I have written before about how good Avios can be in a last minute bind when cash tickets can be outrageously expensive. My LHR-FCO-LHR ticket would have cost £1025 but I paid 25,500 Avios and £50. I had been hoping that these would go towards a First class redemption somewhere, but they are of more value in this instance.

An unexpected side benefit of booking into Club Europe is the flexibility that it offers. I was able to walk up to the ticketing desk at T-35mins for BA0549 and change my ticket. I was mean to be flying on the BA0559 at 1720 which was already delayed until 1900. I don’t think that the same would have been possible if I had been travelling on an Economy redemption ticket.

So if you are in the situation where your return might be moveable, booking into Club Europe instead of Euro Traveller might be worth it, not just for the lounge access* and the better meal on board, but also for the flexibility.

*Note that the lounge in FCO is closed due to a fire in May. This was not made clear until more than 24 hours after I booked the flight so it was too late to cancel. To be fair to BA, they did send a text and an email to tell me about it (even if it was too late to do anything about it) and because I was able to change my flight it didn’t matter in any case.