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Those of you with long memories may remember the short lived “Avios Flight Finder” app.  This was an official app from Avios Group which was meant to be a quick way of checking reward seats on British Airways flights.  The problem was that it used cached data, and the results it showed were not accurate.  It was eventually withdrawn.

Smartphones were less common at that point (2014) so Head for Points reader Tim created “BA Redemption Finder”.  This sat at www.baredemptionfinder.com and was a desktop site.  It used the same data feed that Avios was using for its app, so it suffered from the same issues over accuracy.  However, it was lightning fast.

EDIT, March 2022: If you found this article via Google, hello!  Since we published it, ‘BA Redemption Finder’ has become ‘Reward Flight Finder’ – the links below still work.  We now recommend that you look at SeatSpy – see this HfP article – which is more comprehensive and usually more accurate in its BA data.

Avios wing 11

When “Avios Flight Finder” was withdrawn, Tim’s site died as well.

Now it’s back, using the BA app data feed.  “BA Redemption Finder” is, easily, the quickest way of checking Avios availability for British Airways flights.

The best bit is the site is free.  It is a website not an app, but is optimised for both mobile and desktop.

It is simplicity itself.  Type in where you want to fly from, where you want to fly to, how many seats and what cabin and you will see – instantly – full availability for the next 355 days.  On mobile it looks like this:

BA Redemption Finder

Here are some results for two Club World seats from Heathrow to Tokyo – on the actual site, you get the full year on one scrolling screen.  The left column is outbound, the right is return:

BA Redemption Finder 1

and

BA Redemption Finder 2

It gets even better.  You can set up email alerts.   Set a date range, route, class and number of passengers and you will be notified when seats become available.

There are a few issues with the site, but none are major:

It cannot handle connections, only direct point to point searches

It does not show oneworld partner airlines – so it is best used to check availability when you want to use an Amex 2-4-1 voucher.  If you are not using a 2-4-1 voucher you should use ba.com instead as it will show you Qatar, Finnair, Royal Jordanian, American etc as well.

There is still a slight delay on the data feed, but very modest – Tim said no more than an hour

It does not show the extra economy Avios seats made available to BA Gold members

These are mainly trivial points, however, in the context of what is an amazingly fast and usable site.  It will take a while for me to be certain how accurate it is, but on the few checks I’ve done so far it has been fine.

You can take a look at BA Redemption Finder here.

The site is totally free to use.  Tim is happy to accept voluntarily monthly donations, and in return your availability queries will be checked hourly instead of daily – increasing the chances that you can grab any seats which open up.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (153)

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

  • Lee says:
    19 Aug19 August 15:42

    Great site. Well done to Tim 🙂

    Does anyone know how to find out where BA fly first class. Need to use a 2 for 1 voucher and first would be better than business.

    • Tim Rogers says:
      19 Aug19 August 15:44

      Hi Lee! Thanks so much for your appreciate of the site – the best thing about running this is all the stories I hear about how it’s helped someone find their dream trip.

      I’m not sure of an official list of routes on which First is available – I’d love to see it if anyone knows about it, as at the moment I’m having to deal with the error BA gives me back when I try to search on a route which lacks First.

  • the real harry1 says:
    19 Aug19 August 16:38

    Tim Rogers – if I may be so bold to ask – how did you get the feed? & a word about your background in acquiring the skills needed to put this together would also be fascinating

    thanks

    • the real harry1 says:
      19 Aug19 August 17:21

      btw about half-way thru 1984 (Orwell) but nothing sinister in my question

    • Tim Rogers says:
      19 Aug19 August 18:22

      Hi there! Good question.

      As some eagle-eyed HFP readers have noticed, the data is the data that’s used in BA’s Flight Finder, both in the app on iOS and Android, and on the website. But my version works much, much faster, and email alerts make it more useful and save returning to the BA site many times a day to check for new seats.

