Where has all British Airways First Class Avios flight availability gone?

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• Will says:

  2 Apr2 April 08:26

  Wonder how long it will be before Lucky from OMAAT time takes Rob’s comments and spins it into a story of his own?

  • Rob says:

    2 Apr2 April 09:03

    They are all asleep so it takes a while 🙂 The Hilton story yesterday didn’t get picked up for 12 hours. (No criticism implied, we all take the pick of stories from other sites and then spin them with a unique slant for our own readership base.)

  • ringingup says:

    2 Apr2 April 10:23

    To be truthful, this topic has been talked about for days on Flyertalk. Not a HfP’s exclusive at this round at Rob has pointed. 🙂

• Anna says:

  2 Apr2 April 08:28

  They are certainly in the process of doing something with their IT if they’re now charging for seat changes during OLCI.

• Nick says:

  2 Apr2 April 08:28

  Has anyone thought of the possibility that they’re just having an internal tidy-up of inventory and it’ll be back to normal soon? I mean, I’m willing to hate BA as much as the next guy, but it’s only fair to wait until we know they’ve definitely changed it (for the worse).

  • Charlie says:

    2 Apr2 April 08:37

    They may well be, but by not telling anyone or putting any public statement out about it, they’ve already generated a load more badwill.

    The FF community don’t trust BA, and so when something like this happens they immediately jump to the worst conclusion.

    The easiest and cheapest way to keep your customers happy is honest communication about what’s going on. The longer they go without putting the record straight, the more rumours & speculation will spread.

• Bigglesgirl says:

  2 Apr2 April 08:33

  Oh great, just as I was ready to book my 241 for next spring to Asia to travel Vietnam! If this is how they’re going may as well ditch my BAPP and the £xxx,xxx I spend on it each year. We always redeem for F and never redeem for CW as it’s not up to par with any other decent carrier and especially the ME3…..may as well wait for Qatar sales and get a decent seat and service for ~£1200 return rather than ~£600 in taxes alone.
  Hope it clears up in the coming month otherwise my plans will have to change for next year and I may have to stop my current in-year spend and put it elsewhere.
  Thanks to Alex and Willie the carrier is gradually heading down the swanny.

  • Genghis says:

    2 Apr2 April 08:38

    All these people with their £xxx,xxx BAPP spends…

    • Genghis says:

      2 Apr2 April 08:41

      I’d spread that kind of spend around much more

      • Richard says:

        2 Apr2 April 10:19

        Likewise. I also think amex will be happy to lose all the £xxx,xxx spenders given the capped interchange fess. They would rather have low £xx,xxx spenders who keep the card all year and keep paying the full fee!

      • xcalx says:

        2 Apr2 April 10:46

        Exactly. Refer spend refer cancel plus sups along the way. ….. If I am not spending for a sign up bonus I must have miscalculated. Never had a BAPP as have no interest in paying the BA “extras” Still it’s horses for courses.

    • Charlie says:

      2 Apr2 April 08:44

      I can only assume it’s company spend (as mine is) – my entire “staff” is outsourced developers, who all get paid via my/partners personal CCs through various outsourcing websites. I certainly don’t spend that much for personal use each year!

    • Darren says:

      2 Apr2 April 08:45

      +1 or £xxx,xx1

  • Polly says:

    2 Apr2 April 14:22

    I do hope F returns for you and all those hopefuls posting here. There were as many as 5 F HKG seats available on most days through Jan when we were looking. Just can’t believe they were all pulled. Also China.
    Also agree, spread the spend. Def looking at more SPG spend now for Marriot package in Hawaii next year…get card, spend to bonus, refer OH, keep a couple of cards going at any one time. And hope F comes back!

• Nigel says:

  2 Apr2 April 08:38

  Frankly premium seat availability with BA avios has always been erratic / random in the last couple of years. There is no pattern, and even being gold in the baec does nothing to increase reward seats unless you want to fly steerage to europe using avios for a £100 cash flight!
  Im losing patience with Avios and frankly BA’s so called premium products. Having just flown Qatar for the first time, in the A380, 777 300 ER and A350 1000, business, I wont even consider BA now for Eastern bound flights other than Bahrain, until the Qatari embargo ends.
  Whats the point in being gold in an airline that is hell bent on going for the lowest possible service for premium customers? What are you doing to “the worlds favourite airline” Mr Cruz? Mr Walsh would be jealous of your destructive plans…..

