Since the OneWorld alliance is becoming more valuable with the new partners joining up, here’s a quick tip for Avios members to help you find bargain destinations from your home town.

We know that awards are distance based as below.

Avios Award Chart

Let’s see where I could go with Avios for less than 10,000 Avios one way.  To do this, I use Great Circle Mapper.

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http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=650nm%40BNE%0D%0A1151nm%40BNE%0D%0A2000nm%40BNE&MS=wls&DU=mi

Do you see where BNE repeats 3 times in the url?  Simply substitute your own home town airport code for BNE.  The smallest circle will give you destinations for 4500 Avios.  The middle circle gives you destinations for 7500 Avios and the largest circle gives you destinations for 10,000 Avios.  Even though cities aren’t named on the map, most people have a pretty good idea of what potential destinations would lie within each circle.

Then use the Great Circle Mapper to get the exact distance to make sure it’s within range.  For example on the first map, there are a lot of enticing Pacific islands in my largest circle – including Fiji!  Brisbane to Fiji, Port Moresby (as a birding jump-off point), Vanuatu or most of New Zealand for 10,000 Avios on Qantas!  Even better – Noumea, New Caledonia for 7500 Avios!   A reader has pointed out that some of these destinations are not currently available as awards on Avios even though they are available through QFF.  These flights are QF codeshares with Air Pacific, Air Vanuatu and Air Niugini, and not QF metal.  Some routes can be done via SYD or CNS using QF metal but it would be 2 sectors so not the bargains I had hoped for on Avios.  

Just another reason I hate the codeshare system!

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If you are trying to get your head around the new US Airways routes available to OneWorld members, let’s draw the map from their hub at Charlotte (CLT).  As long as US (or AA, TAM or any OneWorld airline) flies there, I see lots of bargains to the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, Colombia & Venezuela!

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