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British Airways opens up 13,000 Club World seats for Avios over Christmas

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Instead of holding a last minute £1,000 sale, as they did last year, British Airways has decided to drops its unsold Club World availability over Christmas into the Avios redemption bucket.

The following statement has appeared on ba.com here:

“Additional reward flights availability in Club World for limited destinations departing from London Heathrow only on British Airways flight-only bookings. For travel between 14 December 2015 and 3 January 2016 exclusively. Additional availability varies depending on destination and date of departure.”

13,000 Club World seats have been released.  That works out at 650 per day which should mean at least a couple per flight.

I am pleased about this – I was critical last year of British Airways launching a £1,000 cash sale when it could easily have opened up these seats for redemption instead.

You can argue about whether it is better to pay £1,000 cash or redeem Avios and pay £500 in tax, but the latter clearly requires a lower cash outlay.

Feedback on Flyertalk is that availability is indeed there on most routes, so it is well worth a look.  British Airways has not emailed Executive Club members about this so the seats are unlikely to be going too quickly.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (81)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Stu R says:
    10 Dec10 December 05:47

    I’m seriously starting to question the merits of flying with BA at all, paid or redemption.

    Our last trip was a fiasco from start to finish, several schedule changes, dirty plane, broken air bridge required boarding an A380 through 1 door, cabin crew were grouchy, and they forgot to load any landing card for SIN.

    QR on the way back was literally 5* by comparison.

    Our next trip has already suffered 3 schedule changes including a cancellation and reroute – basically costing me an overnight at LHR which they refuse to pay for.

    BA are a shambles – once the self proclaimed “World’s favourite”, now seemingly in a race to the bottom.

    I for one will be looking for alternative redemption opportunities to BA in future!

    • John says:
      10 Dec10 December 06:50

      Well, I haven’t had any problems with flying BA recently, so I will continue to pay good cash fares (i.e. ex-EU J).

      Redeeming on BA apart from RFS is already a waste of money, unless they are the only carrier on that route

    • WSG says:
      10 Dec10 December 10:01

      I have to agree about BA racing to the bottom of the Airline World , have experienced, delays of up to three days upon flight cancellation in trying to return after flight cancellation by BA .Have just been on the phone regarding the release of Club World Seats over Christmas out of LHR, I am traveling out of LON/Gatwick where they have many Club World Seats Available as they put it Commercially, on Dec 30 this year . However none using Avios , they were asking me to pay another £1499. cash to upgrade from World Traveler Plus to Club World on one leg of this flight GTW /TPA .I had already upgraded using Avios + Cash on the return TPA/LGW for a final cost of £2899.+ 25Thousand Avios Where is the bargain in this ?

      • James67 says:
        10 Dec10 December 11:11

        I have flew most of my flights this year on BA CW. They have become very much a mixed bag in my experience. Although dated, I somehow still enjoh the CW seat because of the privacy it offers when I fly solo. I find the seat about right size for me and the table and screen size are fine and suit the distances from the seat. Likewise bin and seat storage has always been adequate for my needs. I also find inflight service to be above average and sometime very good. Everything else though is becoming very inconsistent, very Thai Airways!.One flight the food is satisfactory, the next it borders on inedible. If you are lucky you get a newish plane with a fully functional seat and comfortable upholstery. Unfortuately, maintenace and cleaning seem to be poor, I now find seats and cabins are typically malfunctioning and dirty. Older and wear and tear is ok, dirty is not. Even in CW, lavatories are poorly maintained inflight compared to the best airlines I have flown, and they lack amenities. If you get what you pay for then it would be ok, but in this respect BA revenud pricing is a total joke in my opinion. Like Nic, I am experiecing multiple changes and cancellations to my trips over the next quarter. BA want me to accept a 4 hour layover as a result of one which I am reluctant to accept but if I cncel I only get 60k avios back instead of 90k as it was booked predevaluation. Years ago customef services at BA were good, now they have become very poor, and there does not even appear to be any complaintsprocedure that I can find. Hoping AY from EDI is sustainable so that I can put BA and LHR behind me.

    • Nic says:
      10 Dec10 December 09:16

      Sorry for the off-topic comment, however is anyone experiencing problems with getting Air Berlin availability on BA’s site? It’s showing me American Airlines but no Air Berlin at all for any routes which I tried over next 9 months.

      • Rob says:
        10 Dec10 December 09:17

        Just randomly picked a day (20th April, JFK to Dusseldorf) and seats showing fine.

      • Jacqueline says:
        10 Dec10 December 14:26

        That’s cause Air Berlin is not an alliance and partner with BA.

      • Ludicrous says:
        10 Dec10 December 14:51

        Airberlin is hard to find flights to Berlin in my experience, flights to Dusseldorf are much easier to find

    • matt says:
      10 Dec10 December 20:31

      Was this BA11 08OCT15? I was on that flight and it matched what you said 100%. No landing card and only door 1L. Awful crew too.

