Costing BA's Avios-only flight to Cape Town: an improved model

Incorporating inventory management & point-of-commencement

British Airways’ Avios-only flights have become an established feature of the airline’s business. They were first offered in April 2023 and started small. The points-exclusives were short – Geneva and Sharm-el-Sheikh at first. And they were operated by two-cabin single-aisle planes without flat-beds.

BA have also run twin-aisle Avios-only services. I costed BA’s Avios-only 2024 autumn half-term special to Dubai when it was released.

An Avios flight to Caribbean sun-spot Barbados flew in Feb-2025. Abu Dhabi, just down the road from Dubai but probably harder to fill, operated Avios-only in Easter this year.

Now BA have launched what may be the most impressive Avios-only flight yet. It is their flight to Cape Town leaving on 20-Dec this year and returning just under two weeks later on 2-Jan.

This really is peak-of-the-peak for leisure travel. Other long-haul Avios-only services were in school half-term holidays. On Dubai and Abu Dhabi there will have been some corporate traffic displaced by the points bookers.

Cape Town is right over Christmas. Almost everyone on these flights will be off on holiday. Fares would have been through the roof.

I have taken the opportunity to build a new-and-improved version of my pricing model to figure out the economics of the Cape Town Avios exclusive. It builds additional elements into the previous model.

Avios Group Limited, the loyalty arm of BA’s parent company IAG, will almost surely be paying British Airways for the seats at market rate. My model estimates they may have had to pay BA more than a million Pounds to offer the deal.

The idea is that proving to Avios collectors that they can make impressive and aspirational redemptions attracts more people to the scheme.

The Avios business has certainly been booming. Some highlights from the company’s 2024 annual report are:

1. £363 million profit on £1,585 million revenue, earning 22.9% pre-tax margin

2. £301 million revenue growth 2022 to 2023 (23.4%)

3. Avios earning grew 24% in 2024

4. Avios redemptions grew 20% in 2024.

Bringing in new customers with the Cape Town flight helps propagate this growth of a high-margin product.

So how much might Avios Group Limited be paying BA? Read on to find out…

[Aside: For a recap of how loyalty programmes like Avios generate income, click here. For my remarks on the Avios-Amex co-brand card, click here.]

Why Cape Town & why now?

2025’s Avios-only flights are shown in the table below.

Take a look at the “notice” column, which shows how many days in advance the Avios-only flights were released*. All other Avios-only flights in 2025 were released far ahead, between 222 and 317 days. The average is 262 days.

* These might be out by a day or two as I am not quite sure whether the articles were published the same day as the press release came out

The Cape Town flights have been released 142 days ahead, a bit under five months. Much less notice than the other Avios-only flights. Why? I think there are two possible reasons:

1. Other Avios-only flights might have generated large numbers of bookings and cancellations – narrowing the booking window a bit might help cut down on speculative bookings so more people booking will actually be flying

2. Summer holidays are now in full swing as state schools broke up on 22-July, but private schools started their holidays some time earlier (my old school on 27-Jun) – many private school parents may have just finished their summer holidays and will be thinking about their next break.

It is not clear whether or not BA’s Avios-only flight has a light booked load to now. The flight is one of a pair that operates on the days in question. Based on fare class availability, the second flight looks almost booked out.

When I looked at advance booking curves to Hong Kong BA had cancelled one of two daily flights. The one remaining was in some cases almost full even months out. My guess is that BA have moved any cash ticket holders onto the other flight.

Certainly we have another interesting data point for BA’s secret advance booking curves. People are clearly interested in booking Christmas holidays in the summer.