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

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• BJ says:

  30 Sep30 September 06:15

  Great article, thanks to both Robb and Tim for this. The fact that immediately jumps out is that the the availability increases with competition on the route such as NYC, or with decreasing desirability of a city as a mass leisure destination such as some places in Africa and the ME.

  “the chances of you finding two seats BACK from” – this bit I found interesting because my experience has been the opposite. I have always found availability for return flights to the UK easier to find than availability departing the UK. Can we get the data in reverse too please?

  For East and South East Asian destinations where I flew most often in recent years, the data confirm my suspicions and experience with one surprise – HKG. Always found HKG to be relatively easy, a go to place if I was stuck on others.

  • Rob says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:39

    I have the return data, might add it as a download.

    • Alex says:

      30 Sep30 September 09:32

      That would be great! I’ve been looking at both NYC and TOK in F, and returning from Tokyo is sometimes a challenge. Might have to do F out and CW return.

      • Mikeact says:

        30 Sep30 September 11:22

        Me too, Cape Town and Durban come to mind, particularly the getting back. We use a combination of Qatar and KL/AF.

    • sayling says:

      30 Sep30 September 12:24

      Definitely would be appreciated!

      • Rob says:

        30 Sep30 September 13:07

        Not at a desk until tonight but it will go up eventually.

• The Original David says:

  30 Sep30 September 06:24

  Are the 2 seats necessarily on the same flight? Obviously so for the destinations with only 1 flight per day, but what about New York? Might one of them be LHR-JFK and the other LGW-EWR? Or even just different LHR-JFK flights…

  • Matt B says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:06

    RFF searches by flight so no

    • Matt B says:

      30 Sep30 September 08:07

      Sorry worded that wrong, the seats Will be on the same flight

  • Rob says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:38

    No, when I say 2 it is 2 on the sale flight.

• Paul says:

  30 Sep30 September 06:38

  I have a 241 that needs using by next August and it’s proved impossible to get to a whole host of cities in North , Central America, Hong Kong or anywhere decent in F. Cramped world is available to a few places but real life availability just doesn’t exist.
  I’ll probably use my 241 for a shorthaul club Europe redemption in the end.

  Hong Kong was the biggest surprise. Given the collapse in tourism, the fantastic deals in hotels BA just don’t have seats but offer Cathay almost all the time. Cathay are of course a far superior airline but no good when you have 241.

  To be fair the fees now are so high that you are often better off paying for flights. Doing so opens up all the quality carriers particularly ex EU. As a long standing GCH i noted only yesterday that I have just 10 tier points this year and with my plans till August next year won’t collect any more. The world of a silver card looms from May with my wife and kids going to Bronze for the first time in 15 years. Since moving away from chasing status we have enjoyed travelling more. Less hassle, better service, generally more relaxed and undoubtedly, better value.

  • BJ says:

    30 Sep30 September 06:44

    Keep checking HKG, availability pops up frequently, even at short notice and in F.

    • Polly says:

      30 Sep30 September 10:38

      Agree, we have HKG F many times as our jump off point in Asia. KUL busier now too with the hkg probs.

  • Shoestring says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:03

    Isn’t a lot of the moaners who claim they can’t find availability more about them & their booking methods/ flexibility/ planning ability than about lack of availability itself? Eg I looked up Business (& Economy) availability for a popular route, BKK. There’s absolutely *tons* of availability in Economy throughout September 2020, plus nearly as good availability for Business (a few more missing days, but you’d expect that with only 2 Business tickets most days – sometimes 6!).

    Ie get your act together and plan ahead T-355 – or failing that T-300. Be flexible on a day earlier/ later here or there.

    • BJ says:

      30 Sep30 September 08:29

      Too an extent yes, but I think what this analysis shows is that on any day the total number of award seats available must be very small in comparison to the number of One World members looking for them. If we consider that the likes of HFP readers report problems frequently then it is easy to imagine the frustration of the average BAEC member who does not take the hobby seriously like us, trying to get good use out of their avios.

      • Inha says:

        30 Sep30 September 11:50

        I am fortunate enough to be Gold on BAEC and one of the Star Alliance airlines. I can usually redeem my miles on Star Alliance on the flight I want and almost never on BA. More often than not leaving me frustrated with the program. Being based in London I invariable do end up using BA often (and collecting the miles) out of convenience but not out of loyalty.

        • Shoestring says:

          30 Sep30 September 11:56

          So try booking redemptions a lot further ahead?