  • Si says:

    2 Apr2 April 09:27

    I flew Qatar Business for first time 2 weeks ago. We flew F to Doha on Amex 2-4-1 and then avios redemption on Qatar to the Seychelles. The BA 1st and Qatar Business were pretty much identical.

    If Doha stays on the F list that could be a very pleasant launch pad, especially with Qatar’s global destinations from its hub airport. Taxes on Qatar were relative bargain too.

    • Matt says:

      2 Apr2 April 10:45

      I realise I’m probably in the minority here but in my opinion, Qatar J is not in the same league as BA F in terms of exclusivity, seat design or personable cabin crew service. Exclusivity is an easy one to explain as there are far fewer seats in BA F cabin. On the seat design I just don’t like the quatar seat as it’s like you’re sleeping in a coffin because your legs are confined to a small box under the seat in front of you, and regarding service I just like the BA crew as from my experience they tick the professsional boxes but they’re also fun which to me is what the difference between F and J (J is about sleep, work and efficienct travelling, whereas F has all what J offers but with a layer of luxury and fun added).

      I realise no one will probably agree with me!

      • HAM76 says:

        2 Apr2 April 11:28

        I agree… Some of these advantage seem small and may even sound silly to some, but make travelling easier. In CW times I paid attention to the remaining flight time, because I wanted to be in the washrooms before the ding, crew, fourty minutes to landing, followed by ding, the captain … at what time the washrooms will no longer be available, followed by many passengers queuing at the washrooms. So much nicer in F.

      • Will says:

        2 Apr2 April 11:37

        Agree, BA First while not class leading is a rep above other airlines J product imo.

        Only have Cathay, Etihad and AA to compare to but I’d take BA First ahead of all of them by a significant margin.

        At the end of the day, it’s just a seat on a plane. All of these huge suites are overkill for a flight imho.

        That’s not to say it can’t be improved, just that I don’t need an apartment on an aircraft just a nice comfortable and quite place to sleep and work and great food and service.

      • Matt says:

        2 Apr2 April 11:53

        I would fear feeling quite lonely and isolated in a fully enclose F suite! Part of the fun of travelling is people watching!

• Darren says:

  2 Apr2 April 08:38

  I noticed a few days ago that baredemptionfinder.com was showing greyed out dates from 2019 for CW availability. As users of this site will know they are normally dark or light blue to indicate off peak or peak.

  I haven’t checked farther than a couple of routes but is there a bigger picture with all redemptions and dynamic pricing?

  BA.com are still showing the usual peak and off peak pricing so this may be a glitch on the third party website.

  • Lewis King says:

    2 Apr2 April 08:38

    They don’t know the dates as BA haven’t released the 2019 calendar yet 🙂

    • Darren says:

      2 Apr2 April 08:50

      Thanks Lewis,

      (Puts conspiracy hat on) wonder why they haven’t released it yet, there must be some shenanigans going on.

      • Clive says:

        2 Apr2 April 08:54

        They only released the calendar for this year in about June last year so that isn’t unusual.

      • Lewis King says:

        2 Apr2 April 08:54

        Whilst dynamic pricing has been rumoured, the calendar for next year isn’t usually released until half way through the current year. Having said that, I have noticed some dates are rather odd for next year for different routes. I was seeing off peak dates over feb half term for flights to France, and very specific days on/off for flights to India when I was looking a few weeks ago. I think maybe the plan is to dynamically change on/off peak dates based on local influences.

        • Rob says:

          2 Apr2 April 09:00

          …. which would make some sense, given that Dubai is ‘peak’ during August when it is 50 degrees outside.

• Chris says:

  2 Apr2 April 08:39

  As others have said no First 2-4-1 redemption = cancelled BAPP – bet Amex won’t be too happy!!! Just glad I moved my CC spend to SPG a while ago… Only Avios card I actually use now is Lloyds when abroad…

• Tony says:

  2 Apr2 April 08:44

  As others have said removing or severely restricting redemption in First would be the end of BAPP for us too. Club World is such a poor product compared to the alternatives that I’m not prepared to redeem and pay a substantial cash element for it.
  I wonder how long we’ll have to wait to find out exactly what is happening. If it is just an IT glitch, it seems odd that BA haven’t issued a statement confirming it.

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