How to Fly From Boston to London With Credit Card Points

London has a little something for everyone!

Undoubtedly, London is one of the most incredible cities in the world. From the classic tourist destinations like the London Eye and London Bridge, to the beautiful scenery of Hampstead Heath and Kew Gardens, to the hundreds of sports teams located throughout the city, London has something for absolutely everyone!

London is also the perfect center point between the USA and the rest of Europe, with thousands of flights to both the rest of the UK as well as mainland Europe every day. Regardless of if you staying in the UK or continuing onwards, London is an excellent stopping point. With London being one of the best destinations to fly to from Boston-Logan International Airport, it is one of our overall favorite destinations!

However, London is well-known as one of the worst destinations to fly to using credit card points or airline miles (and particularly London Heathrow Airport). While there are thousands of flight options to get to and from London, the UK puts substantial taxes and fees on all flights in and out. With the UK having the highest airfare taxes of almost any country in the world, a flight that costs $1000 to fly to Amsterdam could cost $1700+ to fly to London.

Unfortunately, for anyone hoping to fly to London using any form of credit card points or airline miles, these fees and taxes are typically applied on top of any point or airline mile prices. You’ll often see an extra $300 to $1000 in taxes on top of your points totals.

For instance, flying one-way on British Airways from Boston-Logan International Airport to London Heathrow using Avios (British Airways’ points system) will cost you 25,000 Avios + $200 (see below)! When you start looking at business/first-class flights, these cash fees get crazy.

When the cash fees are almost equal to the initial price, the value of using points is almost zero.

Boston to London on BA can cost you upwards of 25k Avios + $200!

But all hope is not lost! There are several specific airlines and flights that still allow you to use points to fly from Boston to London without having to pay massive taxes. We’ve researched all the available options and pulled from our own personal experience with this route to provide you with a list of the best airlines/flights that you can use to get from Boston to London using points.

While there is a huge variety of options for this route, we’ve focused our recommendations on the flights that you can cover at least mostly with credit card points or airline miles.

The best flights from Boston to London using points/miles

For all flights, we use an example departure date of January 23, 2024.

1. American Airlines AA108

AA108 from Boston to London will cost you 29,000 AA miles + $5.60

Our top flight recommendation for using points to go from Boston to London is American Airlines flight AA108. Not only is this flight the cheapest option out of all the low-tax flights, but it is also a direct route between Boston Logan and London Heathrow!

Unlike many of the low-tax/fee flights you can take from Boston to Logan, AA108 will get you there directly at (arguably) the best time of day to fly from the UK to the USA. As well, this American Airlines flight has an average delay of less than 10 minutes, resulting in you consistently getting to London on time!

As far as points ecosystems, This AA flight can (expectedly) be booked with American Airlines miles or with any of the other point sources that transfer to American Airlines.

If you’re short on AA miles, we recommend transferring points from the Bilt Rewards ecosystem, which transfers points to AA miles at a 1:1 ratio. Bilt points are exceptionally easy to earn, as you can use your Bilt card to pay your rent and utilities. Interestingly, Bilt is the only bank out there that currently allows direct transfers to American Airlines! If you’re unfamiliar with Bilt, make sure to check out our full review of the card and a comparison of the Bilt card versus the popular Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Overall, AA108 will get you from Boston to London for a low points price with only $5.60 in fees/taxes and no layovers—what’s not to love?

2. JetBlue B6 1620

JetBlue 1620 from Boston to London will cost you 34,000 TrueBlue miles + $5.60

Our second flight recommendation for using points to get from Boston to London is JetBlue B6 1620. JetBlue is one of our favorite airlines to fly from Boston-Logan International Airport, with a wide variety of destinations and one of the best price-to-value ratios of any airline operating in the US.

Similar to AA108, JetBlue flight 1620 operates direct between Boston and London-Heathrow, with a similarly short average delay of less than 10 minutes. We always recommend flying on direct flights wherever possible, because every stop on your itinerary increases the likelihood of delays and lost baggage!

While the JetBlue flight is more expensive points-wise than the American Airlines flight, JetBlue has substantially better credit card transfer partners than American. In fact, both American Express and Chase Bank allow you to transfer their respective Membership Rewards and Ultimate Rewards points at a 1:1 ratio to JetBlue TrueBlue Miles! This is a great way to effectively combine your Chase and American Express points for a single redemption.

We particularly like this JetBlue flight because even the base level of ticket gets you a wide variety of amenities. If you book a Blue standard ticket for 34,000 points, you’ll get a free carry-on, a free checked bag, free basic seat selection, and no change or cancel fee for adjusting your travel plans! Points prices typically give you only the bare minimum, this is a refreshing change of pace.

Overall, this JetBlue flight may be slightly more expensive than the American Airlines alternative, but the ability to pull from a wider source of points and the additional amenities definitely increase the flight’s value.

3. United UA1706/UA146

The United flight from Boston to London will cost you 31,800 miles + $5.60

Our third recommendation for flights from Boston is the only non-direct flight on this list: United Airlines UA1706 (Boston to Newark) and UA146 (Newark to London). As we mentioned, we rarely recommend non-direct flights, but this United combo has a super short layover and has a great points price at only ~31.8k United miles and only $5.60 in fees!

United is one of the main transfer partners of Chase Bank, letting you transfer your hard-earned Chase Ultimate Reward points at a 1:1 ratio to United Miles. United Miles often give surprisingly good value for such a major airline—for instance, this same UA146 flight (which costs only ~31,800 miles) would cost $577 for the same seat! Using points here gives a redemption ratio of 1.8 cents per mile, which is a great deal across any type of economy award travel. If you want to fly business class, the redemption value gets even better; either 100k United Miles or $2636, giving a value of 2.6 cents per Mile!

Therefore, if you have United status, have a lot of Chase points banked up, or are looking to fly first-class, the United flights are a great option for you and are definitely worth dealing with the short layover in Newark.

Related Article: Check out our rankings of every current credit card from Chase Bank

4. Delta DL58 (via Virgin Atlantic)

DL58 from Boston to London will cost you 10,000 Virgin miles + $226.70

At the end of the day, some people prefer to use cash to complement their points purchases. Therefore, our final recommendation on this list is the only one with high fees and a low points cost, Delta DL58 booked through Virgin Atlantic.

A lot of rookies (and some veterans) in the points game think that the only way to book award flights is directly with the operating airline you’re flying on. However, whenever flights are code-shared between multiple airlines, you should investigate all the code-sharing airlines, as they will have different point prices!

In this case, booking on Delta directly will cost you 45,000 Delta SkyMiles + $6 for basic economy (i.e., no seat selection, no baggage) or standard economy for 56,000 SkyMiles. On the other side, booking on Virgin costs 10,000 Virgin Miles + $227 for standard economy. Even if you value each of your airline miles at 2 cents per mile, you still come out ahead by booking through Virgin!

Virgin is also a shared transfer partner of Capital One and Chase Bank (and American Express as well), allowing you to combine all your points across ecosystems. No matter which credit cards you have and which ecosystems you use, you will likely be able to transfer your existing points to Virgin Miles!

Summary

If you’re planning to fly from Boston to London using points, you’ve got a wide variety of options! While the UK’s high arrival fees make using points tough, we’ve created this list to demonstrate that there are still great options out there.

While this list doesn’t contain every available option, it does contain our recommendations based on our personal experience and the available data, and we hope it was helpful for planning your next trip from Boston to London!

If you’re interested in other travel from Boston, make sure to check out our recommendations for the best flights between Boston and Austin, as well as the best flights between Boston and Denver.