        • Dev says:

          30 Sep30 September 12:37

          +1
          Also true for Virgin Atlantic, where UC availability is generally good.
          Shoestring – not all of us have the luxury of planning and booking 355 or 300 days in advance!

        • Shoestring says:

          30 Sep30 September 12:41

          try booking with Avios on a different Oneworld airline?

    • ken says:

      30 Sep30 September 10:29

      Not everyone can book their holidays a year in advance.
      Not everyone has perfect flexibility booking a year ahead particularly if you are both working.
      Not everyone can book at short notice.

      241 must be great if you are retired and not fussy where you go.

      No one is moaning – just accepting that the value of a 241 for many people is not even close to what it sounds like.

      • meta says:

        30 Sep30 September 14:45

        I am not retired, have a full-time job and 25 days of holiday a year. I am also sometimes restricted by dates and obviously want to maximise my days off by combining with public holidays. My employer sometimes requires me not to go on holiday if it gets busy. The thing is your Avios booking is 100% refundable (minus £35 fee) and the voucher is returned to you as well. I would argue that even if you are not 100% sure about the dates a year in advance, you can still book it knowing that you can cancel for a small fee. And on short-haul for now it can be as little as £1.

    • Matthew says:

      30 Sep30 September 21:16

      My leave is only ever released 6 months in advance at work so I often have to gamble on flights T-355. Not about getting my act together but as only 1 per team of 5 can be on leave at anyone time – it’s something I can never guarantee.

• Olly says:

  30 Sep30 September 06:38

  Very interesting data. Would be intrigued to see the data presented as a proportion of the total days flown. A lot of these destinations have daily flights of course, but many do not, which could certainly change the rankings.

  • Rob says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:37

    But it makes no difference to the passenger, does it?

    • AJA says:

      30 Sep30 September 10:24

      I think it does make a difference. If I understand it there are 2 CW seats available for redemption on each flight. So the chances of finding CW seats to NYC are greater because there are 12 flights a day on BA giving 24 seats available for redemption. CPT only has 2 flights a day from LHR and 1 from LGW 3 days a week meaning a maximum of 6 seats available (and only 4 seats on certain days). In other words your chances of getting seats to NYC are at least 4 times greater than CPT. This is based on wanting to redeem a 2-4-1 voucher. That also assumes you have enough Avios to redeem. I would love the chance to book flights to Sydney but even today I haven’t got enough to do so. I know it helps if you set up a household account but not everyone has that option so the opportunities to redeem are reduced even further.

• TripRep says:

  30 Sep30 September 06:47

  Lol – I love that MLE still retains the holy grail for redemptions. Zero availability and it only flies half of the year

  • BJ says:

    30 Sep30 September 07:14

    Club 58-80 probably has a block booking 🙂

  • Michael_S says:

    30 Sep30 September 07:16

    Haha indeed. I know people who tried to book male 355 days in advance at midnight and were not successful

    I’ve been also trying to book male and cape town for ages, this chart tells me why i was unsuccessful

    You would expect at least SOME availability for cape town during northern hemisphere summer. That is the most shocking piece to me, even more than Male!

    • Genghis says:

      30 Sep30 September 08:03

      That’s why I book CPT at t-355. Fastest finger first.

    • Rob says:

      30 Sep30 September 08:36

      But Jo’burg is fairly open and it is not exactly a tough connection.

  • Tilly71 says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:20

    I find those stats for MLE unreliable as I found CW Seats for 2 x people RTN 10 months out from departure recently.

    • Louie says:

      30 Sep30 September 08:54

      Maybe you picked up someone else’s cancellation?

      • Tilly71 says:

        30 Sep30 September 16:33

        I’ve seen other avios redemption availability not get snapped up for days on that route.
        It’s not the Holy Grail of redemptions, lot harder redemptions around.

  • NvT1115 says:

    30 Sep30 September 09:45

    I have managed to man Male – my tip is have a week or two window if possible and be ready at T-355 online and on the phone

    • NvT1115 says:

      30 Sep30 September 09:47

      * nab Male (autocorrect)

• Ken says:

  30 Sep30 September 07:17

  Absolutely great article – and highlights how useful or otherwise a 241 voucher really is for long haul.

• AJA says:

  30 Sep30 September 07:48

  This confirms what I have experienced and that was without the benefit of the excellent rewardflightfinder website that there is no availability to longhaul places I want to go when I want to go. And I am not limited to school holidays. It’s a lottery.

  I suspect that the availability for the Caribbean destinations is in the middle of hurricane season and who wants to go to Nigeria on holiday, at any time of the year?