      I’m a software engineer by trade, and this is just a spare time project I’ve been working on to help the HFP community and hopefully make our shared hobby that little bit easier!

  • Richard Thomas says:
    19 Aug19 August 16:47

    Great work Tim, I have signed up to the monthly contribution in the hope it will help you with costs of future enhancements.

    • Tim Rogers says:
      19 Aug19 August 18:20

      Thanks so much Richard – I really appreciate it! Do just let me know if you ever have any ideas, questions or comments – I’m always looking to make the site even better,

  • Al Nicol says:
    19 Aug19 August 17:33

    Well done TIm, always great to see new travel tools. The data seems the same as at BA’s ‘Flight Finder’ on their website (which also gives full year availability). Is the email alert the cool feature here, or is the data more accurate/faster?

    • Tim Rogers says:
      19 Aug19 August 18:19

      Hi Al! Glad you like the tool, and hope it proves useful for you.

      The data does match up with BA’s Flight Finder tool on their website. For one, it’s a lot faster (95% of searches are done within half a second, whereas the BA site seems to usually take 5-10 seconds), but the real secret sauce is the alerts, which are a big improvement on having to religiously check the BA site.

      If you have any questions or ideas, do just drop me an email at help@baredemptionfinder.com.

      • Hunter says:
        19 Aug19 August 20:22

        Hi Tim, we tend to be more date than destination driven, due to school holidays etc. Could it therefore be feasible to have the ability to input dates (and class) to see what destinations come up..?

        • Tim Rogers says:
          19 Aug19 August 21:34

          A few people have asked about this, so looking into it is definitely on my to-do list! Watch this space.

  • Talay says:
    19 Aug19 August 20:20

    Great tool Tim but is this a quirk ?

    LHR-SYD requires by necessity a change in SIN these days but your tool shows availability for X dates which isn’t there.

    Ok, so I read the piece about it not handling connections but which piece of the LHR-SIN or SIN-SYD is giving the “false” positive ?

    So I check LHR-SIN and that isn’t available. Then I check SIN-SYD and that isn’t available either.

    So neither of the legs on the dates where the tool shows availability are actually available for redemption. Cash fares are available.

    I was looking at first class.

    Any thoughts ?

    • Tim Rogers says:
      19 Aug19 August 21:34

      Glad you like the tool! I’ve added it to my to-do list to look into this. I’ll get back to you once I know more.

    • Tim Rogers says:
      20 Aug20 August 15:45

      I’ve taken a look and can see that these results look a bit questionable.

      The results I get back are supposedly for the whole route, and aren’t split up into LON-SIN and SIN-SYD.

      I’ve taken a look at 25th December outbound and 25th January inbound in Business, and that example seems to genuinely be available. Can you give an example of a date, number of people and cabin where it seems to be wrong? That way, I can ask BA about the specific issue. Might be best if you email me at help@baredemptionfinder.com.

      • Rob says:
        20 Aug20 August 16:01

        What WOULD be interesting is if you reversed the process, which is something the BA app can’t do.

        Eg …. where I can get 2 Club World seats departing on 14th February?

        Would be very helpful around school holiday periods.

  • Dave Barron says:
    19 Aug19 August 20:49

    Useful and simple to use tool – well done Tim.

    Now what’s the chances of something similar for Virgin Atlantic redemptions?!?

    • Tim Rogers says:
      19 Aug19 August 21:35

      Glad you like it Dave! I haven’t looked into Virgin Atlantic, but I’ll try to do so soon.

  • 1nfrequent says:
    19 Aug19 August 22:24

    Really pleased to see this site back again – used it when it was first up and I found it very useful. Best of luck with it, Tim.

    1F

  • Ronster says:
    19 Aug19 August 22:45

    Good evening Tim.

    Can you consider adding an avios availability search, for other oneworld carriers to your program?

    I would also love to see an option, to base searches on a specific aircraft.For example when BA run 2 different planes on the same route.

    Thanks

    Ronster

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

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