There are lucrative shopping-portal promotions, and then there are the kind that instantly set the loyalty world on fire. In early January, the British Airways US shopping portal briefly displayed an astonishing 250 Avios per dollar on Kate Spade purchases of handbags and purses. It was a rate so far beyond the norm that it was immediately treated as a glitch, but the basic premise was simple: click through the portal, buy merchandise, and hope British Airways would actually honor what looked like an absurdly generous payout.

At first, the deal looked almost too good to believe. But as the weeks passed, reports began to show that the Avios were not only tracking, but actually posting. That transformed the story from a quirky points-world rumor into a bona fide travel hacker windfall. In the most eye-catching example, a traveler who made three Kate Spade purchases ultimately received 846,500 Avios — enough to turn a handbag order into a mountain of future flights and, potentially, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of premium-cabin travel.

The 250X Glitch That Went Wild

Credit: Avios, Resell Calendar

What made this promotion so extraordinary was not just the size of the multiplier, but how straightforward the mechanics were. British Airways’ shopping portal works like many other airline mall sites: members click through to partner retailers, make a purchase, and receive Avios based on the published earning rate. On January 2, Kate Spade briefly appeared at 250 Avios per dollar spent, a figure that One Mile at a Time described as an “unbelievable” return and one that was always likely to generate a rush from people willing to move fast.

The traveler who has become the face of the story appears to have done exactly that. According to Resell Calendar’s reporting and follow-up post on X, he purchased about $3,500 worth of Kate Spade purses through the portal and eventually saw 846,500 Avios post to his account. But he was far from the only one, as multiple travel hackers posted hauls of hundreds of thousands of Avios for a fraction of the value spent in real dollars.

Crucially, this was also a surprisingly low-risk play by the standards of aggressive travel hacking. Kate Spade’s 30-day return policy offered a clean fallback if the points never arrived. But by the end of January, accounts began showing the earned Avios as “pending,” indicating that British Airways was processing them, essentially giving an all-clear signal to hold on to the bags. Then starting this week, the Avios began officially posting to accounts, closing out one of the biggest travel hacks in history.

But what about the bags? Well, there will undoubtedly be some very happy girlfriends and wives out there. But the upside is that Kate Spade products hold their re-sell value extremely well — typically 80–90% of retail if sold somewhere like eBay — so the travel hackers can reclaim the bulk of their real world dollars while holding on to the hundreds of thousands of Avios. One speculator even suggested they would use the bags as a tax write-off after donating them to charity.

What 846,500 Avios Could Really Buy

Credit: British Airways

The headline number is spectacular, but the more interesting question is what 846,500 Avios are actually worth inside the British Airways Avois ecosystem. British Airways’ current reward flight examples show a single short-haul trip like London Heathrow Airport to Geneva at 10,000 Avios in economy and 16,500 in business class. Meanwhile, a one-way flight to New York JFK Airport is shown at 27,500 Avios in economy, 46,750 Avios in premium economy (only available on long-haul), and 88,000 Avios in business class.

Using those current British Airways examples, a balance of 846,500 Avios could therefore theoretically purchase 84 short-haul economy flights, or 42 round-trip journeys from the UK to Europe. Alternatively, they are worth 15 round-trip economy flights to British Airways’ long-haul destinations, from Boston to Barbados to Bangkok. Or if traveling in style, the $3,500 in bag purchases equates to five round-trips to long-haul destinations when flying in Club World.

That is why the “$50K+ of premium travel” framing is very real. Depending on route, season, cabin, and how cash fares are priced, a stash this large can unlock a very substantial amount of premium flying, even before considering upgrades or partner uses. And that last part is important, because Avios can also be used with oneworld partners.

Given that the promo was in the US, most travel hackers that took advantage of the windfall will likely redeem with American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. That can actually raise the value of the Avios windfall still further, as savvy users typically extract greater value on partner routes where surcharges are lower or where award pricing delivers stronger value. As one traveler noted, if used wisely with the right US airline, the 846,500 Avios could equate to 40 trips to Hawaii.

Related

British Airways Adds 7,500th Avios-Only Seat With Cape Town Route

The announcement coincides with Cape Town becoming the destination for the airline’s 7,500th Avios-only seat since the initiative began in 2023.

British Airways Honors The Deal

Credit: British Airways

Perhaps the most remarkable part of the entire episode is that British Airways appears to have honored it, despite the obvious error. So for participants who bought in early and held their nerve, the outcome was the one they had hoped for, and the points simply landed in their accounts.

Of course, British Airways is not the only airline to have had an error that travel hackers exploited. A few other recent “too-good-to-be-true” anomalies include:

• Last year,
  JetBlue
  briefly published round-trip fares to Amsterdam, Paris, and London for $218, positioning it at less than a tenth of the cost of its competitors for a short period.
• Delta Air Lines
  fumbled last year when it put premium economy round-trips to Madrid on sale for just over $500, far less than its cheapest economy tickets.
• Air France-KLM
  briefly showed some Flying Blue business class awards from as little as 1,500 points one-way, though many of those bookings were ultimately canceled rather than honored.

What makes the British Airways-Kate Spade story stand out is not just the scale of the upside, but the structure of the opportunity. Mistake fares disappear in minutes, award glitches are often clawed back, and many supposed travel hacks only look exciting on social media. This one was different: the earning rate was outrageous, the downside was unusually limited, and British Airways has let the outcome stand. For one travel hacker, that has meant a mountain of future flights, and a story that will linger in points circles for years.