Book now – wide open Avios flight availablity to East Coast USA and Canada in Club World

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• Callum says:

  19 Feb19 February 12:47

  “My gut feeling is that this is a cash grab by British Airways. It needs money, and quickly.”

  I find that incredibly hard to believe… Unless you know something about BA’s finances?

  • Richard says:

    19 Feb19 February 12:52

    Depends how much liquidity the business keeps on hand, but it’s certainly not out of the question they’ve dropped the ball on cashflow and have a potential problem at month end.

    On the other hand, with all the routes suspended to China you’d think that there is less cash leaving the building to pay fuel and other costs on those routes at the moment which ought make this less likely

    • TGLoyalty says:

      19 Feb19 February 12:58

      Wages are still being paid, planes are still being maintained etc

      I know fuel costs alot but imagine the marginal cost of flying a plane you already own/staff vs not flying it isn’t actually as massive as you think all things considered.

      • Russ says:

        19 Feb19 February 13:35

        Now do the math to include parking charges per hour at Heathrow 🙁

    • Callum says:

      19 Feb19 February 13:03

      Quietly releasing CW reward seats to the US East Coast seems like an incredibly random way to organise a “cash grab”.

      • Lady London says:

        19 Feb19 February 13:15

        Not with the level of so-called ‘taxes’ BA now charges on award tickets unfortunately.

      • AndyGWP says:

        19 Feb19 February 17:34

        I have little understanding of the revenue management behind the scenes at BA, but agree this seems a low key / limited audience way of raising cash.

        Maybe a way of testing market reaction in some way? (Similar time the 3000 avios for £300 spend?)

• lebron 23 says:

  19 Feb19 February 12:48

  also beware that seatspy is showing a lot of phantom availability in First on some of these routes.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    19 Feb19 February 12:59

    Seems to be an issue for seatspy and RFF for quite a few months.

  • planeconcorde says:

    19 Feb19 February 14:19

    Agreed, SeatSpy is not reliable. A few days ago I checked availability in J to Miami for specific dates in January 2021. SeatsSpy showed availability. So I when to BA.com logged in as a Silver Exec Club member and it shows no direct flight availability in J for the same dates. So my question is does SeatSpy include connections ( at greater amounts of Avios) or is it showing Gold Exec Club member availability?

    • Sandgrounder says:

      19 Feb19 February 14:39

      Seatspy isn’t live. The seats may have gone since the last data download.

      • @mkcol says:

        20 Feb20 February 09:27

        Well if it’s not live data then it’s as much use as a chocolate thrust reverser.

    • Jonathan says:

      20 Feb20 February 07:24

      There’s no extra Avios availability for Golds long haul unfortunately. Short haul a Gold can book using Avios at standard prices if there are cash fares selling in the V fare bucket.

• Freddy says:

  19 Feb19 February 12:55

  New York has had good availability for quite some time

• sloth says:

  19 Feb19 February 13:22

  can you remind me pls…i know you get a 24hr cooling off period when booking flights for cash only on BA. is it also the same when booking a flight/hotel package? i cant recall but i think i remember it doesnt? thanks

  • Roberto says:

    19 Feb19 February 13:28

    If you phone up to book it you get the cooling off. If you book it on line you dont..

    • sloth says:

      19 Feb19 February 13:43

      great thanks

  • Titus Adduxas says:

    19 Feb19 February 14:25

    I thought you got 24 hours on line too. I’ve certainly cancelled flights with KLM within 24 hours when I realised I’d booked the wrong date.

    • Jonathan says:

      19 Feb19 February 14:38

      For flight only yes but a BA Holidays booking gets no cooling off period if you book on line but does if you book on phone

    • Lady London says:

      19 Feb19 February 14:40

      Apparently not – in the past IIRC 2 reports on here where people had booked BA holidays online, wanted to cancel within 24hrs like you can with a normal cash or avios ticket and founs cancellation wasn’t free of charge within 24hrs of booking

      • Genghis says:

        19 Feb19 February 21:34

        BA holiday terms
        3.3. If you book with us directly on the internet at ba.com or Iberia.com, your contract will come into existence immediately at the time your booking is completed (unless Clause 3.4 or 3.5 applies). Your booking is completed when you see a “Booking Confirmation” page on your screen. We will send you an email or letter confirming your travel arrangements, together with a link to an online summary of your booking that contains a link to these conditions.

        3.4. If you are resident of the United Kingdom and have booked in Pounds Sterling with us over the telephone and your departure date is more than 14 days after the date of your booking, your contract with us will come into force after 24 hours, during which time you are allowed to cancel your arrangements with us and receive a full refund, and will not be subject to any cancellation charges.

        • Shoestring says:

          19 Feb19 February 21:36

          good to know

• Andrew says:

  19 Feb19 February 15:39

  Still doesn’t interest me – seems much better value to buy unrestricted availability sale fares, then reduce by Avios. You make back a bucket load of Avios as it’s a cash fare, and tier points too, if that’s of interest. This and using Avios for short-haul £1 taxes tickets is my strategy now.

• PGW says:

  19 Feb19 February 16:41

  Over the past few years US East coast Avios redemptions have reached ludicrous levels and offering more seats doesn’t come close to addressing that issue for me.

  • Anna says:

    19 Feb19 February 16:55

    I assume you mean due to the “fees” – yes, as long as that element corresponds roughly to the price of a Y ticket at the time I want to travel (peak at present), I’ll continue to use avios for J and F travel, however if they creep up significantly beyond what I consider my cash budget to be (3 x peak Y fares or 2 x Y plus 1 in CW), that could be the tipping point for me.

    • PGW says:

      19 Feb19 February 17:58

      Sorry, yes I am referring to the charges whatever BA choose to call them. I’m reaching the end of what was a very healthy AA miles account now but PHL-MAN for 2 J redemptions costs under £9 with AAdvantage while if I use avios on BA via LHR BA want £1,069. No value there for me.

• John says:

  19 Feb19 February 19:45

  O/T – Hilton website – you used to be be able to search ‘flexible’ and view a range of dates/prices on one page, but this option appears to have have disappeared?

  • Andrew M says:

    19 Feb19 February 22:55

    I had noticed that a week or so ago! Not overly happy about it…

  • Tom1 says:

    19 Feb19 February 23:20

    Still there for me.
    On the date selector, the box says ‘my dates are flexible’.
    Then once you have chosen a hotel, you get the list of 15 dates.

  • TripRep says:

    20 Feb20 February 07:47

    Not on app

    But still on website, I was using it yesterday.

• Simon Barlow says:

  19 Feb19 February 19:56

  any chance this could extended to south america??

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