BA encourages members to use Avios as part payment for revenue airline tickets. The advantages are obvious:

• You can save a decent amount of cash, based on the class of service you book (Up to £300 on a long haul First Class ticket)
• You earn Avios and status miles on the underlying ticket

You can see how much you can save – it varies by class of service and length of flight – by looking at this page.

Each Avios is worth between 0.55p and 0.75p in this example:

However, there is a catch.

If you book a non-refundable ticket, and part pay with Avios, you do not receive back the Avios if you cancel. BA will refund those parts of the cash ticket that can be refunded – typically the taxes and fees – less their service charge. However, you don’t get back the Avios.