Avios Shop Now Lets You Pay Half Price With Points

The Avios Shop – IAG Loyalty's retail platform where members can spend their Avios on products rather than flights – has just made a notable upgrade. As of this week, the redemption limit on 'The Edit' has doubled from 25% to 50%, meaning you can now use your Avios to pay for half the cost of everything from Apple iPhones to premium luggage from Carl Friedrik.

It sounds compelling on the surface, but as ever with Avios redemptions, the question is: what are you actually getting per point?

When The Edit by Avios Shop launched last year, you could use Avios to cover up to 25% of a product's price. That cap has now doubled to 50%, which opens up some meaningfully larger savings on higher-ticket items.

The shop stocks over 300 products across technology, travel accessories and wellness from 17 brands, including Apple's latest range. You can browse and buy via the Avios App or directly at avios.com.

Here's where it gets interesting – or, depending on your perspective, a little sobering. Let's look at the headline examples from the updated shop:

In each case, the 50% saving maps to a value of roughly 0.59p per Avios. That's better than some of the worst Avios redemptions out there – certain cashback conversions, for example – but it sits comfortably below what most points enthusiasts would consider a good use of their balance.

For context: what's an Avios point worth? The short answer is that for a well-placed short-haul economy redemption you can achieve 0.8–1p per Avios, and for business class long-haul you're often looking at 1.5p, 2p or even more. By that benchmark, spending 92,510 Avios on half an iPhone isn't the most efficient use of your balance.

That said, context matters enormously here.

Honestly? A few scenarios come to mind where this becomes more interesting.

If you have a pile of Avios that you're not likely to use for flights any time soon – whether because you don't fly much, or you're sitting on more points than upcoming trips to justify – this gives you a way to extract something meaningful from them. Half price on a product you were already planning to buy isn't a bad outcome.

The Apple angle is particularly relevant here. Apple products rarely go on sale. Getting 50% off an iPhone – even if the currency you're using is Avios rather than cash – is genuinely unusual and not something you'll easily replicate elsewhere. If you need a new phone and have 90,000+ Avios spare, that's worth pausing to consider.

The luggage and travel accessories category could also appeal if you're kitting yourself out for a trip and have excess Avios. A premium cabin bag at half price is a solid deal, and at least you're getting something tangible with a direct travel connection.

One thing worth flagging: you continue to earn 2 Avios per £1 on the cash portion of your purchase, even when using Avios as part payment. So on the iPhone 17 Pro example, you'd earn around 1,099 Avios back on the £549.50 cash element. It doesn't transform the maths dramatically, but it's a nice touch – and softens the effective cost slightly.

I'll be honest – if you're a committed points collector, you're probably better off saving your Avios for flights. Even a modest short-haul redemption to Europe will usually deliver better pence-per-point value than retail products. You can use our Avios flight cost calculator to get a sense of what your next trip might cost in points.

But not everyone is sitting on an upcoming itinerary, and not everyone collects Avios primarily for flights. If you're a more casual collector with a balance gathering dust – or you genuinely need a new phone and happen to have the Avios – the expanded shop is a more interesting option now than it was at launch. The move to 50% was the right call, and I'd love to see the product range expand further over time.

Browse the full range at avios.com/en-GB/avios-shop or download the Avios App to start shopping.