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NEW: British Airways cuts Avios seats offered to some partner airlines (so more for you)

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In an interesting move, and one which is beneficial to most of our readers, British Airways has restricted the ability of some frequent flyer programmes to book redemption seats.

Put very simply, it means more seats for you – if you are a British Airways Executive Club member or a member of another Avios scheme – and fewer for everyone one.

Sorry Qantas Frequent Flyer and American Airlines AAdvantage members!

British Airways restricts Avios seats offered to partners

Before I get into how this works, you need to remember that British Airways makes a guaranteed minimum number of Avios seats available on its flights.

For mainline services, this means:

  • four Business Class seats
  • two Premium Economy seats (long haul only)
  • eight Economy seats

These seats are made available for booking on the dot of midnight (GMT) 355 days before departure.

Slightly different minimums apply to BA Cityflyer from London City Airport. Technically BA Euroflyer from Gatwick could also opt out of the guarantee as it is not ‘mainline’, but has not done so to date.

On most flights, a lot of additional availability will come up closer to departure. This may include seats in long haul First Class which are not guaranteed at all.

What is the new situation with other frequent flyer schemes?

What I am about to describe was first spotted by Australian Frequent Flyer. I have confirmed the accuracy with British Airways and have been able to add some more details.

There are lots of frequent flyer programmes which are able to book reward seats on British Airways. BA is a member of the oneworld airline alliance, and all oneworld frequent flyer members have access to BA seats. This includes the huge programme run by American Airlines and several mid-size programmes such as those run by Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Japan Air Lines and Alaska Airlines.

British Airways restricts Avios seats offered to partners

British Airways has created two groups of frequent flyer programmes

British Airways has divided these partner programmes into two groups.

One group contains programmes which issue Avios. This means BA itself, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, Qatar Airways and – from February 2024 – Finnair.

The other group contains programmes which do NOT issue Avios but use their own currency. This includes, amongst others, American Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Japan Air Lines, Alaska Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, SriLankan Airlines, Fiji Airways and – from 2024 – Oman Air.

Only the first group can access the ‘guaranteed’ BA seats

Under the new system, which kicked in recently, the ONLY people who can book the ‘guaranteed’ British Airways reward seats are those in the first group.

This means only members of frequent flyer schemes which issue Avios.

If you are a member of any other oneworld frequent flyer scheme, the only British Airways seats you can book are those made available on top of the ‘guaranteed’ 12 to 14 seats.

Here’s a worked example

Let’s look at flights from Heathrow to Miami on 3rd October 2024.

Via the Qantas Frequent Flyer website, only Economy seat are bookable:

British Airways restricts Avios seats offered to partners

…. but via ba.com, I can also book Premium Economy and Business Class seats which are presumably part of the ‘guaranteed’ availability:

British Airways restricts Avios seats offered to partners

This may not make as much difference as you think

As a British Airways Executive Club member, you have always had some protection from ‘seat nabbing’ by members of competing programmes.

The biggest frequent flyer programme in oneworld is, by a long way, the American Airlines scheme. AA members had three disadvantages when it came to booking BA reward flights:

  • whilst BA Executive Club opens up booking at 355 days before departure, the AA scheme only lets you book from 330 days before departure. This gave BA members a 25 days head-start on the ‘guaranteed’ seats.
  • BA adds substantially higher surcharges on transatlantic flights departing from the US compared to those departing from the UK, making them less attractive to AA members
  • AA does not add any surcharges to its own transatlantic flights, which makes the BA ones even less attractive – but AA opens up virtually no premium cabin availability …..

What I don’t know is whether other Avios airlines are doing the same. It seemed, when Finnair opened up huge amounts of seats last week, that people were struggling to book them with Alaska or American Airlines miles. It is possible Finnair is restricting access to its guaranteed seats to ‘Avios programmes’ only.

That said, I have spoken to Qatar Airways and it has confirmed that it is NOT restricting which airlines can book its ‘guaranteed’ availability seats. Qatar Airways does use other tools to manage reward booking, however, including ‘married segment availability’.

British Airways restricts Avios seats offered to partners

BA has been restricting seats to its OWN members for years

The other point to remember is that restricting seats to specific groups is nothing new:

  • Gold members of British Airways Executive Club get access to far wider BA Economy availability than Blue, Bronze and Silver members
  • members of the British Airways On Business loyalty programme for small businesses get access to far better reward availability in all cabins than standard Executive Club members

Conclusion

If you are reading this as a British Airways Executive Club member then your ability to book British Airways reward seats is now better than it was.

