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BREAKTHROUGH: See ALL BA Avios seats from London, for dates you choose, in one click

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If you know where you want to go and when you want to go, the process for booking Avios redemptions is good.  Compared to other airlines and other alliances, the Avios seat booking system on ba.com works well in terms of the number of airlines it shows online (virtually all of them) and how you search.

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.  However, we now recommend that you look at SeatSpy – see this HfP article – which is more comprehensive and usually more accurate in its BA data.

If your plans are fluid, however, it is not as good.

A year ago, Head for Points reader Tim launched “BA Redemption Finder”.  This sits at www.baredemptionfinder.com.  BA, for clarity, is supportive of Tim’s efforts and is happy to see the site operate.

“BA Redemption Finder” is the quickest way of checking Avios availability for British Airways flights.

The best bit is that 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.  Dark blue means it is a peak date, light blue means it is off-peak pricing.  The left column is outbound, the right is return – click to enlarge:

BA Redemption Finder

It gets even better.  You can set up email alerts for a fee of £3 per month.   Set a date range, route, class and number of passengers and you will be notified when seats become available.  Free email alerts are also available if you happy with less frequent notifications – although you may lose the seats.

The site is so smart that it even shows the extra economy Avios seats made available to BA Gold members.

There are a few issues:

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 compared to real time availability, but very modest

These are mainly trivial points, however, in the context of what is an amazingly fast and usable site.

BA Redemption Finder has now got even better

Tim has just launched a new feature which turns the app on its head.

You can now search BY DATE.  The site will show you EVERY BA route which has Avios availability in the class of your choice for those dates.

Let’s look at half-term next February, which for us is Saturday 16th February to Sunday 24th February.

Step 1: Go to baredemptionfinder.com and select “I don’t know where I want to go” from the home page

Step 2: Select your dates, number of seats and travel class (I want 4 people in Business) and run the search

BA Redemption Finder

Step 3: Sort the results as you wish – if you want to go long-haul, reorder the results by “Distance (most to least)” or “Avios required (most to least)” and vice versa for short haul

Obviously you still need to do some work.  As well as searching Saturday to Sunday, I would also want to check Saturday to Saturday, or possibly Friday (after school in the evening) to Sunday.  I would also want to look at First Class.

There is no option to mix classes, so if you would be happy with that you’d need to do separate one-way searches and try to match places where you can get, say, Business outbound and First back.

This is a real breakthrough for everyone who complains “I can’t find anywhere to go”.  If you are restricted on when you can travel, this service will solve your problems.

This new feature is currently free

Tim is planning to make this a paid-for feature at some point, not surprisingly.  For now, however, it is totally free.  Give it a try.

PS.  I was talking to Tim about this new feature last week and he said that he wrote the code over a weekend, whilst his wife was away with friends.  Let’s put this in perspective.  British Airways has a massive IT team and a massive budget and cannot deliver a feature like this.  One guy, working alone, is able to develop it over a weekend ….

You can take a look at BA Redemption Finder here.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (March 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

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Capital on Tap Pro Visa

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 8th April 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to 120,000 points. You receive 80,000 points when you spend £12,000 within three months and a further 40,000 points if you spend on the card between Month 14 and Month 17. Points convert 1:1 into Avios and many other programmes. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 8th April 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 60,000 points. You receive 40,000 points when you spend £6,000 within three months and a further 20,000 points if you spend on the card between Month 14 and Month 17. Points convert 1:1 into Avios and many other programmes. Click here to apply.

American Express Business Platinum

Up to 120,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

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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 (188)

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

  • Dale says:
    12 Nov12 November 09:04

    Would be good if you could factor in regional departures, everyone doesn’t live in London
    But yeah, amazingly quick.

    • JP says:
      12 Nov12 November 09:09

      I think the problem is that this would involve coding connections which, as has been point out, would be extremely difficult. I don’t live in London either so I do appreciate what you’re saying though.

    • Nick says:
      12 Nov12 November 09:18

      What you’re saying is that you’d rather Tim spend lots of time and energy writing a new logic simply because you’re too lazy to search twice? BA does not do married segments for Avios bookings, only cash ones. What this means is that if you search London-Hong Kong and Manchester-London it will give you the same results as booking Manchester-HKG on ba.com. Not difficult.

      • Anna says:
        12 Nov12 November 09:48

        There are some direct flights from the regions, it’s nothing to do with being lazy.

        • David says:
          12 Nov12 November 10:20

          Barely any though – I’d guess something like 30 flights a week, if that? Hardly compares to London…

          Also, BA.com is geared towards searching for London departures, so I’d guess it’s not Tim’s fault that his site can’t do it.

        • Anna says:
          12 Nov12 November 11:07

          BA.com isn’t “geared towards” anything, it depends entirely on what you put in the search fields!

        • David says:
          12 Nov12 November 12:29

          Hmm, perhaps it’s geo-locating me and giving me a London version of the site, but for me, all the offers on the homepage are based on flights from London, the “find our cheapest fares” section only starts from London, and the BA Holidays finder can’t start anywhere other than London. Is it different for you?

          I wouldn’t be surprised if the API that Tim uses only has data for London origins, but I’m speculating…

        • Anna says:
          12 Nov12 November 15:57

          David, I book all my BA holidays from MAN. you just have to pick that option (or any other airport) from the drop down box!

      • Dale says:
        12 Nov12 November 14:25

        Well I think you’re saying you are also lazy since you use Tim’s tool rather than your own.
        You are too lazy to search it ONCE !!
        I just said it would be good, I’m not trying to task him to do more….it would also be good to have the cash price showing for each equivalent Avios flight so you could immediately compare, but maybe I’m just lazy 😉

      • Lady London says:
        12 Nov12 November 23:02

        Well actually in a sense, British Airways do do married segments for Avios.

