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:
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:
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
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
And then you get a screen of results:
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.
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 Mastercard
Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review
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.
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