Which routes have the most and least Avios reward flight availability in Club World and First?

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• ben says:

  1 Oct1 October 08:46

  So this is just for one look at the availability on a given day (10 days ago i think you mentioned?)

  Would it be interesting to run this over say the next 3 months and see how/if the picture evolves as it is unlikely to be a uniform distribution of availability. The assumption you make that this reflects general distribution given it is only one run is a little bit simplistic?

  • Rob says:

    1 Oct1 October 08:53

    It is. However, I would gamble that this is peak ‘good’ because few people have booked yet for Summer 2020.

• Anna says:

  1 Oct1 October 09:36

  Worth noting as well that it seems that avios seats are released per flight and not per destination, e.g. the Nassau/Grand Cayman routes are actually the same flight, so if someone bags the NAS seats, then there will be no availability for GCM, and vice versa. I presume this would also apply to Antigua/Turks and Caicos and any other multiple destination services.

  • guesswho2000 says:

    2 Oct2 October 13:06

    Indeed, taking LHR-SIN-SYD as an example, the seats showing as available for SYD will be those where both segments are available.

    Booking LHR-SIN or LHR-SIN-SYD would knock one off both SIN and SYD as per the above table, but booking only SIN-SYD (which is bookable as a 5F) would knock one off SYD only, presumably.

• gen says:

  2 Oct2 October 20:04

  So bagging two London-Singapore first class out, business back next April/May was pretty lucky? I had a companion voucher, and used my avios to get the seats. Can’t wait , as it’ll be my first time (and probably last!) in both business and first. I used the reward flightfinder tool to find the first class seats and booked them online with BA, and rang up BA at midnight a fortnight later to book the return seats.

• James says:

  4 Oct4 October 10:26

  O/T Companion voucher:
  I recently came back from a trip to the Caribbean (open jaw LGW-KIN, NAS-LHR) which I booked with BA companion voucher (I did the flights out online and then rang BA to add the return). To my knowledge this was all done fine and I could see the additional avios debited from my account and I reserved seats for both flights out and back.

  Flights out went fine, but attempting to check in at NAS they told us we didn’t have “ticket numbers” and after a few heated moments we were forced to buy new tickets so we could get home (this happened to be at the time the pilot strike was announced so all of the call centres were unavailable to assist). I have submitted a claim to BA and its been over a month with no reply, but what I think happened was that the rep didn’t issue the return tickets properly when I called to add the return leg.

  My question is, is this a common occurrence? This really puts me off trying to make any changes over the phone as I had no way of knowing there was an issue until we arrived at the airport. The flights all showed in my exec club account, is there any way to guarantee that ticket numbers have definitely been issued?

  • Rob says:

    4 Oct4 October 10:42

    That is very, very rare, for obvious reasons. You were lucky you had enough credit card capacity to buy the seats. I’d launch a MCOL claim if you don’t get any joy in the next week or so – https://headforpoints.com/2019/06/10/how-to-sue-british-airways/

    • James says:

      6 Oct6 October 04:30

      Thanks for the link Rob. I was advised by AMEX that I could make a section 75 claim for consequential loss. Not sure how this compares to the CEDR route, but I suspect less hassle. Anyway I’m going to give BA a little longer to get back to me, hopefully they’ll do the right thing!

  • Anna says:

    4 Oct4 October 13:17

    What a nightmare – and how on earth could you reserve your seats if you didn’t have ticket numbers?! It might be safer to book the return online then call and get the avios refunded; IME the difference in taxes returning from the Caribbean (as opposed to the US), is negligible.

    • James says:

      6 Oct6 October 04:48

      I was told by the check in agent that “reserving” the seats and actually “issuing” the tickets were two separate processes and that the rep on the phone must have not have actually issued the tickets. I have no idea if that’s accurate but I suppose it offers some plausable explanation, although how on earth this didn’t get flagged is pretty concerning!

      As far as booking the return online, I would have done except this was a open jaw booking which as far as I understand can only be done over the phone.

  • Nadeshka says:

    4 Oct4 October 17:32

    In manage my booking you can look up the ticket number (if it’s there) under administration > view/print e ticket receipt. If it errors out when you click the link then there may be an issue. Other way of checking I have found is usually to attempt to reserve a seat. You’re usually fine if you can.
    I have found several times that we have been ticketed when adding a return leg or making a change to the booking, and I’ve called up to chase. Often happens when avios are deducted but not the cash part, as this is done by a separate department I think.

    • James says:

      6 Oct6 October 04:53

      Thanks for the tip, I’ll have a check on my next booking. I did actually manage to reserve our seats for this flight though so it seems that isn’t guaranteed.

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