        I used to find a lot, that searching for x to Lon got me nothing, but searching for x to somewhere else that BA would route via London, miraculously produced the flights available including the one that had not shown up just searching for an end destination of London. This was not a one-off it was frequent and over a period. I can only explain it by some use of married segment as it didn’t seem to work if you wanted a stopover – had to be less than 2359 for it to see it as one route and for the BA system to cough up the avios seat I was looking for.

        I’ll bet BA is still operating that way now, too

  • Boi says:
    12 Nov12 November 09:21

    OT: which Hilton in Milan do people recommend?

  • george says:
    12 Nov12 November 09:32

    I seem to be OK when searching for CLT, RDU, or EWR as destinations on ba.com
    However, neither airport is recognised in the baredemptionfinder tool (well, EWR defaults to NYC, which captures other area airports)

    Is it a glitch or a ba api limitation that cannot be fixed?

  • DaveP says:
    12 Nov12 November 09:33

    Fantastic work, Tim. BA take note!!

  • MarkH says:
    12 Nov12 November 09:33

    Great site. Off on honeymoon to SA shortly and will be flying in First both ways thanks to the site(and hfp).
    Initially only found PE out but set up a couple of alerts and was notified when a pair of F seats became available and was able to snap them up.

    My wife thinks we’re flying business which she’s kvever done before so will be a nice surprise when we head for the First check-in desks!

    Definitely worth the £3 per month.

    • Jonathan says:
      12 Nov12 November 09:42

      Extra brownie points. Enjoy!

    • Anna says:
      12 Nov12 November 12:17

      Don’t forget to pre-book your spa treatments if she likes that kind of thing. Might as well maximise the brownie points!

      • MarkH says:
        12 Nov12 November 18:03

        Massages already booked 😉

        I also somehow got her to believe BA serves Lobster Thermidor in CW!

        I’ve had to lie about the flight time otherwise there’s no way I’d get her to agree to go to the airport 3hrs beforehand.

        Btw how long does it normally take to clear check-in and security?

        • Save East Coast Rewards says:
          12 Nov12 November 19:14

          I’d advise against choosing the lobster thermidor in BA F. It’s one of these meals that sounds nice but doesn’t really work on a plane.

  • Tom says:
    12 Nov12 November 09:34

    The guy who developed this is a genius!

  • RTS says:
    12 Nov12 November 09:38

    OT – has anyone had any issues with MR to BA transfers? I did a transfer on 5th Nov but still haven’t received it yet. Any ideas of who i need to speak to about this? Would it be Amex or BA?

    • MarkZ says:
      12 Nov12 November 10:09

      I made a transfer from MR to BA in July, with no problems – it was completed within 24 hours, and it was the first time I had made this transfer.

      Here are some possible courses of action:

      1. When you initiated the transfer, did you receive an email? If not, then contact Amex – the transfer request might not have been filed.

      2. If you did receive an email, then check the details of the transfer request, especially your BAEC number. If the details look wrong, then contact Amex, especially if your MR points have been deducted from your account.

      3. Have you received an email to say that the transfer request has been completed? If not, then contact Amex.

      4. If you have, then contact BA.

      Hope this helps.

    • SG says:
      12 Nov12 November 10:50

      Done a transfer few days ago,took about 48 hours with linked accounts!
      Contact Amex if not received any emails for initiating the transfer!

    • RTS says:
      12 Nov12 November 12:32

      I have received the initial transfer email but haven’t receive the transfer successful email. I have contacted Amex. They are escalating.

    • Steve-B says:
      12 Nov12 November 12:36

      I did a transfer last Monday evening and the points had transferred by Wednesday, so definitely call Amex (and the accounts weren’t linked either).

    • AndyW says:
      12 Nov12 November 13:18

      Did one last week which took a day. On the other hand been waiting 2 weeks for Hilton due to their IT upgrade/downgrade

      • SG says:
        12 Nov12 November 13:34

        Waiting for a MR points transfer to Marriot/Starwood.Done on Wednesday-not yet completed,can anyone confirm please any successful transfers lately??!!

        • Liz says:
          12 Nov12 November 15:07

          I did one last week – hadn’t linked my new Marriott number before – requested on 5/11 arrived in account 10/11

        • Stu N says:
          12 Nov12 November 15:16

          2-3 days for already-linked accounts; Amex had my old SPG number and told me it would be fine and I didn’t need to update it. Being somewhat sceptical about this, I sent 400 points over as a test which worked OK, so followed up with the rest of the transfer I needed.

        • Scallder says:
          12 Nov12 November 15:43

          Have done 7 across accounts for my wife and I – all went through ok varying between 2 and 4 days. Made sue to use the new number having combined the accounts if that’s of any help?

  • Simon Bostic says:
    12 Nov12 November 09:45

    Fantastic development to a fantastic site. Love paying £3 per month for it!
    My only request for the future when Tim has a bit more time would be allow the tool to keep the details already entered previously in the search fields in situ so that when you go back to edit you don’t have to put them all in again… which is how it works with the “I KNOW WHERE I WANT TO GO” tool….

    • Alan says:
      12 Nov12 November 13:27

      +1 for that – great site but would find that a really helpful addition!

      Nice new feature, Tim.

      • Tom1 says:
        12 Nov12 November 18:07

        You can do this already – at the top of the page, under the departure and arrival airports, there a little button called ‘edit’. If you press that, it takes you back to the search page and retains the airport codes, the class, the number of seats and your BA card colour.

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

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