      • Stu R says:
        11 Dec11 December 03:23

        No, strangely not, it was BA11 on 17 Oct …. which proves that my experience (nor yours) wasn’t just a one off bad day for BA!

  • Paul N says:
    10 Dec10 December 07:41

    Are BA going to be holding a cash sale as well? I want to save my Avios.

  • Waribai says:
    10 Dec10 December 07:43

    I don’t want to be a party pooper but this time of year I reckon most people will have booked their travel already!

    • Scottnothing says:
      10 Dec10 December 09:57

      Most, but not all. I wanted to escape the UK to pretty much anywhere warm and picked up reward flights LHR-JNB; CPT-LHR over the Xmas period – very happy camper here!

  • Temp says:
    10 Dec10 December 07:52

    A bit late in the day isn’t it? Great if you can just go somewhere over Xmas/NY on a whim. Btw I like the cheap cash sales as they doesn’t exclude people who don’t have a big enough stash of miles. This year’s sale seemed to be a decent compromise where you could use both cash and miles, but seems it may not have been as popular.

  • Mark says:
    10 Dec10 December 08:01

    Have these been loaded?

    I’ve searched a whole host of different destinations and NONE of them have anything on the 1/2/3 of jan!

    • Scottnothing says:
      10 Dec10 December 09:58

      They were loaded on Monday. I saw it flagged on Flyertalk and booked LHR-JNB; CPT-LHR. Availability was limited though, but worked perfectly for me (out on 24/12, back on 28/12).

      • Jeff says:
        10 Dec10 December 11:33

        essentially 3 days in SA?

        • Rob says:
          10 Dec10 December 11:41

          I have done this. Doddle. Overnight flight and virtually no time difference.

          Thu – leave work as normal and stroll down to LHR

          Fly overnight, get normal nights sleep

          Land AM with no jetlag

          Three pretty much full days

          Late flight back on 3rd day, full nights sleep on plane, no jet lag

          Mon – land AM and head into work

          • Felix Flyer says:
            10 Dec10 December 12:32

            I’m have done this as well but in a full economy cabin. Not such great fun and no sleep!

          • Tom says:
            10 Dec10 December 18:15

            I did a 24 trip to CPT in CW earlier this year. Was relaxing – despite being there for work – and made me realise what an excellent winter sun destination it is!

          • Kinkell says:
            10 Dec10 December 20:01

            Just returned yesterday from JNB in Club, overnight flight on A380. Earplugs in, head phones on,still didn’t block the snores from across the aisle. Decibel level greater than the engines on reverse thrust .So feeling a tad jet lagged with no sleep.

        • Scottnothing says:
          10 Dec10 December 12:35

          Exactly – I will slip out of work at the usual time and arrive in time for a late Christmas lunch in CPT, followed by Boxing Day lunch at a wine estate in Stellenbosch, followed by a day at the beach in Camps Bay and will end with a day sailing along the coast before heading to the airport for my 9.50pm flight which gets me into work at the usual time.

          I have exhausted my annual leave quota for this year so couldn’t stay for longer. And this beats the alternative, which was hanging around London for Xmas. Helps that I can stay with friends in SA for free. 🙂

  • Richie says:
    10 Dec10 December 08:22

    Is this the sale you hinted of the other day rob? Or are we also expecting a cash winter sale also in the next few days /week.

    Thanks

  • Jono says:
    10 Dec10 December 08:28

    Thanks once again for the timely announcement Raffles!

    @mark
    Yes, they’ve been loaded for 1st Jan, I’ve just upgraded for LON-TYO economy to business for 160gbp thanks to a Lloyds upgrade voucher I’d previously used for the return leg but had been unable to apply on the outbound.

    • M says:
      10 Dec10 December 08:42

      I thought you can only upgrade one class up? Like economy to premium economy?

      • The_Real_A says:
        10 Dec10 December 10:07

        If it was an economy redemption he could cancel that for £35 and then make a fresh booking into club.

      • Jono says:
        10 Dec10 December 14:13

        I had already paid for the economy seat, so the extra 160 was to upgrade to premium economy and then the upgrade voucher boosted it up to business 🙂

  • harry says:
    10 Dec10 December 09:08

    MBNA DC have just adopted a new look & it’s rubbish

    You can’t see more than 3 transactions

    • Isodrac says:
      10 Dec10 December 09:54

      You mean on the recent transactions list? Mine lists the last 14 transactions. It has, however, started offering me the 10% BA discount which it has never done before and I’ve only ever had the free bargain basement DC MasterCard. No idea what’s going on there!

    • The_Real_A says:
      10 Dec10 December 11:37

      You can just select “see more” button – i can see all from this month.

      It seems that most of the CC/bank sites are being upgraded to be more mobile/tablet friendly as more and more user’s access in this way.

      • harry says:
        10 Dec10 December 15:48

        ‘See more’ didn’t work this morning on IE but it’s working for me now on Chrome

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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