If like me, you like to get the best value from your travel - airline reward currency (sometimes known as airmiles) such as Avios can be extremely valuable, however, they’re not always the saving you think them to be. Below are my top tips to making the most of your Avios. Before I start however, I can only speak of my own experience - others will have to write their own - and some of these tips are assuming you are UK based and fly mainly British Airways.

What are Avios? Avios are a loyalty point scheme, allowing you to collect points and spend them on flights, car hire and other vacation related activities.

Where can I spend Avios? Avios is best known as the rewards you get for flying with British Airways, however they are also redeemable with Iberia, Aer Lingus and American Airlines as well as other airlines within the OneWorld alliance. You can also book car hire, hotels, and wine though these are usually very poor value for money - so we will only look at flights and upgrades in this article.

How do I earn Avios? There are several ways to collect Avios, though you will need an Avios account to get started. As I fly BA, I use the BA Executive club, though Aer Lingus and Iberia have their own programmes, you can find all the information for your locality at avios.com.

The most effective way to earn Avios is to use a credit card which offers it as a reward, American Express in the UK has the two best value cards - the British Airways American Express gives 1 Avios for every £1 spent, has a 5,000 Avios bonus if you spend £1,000 in your first three months, gives a 2-4-1 companion voucher if you hit £20,000 spend in a year.

The British Airways American Express Premium Plus card carries an annual fee, but gives 1.5 Avios for every £1 spent, 25,000 bonus Avios for spending £3,000 in three months and the companion voucher is awarded at £10,000 spend instead of £20,000 (and lasts a year longer and is valid on more seats). The premium card also gives a bonus on money spent with BA or BA Holidays direct - offering 3 Avios per £1 instead of 1.5 Avios. This makes the premium card the most valuable Avios rewards card in the UK, if you travel at least once a year.

The next best way to collect Avios is to book flights with a OneWorld airline after linking your account. All flights with BA come with Avios bonus, where you will generally earn Avios based on miles flown - for flexible economy tickets (the most expensive economy) you earn 1 Avios per mile flown, flexible premium economy earn 1.5 Avios per mile flown, flexible business tickets earn 2.5 Avios per mile flown and flexible first class earn 3 Avios per mile flown. A full breakdown of Avios awards for flight bookings can be found here as lower priced tickets receive lower Avios rewards. It’s also worth noting that Avios reward flights don’t earn Avios - only those booked with cash.

One thing to note is that the above tips can both be used together, and though the rates don’t quite add together entirely, booking a BA flight with a BA Amex reward card will earn more Avios than booking with another company or another card - so the points can add up rather quickly.

Hotels, Car Hire and Holidays booked through the British Airways website also award Avios, though at differing rates so it’s worth going through the BA website to learn more.

Finally, and least rewarding, is shopping online via the Avios portal (or by using the Avios browser extension). Once signed up for Avios, purchases made at some retailers will award bonus Avios. Currently the portal is offering 5 Avios per £1 spent at Apple, and 9 Avios per £1 spent at Superdry. You must use the tracking link in the portal, or through the browser extension - and Amex cards will reward on top of any reward given.

British Airways Companion Vouchers. These are one of the most valuable perks you can earn with the American Express cards listed above, and though the rules are changing soon, they allow you to book two tickets for the Avios cost of one - if both passengers are on the same flight and book at the same time.

The standard card gives a voucher which is valid for 12 months, and can only be used on economy seats, whereas the premium card issues vouchers valid for 24 months which can be used on any class of travel.

These two benefits of the premium card are what make it so valuable at the moment. Because of the 24-month validity period, you can earn two companion vouchers at once, and a family of four can travel at the Avios cost of two tickets - as there is no limit to the amount of companion vouchers you can redeem on a flight. On a Premium Economy trip to New York, this could save £2,000 - £3,000 overall, for the cost of £195 a year this is very worthwhile.

However, companion vouchers are not as valuable for short haul flights, flying to Europe with Avios can be as little as 9,000 points, which makes the 2-4-1 less valuable for this purpose.

What’s the best way to spend Avios? Valuing Avios is complicated, and thepointsguy.co.uk has already done the heavy lifting so we will use their valuation here (as of publication Avios are worth 1.1p each). Using this valuation, we can look at redemptions and decide whether Avios is the right choice.

A very bad use of Avios is their wine club, for example, the below offer for 6 bottles of Malbec for 13,200 Avios seems reasonable, but when converting Avios to pounds at the rate above, the true cost is £120 - or £20 a bottle. Tesco finest Argentinian Malbec is only £8 a bottle which would value the Avios at 0.36 per £1 spent, truly terrible.

Reward Flight Savers are probably the best use of Avios though, with fees and taxes fixed you only really need to worry about the Avios being spent.

This weekend trip to New York in November, economy travel with refundable ticket and checked in luggage allowance is 50,000 Avios plus £100, or £611.12 for cash. Using the value of Avios above, the total for the redemption flight is £554.55 (£454.44 Avios plus £100 fee’s) which would save £56.57. This makes Avios worth 1.22 which is above the 1.1 benchmark above making this a good value flight. Throw in a companion voucher, and 2 people can fly to NYC from LHR for the equivalent of £650, which is a bargain.

It’s not always a bargain though, the below flight in October between London Heathrow and Barcelona would cost 25,500 Avios plus £1 - which as valued above would be £233 worth of points. The exact same flight for cash, is only £156. This could be worthwhile with a companion voucher, but it’s not as much of a saving as above.

Lookout for reward flight costs. British Airways now show the cheapest cash value for reward flights, which isn’t always the best deal when spending Avios - in fact, spending fewer Avios but more cash will usually end up being cheaper overall. For example, a business class trip from London to Berlin would cost £318 in cash, or 16,250 Avios plus 50p - which is good value for the Avios (the total equivalen cost is £138.75). But should you choose to spend 7,250 Avios and £47.50 for the same flight, the total equivalent cost is only £127 - which for a buisiness class trip to Europe is very good value.

In short, you need to work out your invidividual deal - as each flight will be different. It’s worth working out how much a flight would cost you without Avios to help you decide whether the value being given by BA is right. Only you can decide then what level of Avios you are willing to spend compared to cash, as just because a ticket has the best value per Avios doesn’t mean it will fit with your cash budget - sometimes it is worth substituting Avios value for a near free flight overall.

Any tricks to saving even more Avios? Actually, possibly. If we look at redeeming with a partner rather than British Airways direct, things become a little more interesting.

For example, Madrid to New York is only 34,000 return plus fees making the entire trip only £480. However, getting to and from Madrid may make the overall costs higher than flying direct - though if you live outside London, flights to Madrid can be less than £50 return with a low-cost airline.

We will update this article over time and try to keep the advice relevant.