I got an email yesterday telling me that I was the lucky recipient of a special bonus on the purchase of some Avios. I can buy up to 100,000 this year with a 30% bonus. If I were to buy 10,000, I would get 13,000 for $300 (£246.50 at today’s exchange rate).

In the back of my mind, I remembered that in the past I had used a deal between Iberia and the Economist to get some extra Avios. For me this didn’t end well, as the delivery of the magazine was so poor that I ended up getting only about half of them in a three month period. I had to contact them twice and in the end cancelled, was refunded my subscription, and kept the Avios. Whilst this was a good short-term outcome, I missed the magazine as it is incredibly informative (and a great teaching tool for A-Level Geography!)

There is now a new deal with Avios and The Economist until the end of March.

The Print + Digital costs £179 and earns 13,200 Avios. As it says in their advertising, this is the best value as it is equivalent to buying Avios at 1.36p/Avios. I would never advise buying at this price if you didn’t have a positive arbitrage in mind, but it is not bad value. Factor in a value for the magazine and the price falls further – if you value the magazine at £1.50 a week, then the price per Avios falls to 0.76p/Avios which is great value.

At that price, I am in! I have changed the delivery address to school to get round the issues I had before. Compare this to the cost of buy the Avios and it is a no brainer as to what you should do if you are a few Avios short of a redemption. You save over £60, get more Avios and a free year’s subscription to The Economist by taking out this deal over buying them. Until BA offer a decent deal, they can keep their ‘special bonus’!