Sweet! I'm getting a $278 cheque from British Airways!

I've complained for years that British Airways Avios are nearly worthless given the criminally-high surcharges they tack on to reward tickets. Well, a class-action lawsuit about it has finally reached a settlement and I'm getting $273.84 back! They also offered me the option of getting 12,500 Avios instead, but since the terrible surcharges are still there (just with a new name) I'd rather take the money. 

Near as I can tell, the suit hinged on the idea they called their surcharges "fuel surcharges", when in fact they had nothing to do with fuel prices. So if you had a reward ticket with BA between 9 November, 2006 and 17 April, 2013 (i.e., during the time the charges had the misleading name) you should have received an email with your unique login info to view your personal settlement.

The email likely ended up in your Spam folder, so go take a peek there if you didn't get one. The sender is: info@fuelsurchargeclassaction.com, the subject is Dover v. British Airways Fuel Surcharge Class Action Notice. The default is to give you Avios not dollars; you have to opt-in to change that. Given that their value for the Avios is way higher than I'd value them, make sure you look the offer over and do a little math first before deciding. 

More info over at Lucky's