  That is why I have used my last two 2-4-1 vouchers on European flights. Better to use it than lose it.

  • BJ says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:12

    +1 on reward flight finder. I don’t do many reward flights nowadays but missed out on our usual Xmas New Year flights after being unexpectedly admitted to hospital last December. Took out the paid subscriptionion for a few months until I got notification of a suitable flight, saved massive amount of effort and got me seats I might otherwise have missed 🙂 I felt a bit bad cancelling after finding what I needed though. Tim might want to think about an annual pass at better rates for people who use it all the time and a rolling monthly pass at a higher rate for people like me who use it only occasionally to help with a specific flight.

• Edd M says:

  30 Sep30 September 08:03

  Sorry to be negative, but this data is too raw to mean much.

  This is showing how many days out of 365 you can get two return tickets. New York has7/8 flights per day, and only one of these flights needs ticket availability to ‘classify’, so no suprise we get a figure of 309.

  Compare that to a 3/week flight – such as Kingston, Jamaica – where there is one daily flight. The figure of 47 thus looks poor at first glance but realistically if BA has a3/week frequency throughout the year that’s actually availability on 30% of outbound flights.

  • Shoestring says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:09

    Gatwick-Kingston – *tons* of availability in Economy & Business in September 2020

  • AJA says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:20

    You may be correct but the other thing to bear in mind is the actual months of availability. I just looked on rewardflightfinder at Kingston and the current availability is only between June and Sept 2020 so not really months you might want to go (August school holidays excepted). In other words zero availability for 8 out of 12 months.

    • Shoestring says:

      30 Sep30 September 08:24

      People need to book T-355 at midnight/ 1am

      Not get surprised/ disappointed when there’s no redemption availability 6 months out

    • AJA says:

      30 Sep30 September 08:29

      My comment above is based on return flights ie availability for both outbound and inbound flights. There is outbound availability in May but you can only return in June which may not work for everyone unless you can afford to spend 4 weeks in Jamaica.

      • Shoestring says:

        30 Sep30 September 08:34

        obvs to give yourself a decent chance you need to book outward @ T-355, wait your 2 weeks or whatever then book the return at T-355, then add them together on the 2-4-1

        if you wait for both outward and return to be bookable in the same transaction, on popular routes you’ve just reduced your chances by anything up to 100%

        • AJA says:

          30 Sep30 September 09:30

          I get that but what it shows is that those 47 days currently available are really not that useful. I wonder how many of the days currently available will actually be booked?

          It also shows that if you have just earned a 2-4-1 voucher valid for 2 years from today and want to go to Jamaica in February you have to wait until mid Feb 2020 to hope availability comes up at t-355 for Feb 2021.

          That also demonstrates why you shouldn’t take the free BA Amex Card as you have no chance of bagging a reward flight to Jamaica since outbound availability will only be after your voucher has expired (assuming you earned it today).

        • meta says:

          30 Sep30 September 11:10

          @AJA My partner bagged 2 seats in CW to Mauritius five years ago with a companion voucher from a free card. It was 340 days out. Admittedly it was quite some time ago. The key was flexibility. I also bagged CW seat to Seychelles on a Lloyds voucher last year. Again we went on a Wednesday flight instead of a Saturday one. It’s all possible, just need to put a little effort.

        • AJA says:

          30 Sep30 September 15:25

          @ meta I am not saying that you can’t book any longhaul flights with a 1yr Amex voucher but your chances are much reduced given the shorter expiry. I would always choose the BAPP card given the 24 month validity and also only having to spend £10k to earn the voucher and the 1.5 Avios per £ spent. I definitely agree you need to be flexible with your options.

      • Anna says:

        30 Sep30 September 08:42

        What a lot of people seem to miss in respect of the Caribbean is how easy it is to get there from the US, as the region is hugely popular with American travellers. It’s perfectly feasible to fly out to NYC or another East coast city in J or F, have an exciting city break then catch a separate flight (possibly using avios on AA) to “the islands”. And if you’re flying from Miami, some islands are only an hour or so away.

        • meta says:

          30 Sep30 September 09:09

          Same with Middle East and Seychelles/Mauritius/Maldives, though a bit less frequency.

  • Rob says:

    30 Sep30 September 08:35

    But it doesn’t matter from the passenger viewpoint. You don’t care how many Kingston flights there are – you just care if you can get the seats.

    • TigerTanaka says:

      30 Sep30 September 09:34

      It matters if you want to try and understand which routes have the highest avios demand or the lower demand routes where BA offers more avios inventory.

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