you have to use them up within 3 years - why? What possible difference does it make? Complete con. Shame on you BA - flying the flag my a*se. Won't bother anymore.

Contacted Avios numerous times from August 2023 by phone and web contact page about a problem swapping Avios to Nectar on the Avios web site. I received polite responses but no ownership or willingness to engage with the problem or escalate.

Nectar responded similarly.

In case anyone from Avios reads this, I have names, dates times, transcripts, etc

Update January 2024 still no response - Recommend to AVOID.

I've been trying to get some communication going with AVIOS as I have membership and a few questions. I have asked several questions but so far (more than 5 working days) no feedback. I eventually contacted another department within Avios - Avios for Thoughts who responded, via email, with: For information about these rewards, please contact Avios directly and they will provide you with the answer you need. However, there is no way to contact Avios via email that I've been able to uncover. And its swings and roundabouts with BA Avios too since they changed procedures in October 2023.

I've got nearly 400,000 points, every time I try and use them I'm thwarted by BA - seem impossible to use. Trying to book flights with Avios is virtually impossible - they release so few seats - sometime you may get an economy ticket if you call 365 days before the flight (that takes some planning!). Recently booked a holiday with BA to Mauritius (25th wedding anniversary), flying economy. Premium economy avios tickets became available (I had to use a 3rd party site to alert me), I called to upgrade using Avios - oh no, say BA, you have a "Q" class ticket (non-upgradable), we'd have to upgrade your ticket to an upgradable economy class ticket, then we you can upgrade using Avios. But, wait that will cost you £1,030 including upgrade and taxes for two (plus 39,000 points), however when paying cash, this would be £1,056. I called at the time of booking to ask about upgrades, I wasn't warned about this. So in summary - Avios isn't worth it - grrrrr.....

BA AVIOS POINTS are daylight robbery.
I can't believe BA steals your money in such a way!!
Had I read the reviews before buying Avios points, I would be a bit richer.
I purchased Avios points months ago.
Now that i need to pay for a BA flight, i can't use my avios (paid)points because i reserved my flight with the £5 hold option.

BA going downhill. How could BA allow this fraudulent
procedure ?!!!!

And BA customer service was fast and snappy to brush me out of the way knowing i had no right to part pay my reserved flight with avios points.

Astonished and quite mad!! M

Awful. Booked flight and put in all credit card info and then told to call there was a problem with booking. Have called dozens of times and nobody answering.
Have transferred miles from American Express in order to pay for flights and now they are useless. Going to a funeral with family. So upset right now.

Exasperating Experience.
You shop online via the BA shopping app and say yes to cookies but the Avios points are still not awarded.
You claim missing Avios points and send in your proof of purchase, then you wait and wait and wait before being told the computer says no. I stopped shopping on BA com a few years back because of this issue, only recently trying again but the same problems exists.
You need to ask yourself do BA really want to give away Avios points, if so why are they making it so difficult.

Even if you are successfully awarded points, sometimes they are then removed, regardless of being a genuine qualifying purchase.

Struggled to use points since 2017. Just sad to see a muched love brand turned into a joke.
Lost my points during a move and forgot to collect a point in the required time window. Would say sorry to lose them but would I ever redeem them?
I've lost any reason to collect this junk.

I placed the below order on August 12th 2023 after logging into the Avios portal (which I do daily).
My points arrived in the Avios portal and then they were cancelled as below for no given reason.

Sainsbury's Grocery
13 Aug 23 275563355
25432£1695.50
CANCELLED

Have been trying since then to claim my points and am being constantly fobbed off. Absolute CON!

I don't really use Avois, but my parents do. I got an email saying I was going to lose my 10,000 Avios points but could share these with fellow Avios users. I thought this was great!

I logged in and saw there was a charge of £15 to transfer, this seemed reasonable. So I went to pay and was told to put in my number and I would receive a pin. This never came through. I tried multiple times but it still wouldn't work. I tried the other verification method but that also didn't work. There was another option to use a QR code but I was on my phone so planned to log into my computer and use my phone to access to QR code to see if that worked.

I logged on a couple of days later and went to transfer and saw the price had gone from £15 to £50. That is a 233% increase!

I contacted Avois and explained the system wasn't working properly when I initially tried and could they honour the £15 transfer fee in this instance. I was told the prices had increased and they couldn't see that I had any initial issues.

I don't appreciate the implication that I lied about the system issues, and in response I find it a coincidence that when the prices were low that I couldn't do the transfer. Unless there were a lot of people taking advantage of the low prices.

Very poor customer service from Avios for the sake of £35

Are people still collecting these? HAHAHAHAHA! It's 2023, move on. I booked several times with BA, could I ever get Avios points? Nope. Every time I tried obstacles were put up. The whole process is confusing and convoluted. There isn't even any explanation as to what an Avios point is worth. I last flew in February and the other day I received an email telling me Avios points would expire if unused in 36 months. But I could reset the clock if I used or transferred them 'for a small fee' - transferring 1000 points, worth about £5 costs £50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That is hilarious. Who dreamt up that policy? What. A. Joke of a reward scheme. Not worth anything. Not worth the hassle of signing up. Not worth the hassle of figuring out how to collect, not worth the hassle of figuring out how to use them.

Best advice I can give: forget Avios. You will save more simply by shopping around for flights.

Total rip off!
The it's actually cheaper to buy a regular flight else ware as the value of Avios point is almost nil.
BA airmiles were a good deal but avoid Avios at all costs

Don't use!! Been a member since Airmiles and was great, used thousands about 10 years ago for a wonderful holiday. Have had auto-conversion from shopping for many years and forgot about them. Noted changes to "Avios" and now apparently "British Airways Executive Club". Totally useless, can never get a flight unless, and here is the catch which I consider fraudulent, you pay what is probably about the same as you could obtain a flight anyway. Have nearly 20,000 useless points! Total waste of time and should have simply kept all shopping points as vouchers as would have at least felt a benefit. Considering taking court action given the various comments as there is clearly a lack of flights of willingness to allow people to use the points properly when they have loyally collected these, in my case for many years.

Pointless system. Can never book flights as not many dates available. (but of course they are if you book cash just bs) Also takes a lot of avios points with companion voucher when trying to book flight. Pointless. cheaper to just book direct flight with other airlines.

Horrific bad service, misleading advertising and not worth the time or the effort!

Real bad service, booking their flight with BA site due to the limitation of Avios usage. They will not allow you to purchase a baggage online with discount and force you buy it in person or either book with their website with ridiculous high price for the same class. Both of the airline are pushing the responsibility and just not letting you to get through the online luggage system. I do not think that I will spend to earn Avios anymore. What a mess for AVIOS, BA and QA.

Btw, it is extremely difficult to book flights and you will also find that your point is not worth to purchase reward flight. You will eventually book through the normal flight browser and deduct the 33000 avios with only 150GBP...

Please do not waste time on it.