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

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• Adam says:

  2 Apr2 April 13:03

  This discussion been going on for the last 3-4 days over on FT BAEC thread.

• John says:

  2 Apr2 April 13:11

  Has anyone actually asked BA?

  (while they might not give an honest/transparent answer, surely its a first step?)

  • Rob says:

    2 Apr2 April 13:15

    Twitter and Gold Guest List lines appear to know but are not telling, looking at FT reports.

    • John says:

      2 Apr2 April 13:25

      Step 2. Assume wholly unprofessional service provision?

• Fred Finn says:

  2 Apr2 April 13:26

  British Airways had turned from a truly world class full service airline, to a hybrid low cost carrier, they seem to have lost direction.yet European carrier Lufthansa seem to go from strength to strength. How can this be and with the ludicrous safety video almost 10 minutes of shouting, seems to be an attempt to copy the highly successful Air New Zealand environmental safety video or that if low cost carrier Southwest Airlines whose flight attendants are originally hilarious and,get full attention.
  What a disappointment British Airways has become and now they take out toilets on long haul and reduce the seat width to 17 inches and 29 inches and maybe 28 inches in economy seems in both short and long haul. Other genuine LCC have more width and certainly more seat pitch
  As the most travelled person on BA I feel cheated and look for other ways to fly
  Fred Finn 718 flights in Concorde 15 million miles

  • Alex W says:

    2 Apr2 April 21:19

    Thank you Fred I hope BA take heed of your wise words.

  • DavidK says:

    2 Apr2 April 21:44

    Well said. Let’s hope they stop the rot before it is too late. They aren’t quite EasyJet……..yet.

  • Lady London says:

    3 Apr3 April 11:51

    Yes the current British Airways safety video gets very irritating once you’ve seen it a few times. Thank heavens I don’t fly most of my flights on BA these days. Any more than the few times I’ve seen it in the past month would drive me nuts.

• Tony says:

  2 Apr2 April 13:32

  Rob, when you find out what is happening here can you post a a new article?

  • Mike says:

    2 Apr2 April 13:34

    +1 (please)

    • Stephen Forde says:

      2 Apr2 April 13:57

      +1 Please 🙂

      • James says:

        2 Apr2 April 14:30

        +1 thanks

  • Mr Dee says:

    2 Apr2 April 20:02

    +1

  • Glyn says:

    2 Apr2 April 20:12

    +1 please – thanks

• Rob says:

  2 Apr2 April 13:40

  There are a number of people across frequent flyer social media who are believed to be covertly paid by BA although I doubt Gilbert is one of them.

• michael walsh says:

  2 Apr2 April 14:06

  Honestly I have flown 4 x biz class and 1 x first class return BA flights in last 2 years lhr scl lhr yvr lhr dxb lhr mur and have been massively underwhelmed by their premium offerings. I am seriously considering flying premium economy if have to use BA such as lhr scl (only direct) or another airline if flying biz or 1st. Business class is poor compared to other airlines and whilst first was good it not as good as others for that amount of money and lounge in Vancouver was an absolute shocker. Was like something out of the 80s

• Tom says:

  2 Apr2 April 14:10

  I think that BA CW redemptions are the sweet spot anyway so this doesn’t affect me much. As BA Gold I’d rather pay for First and get triple Avios.

  • Rob says:

    2 Apr2 April 14:18

    There is no doubt that 3 x CW flights are better than 2 x F and a cash flight in Economy …

• roberto says:

  2 Apr2 April 14:21

  Of course F award seats are not guaranteed in the T&C of the Avios programe we all signed up to. They have only existed up to now as its an excellent secondary revenue stream and I cant see that changing any time soon.

  Revenue fares are still selling in F meaning the seats will still be there in 2019 so it makes no sense for BA to pull the plug completely and leave that spare capacity unsold if people are looking at award redemptions .

  They probably will look at moving the goalposts though.

  If people are prepared to “pay” and extra 30000 avios to get from here to there in First over and above J then why not switch to a system that charges between say 25000 and 60000 for example for the same thing depending on (1) how busy the route is (2) number of days until the flight and (3) how many revenue seats are currently unsold. Places like SIN where there is generally a bun fight for availability at T-355 will cost much more and Boston/JFK/Middle East maybe a little less than currently available..

  Once they have figured out how this works in the smallest cabin they will then roll it out completely across the board.

  The laws of supply and demand should work in every industry I guess and people will just get used to the new algorithm booking early ( great cash flow for BA ) on non busy routes for a better deal or paying over the odds for last minute booking on fuller planes.

  Like it or not other airlines do it to some degree and eventually everybody will.

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