If you’ve ever flown around Spain or one of its neighboring countries, then you may be familiar with the Barcelona-based, low-cost airline Vueling. However, if you haven’t been to this part of the world, you may have never heard of this airline. Nevertheless, Vueling is owned by International Airlines Group (IAG), the same holding company that owns British Airways, Iberia and the Avios rewards program.

And Vueling Club, the airline’s frequent flyer program, also uses the Avios currency. This means that you can transfer Avios freely between Vueling Club and any of the other frequent flyer programs that use the Avios currency, including Aer Lingus AerClub, British Airways Executive Club, Finnair Plus, Iberia Plus, Qatar Airways Privilege Club and several other small frequent flyer programs.

If you already have Avios in a Vueling Club account, then it’s probably a good idea to transfer them to a different frequent flyer program. The Vueling Club program uses a dynamic pricing model for Avios redemptions, meaning that the value of Avios through this program is directly tied to cash prices. And, to make matters worse, the maximum value you can get for Avios through the Vueling Club program is 0.5 cents per Avios (which is very poor).

So, in this article, we’re going to explain this dynamic pricing model a little more and demonstrate why your Avios are better used through a different frequent flyer program.

Vueling

Award Pricing for Flights on Vueling and Iberia

Through the Vueling Club program, you can only redeem Avios for award flights on two airlines: Vueling and Iberia. These are the only airlines that are marketed through the Vueling website. And, if you want to redeem Avios for flights on either of these airlines, you can simply log in to the Vueling website with your Vueling Club credentials and search for the flight that you’d like to take.

Then, once you get to the checkout page, you’ll have the option to use Avios to offset the cost of your airfare as well as any flight extras you may have selected. Flight extras that can be paid for with Avios include seat selections, extra luggage, travel protection, trip cancellation insurance, VIP lounge access, special luggage (like sports equipment or musical instruments) and pets.

Unfortunately, when you use Avios to offset these costs, you’ll always get a value of exactly 0.5 cents per Avios. When you consider that you can get several cents per Avios by purchasing award flights through other Avios-using programs like British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Plus and Qatar Airways Privilege Club, it’s clear that spending Avios through the Vueling Club program is a bad idea.

The Bottom Line

As stated above, while the Vueling Club is one of the frequent flyer programs that uses the versatile Avios currency, it’s definitely a program that you should avoid using. Avios can be freely transferred among any of the programs that use the currency, which includes some high-value programs like British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Plus and Qatar Airways Privilege Club that offer several cents per Avios for certain redemptions.

So, due to the fact that the Vueling Club has a maximum redemption value of 0.5 cents per point, you’ll be missing out on a lot of value if you choose to redeem your Avios through Vueling Club instead of one of the other Avios-using programs.