UPDATED – 50,000 Miles from British Airways
British Airways is currently offering a Visa card through Chase with a 100,000 50,000 Avios sign up bonus. The usual bonus is for 50,000 Avios but from time to time larger offers like this appear. I recently wrote about the advantages of booking short flights on American Airlines by using British Airways Avios. I have also used British Airways Avios to book business class seats to and from Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific Airlines and friends of mine have used Avios to fly Qantas Airlines in Oceania. Ironically, what I wouldn’t use British Airways Avios for is to fly British Airways! Why? British Airways imposes very expensive fuel surcharges when you fly them which make an Avios redemption almost just as expensive as paying for a ticket. In fact, I just priced a ticket from New York to London on January 16 and returning January 21 on the British Airways site for $890 versus spending 40,000 Avios and $687 in fuel surcharges. In my opinion, redeeming 40,000 Avios is hardly worth the $203 savings.
You have it all figured out!!! Thanks for making the time and effort to share.