You will no longer be competing with members of the American Airlines and other oneworld programmes for a large percentage of available reward seats.

Don’t assume that this is necessarily a one-way street though. We could easily see those other frequent flyer schemes making fewer seats available to Executive Club members in return.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (76)

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

  • david says:
    6 Nov6 November 08:01

    OT: Rob, I know your swamped but “what is the cheapest way to buy Avios?” article (guessing is a popular one?) is 3 1/2 years old and deserves an update. Sorry.

  • Greenpen says:
    6 Nov6 November 08:11

    It is the reciprocation I would worry about. I use other OW airlines much more than I do BA. Although anecdotal I have noticed that JL F is more difficult to find than a few years back.

    A different point, but what is the obsession of booking near a year away? Nothing I have ever booked has been that far in the future, probably six months at most and usually less than three. Is this done by the Avios billionaires who then cancel as their plans coalesce a few months later?

    • BBbetter says:
      6 Nov6 November 09:03

      All about demand and supply. 4 CW seats on one flight to SIN / SYD – think about the demand during school holidays etc.
      Snooze, you lose.

    • Frank says:
      6 Nov6 November 11:48

      Yes the number of reward seat bookable by avois on Alaska Airlines has dropped dramatically recently.

    • Mikeact says:
      6 Nov6 November 12:16

      It certainly is useful to be able to book 2/3 seats out, and cancel nearer the time. And I guess my cancellations go back into inventory for other members to pickup , a win win.

      • JAXBA says:
        6 Nov6 November 13:56

        “I guess my cancellations go back into inventory for other members to pickup”

        Not necessarily. They may very well just go back into revenue availability.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      6 Nov6 November 14:27

      The people booking a year in advance are those who either want a specific hard to get destination (Sydney and Tokyo for example) and / or are limited to when they can travel (usually but not always linked to school holidays or a specific event)

      They certainly aren’t avios billionairres booking several flight options just for the sake of it.

    • QFFlyer says:
      7 Nov7 November 08:08

      Not sure if it’ll spread, although VS have since stolen the idea, but QF awarding status credits on redemptions on their own metal/coded flights is a huge draw for me to pick QF over a competitor on the same route (e.g. CX on Australia-HKG routes), whereas usually I’d really prefer to try something other than the airline I spend half my life flying on. In that sense though, restricting availability to one’s own members is a good thing, but a race to the bottom, which defeats the point of an alliance.

    • KB says:
      7 Nov7 November 20:02

      No obsession or Avios billionare, just a simple case of planning ahead. I wanted to go to Cape Town in December for a special holiday and I can’t afford Business Class. I saved up my Avios for 3 years, put the ‘reward opening date’ in my diary, and booked long haul flatbed seats on the day they were released. I do the same thing every 3-4 years and enjoy a little luxury rather than long haul cramped economy.

  • LittleNick says:
    6 Nov6 November 08:19

    I feel this is all a bit of a double edged sword and a race to the bottom. Other carriers who have not participated in this tit for tat may now join against against BA Exec club members. Sort of makes OneWorld less attractive.

    “ Technically BA Euroflyer from Gatwick could also opt out of the guarantee as it is not ‘mainline’, but has not done so to date.” Give it time for this enhancement

    • Nick says:
      6 Nov6 November 08:48

      Yes it’s possible that BAEF would opt out but if you think about it it’s unlikely. The money the airline gets from AGL is roughy equivalent to a cheap commercial fare, which is more likely to be sold on BAEF in the first place, so they don’t lose out particularly often. BACF doesn’t like it much because they have plenty of flights that never open below L class year-round, and being forced to offer redemptions on those loses them actual money.

    • Rhys says:
      6 Nov6 November 08:55

      I don’t think BA is the first to do this. Certainly in other alliances its very common.

      • BBbetter says:
        6 Nov6 November 09:10

        Yep, most airlines in *A do this. SQ notoriously restricted premium seats to its own Krisflyer members. But strangely, they recently allowed some of their partners to access those seats who are gobbling up the seats to the dismay of Krisflyer members.

    • Russell G says:
      7 Nov7 November 17:25

      The stronger QatarWorld gets the less important OneWorld becomes to QW members.

  • Dubious says:
    6 Nov6 November 08:28

    ‘On most flights, a lot of additional availability will come up in the period before departure.’
    Pedantic mode: did you mean the period close to departure?

    Not much use having availability in the period after departure.

    • Anthony says:
      6 Nov6 November 08:33

      I think so.. although not really sure I understand why?

    • Rhys says:
      6 Nov6 November 08:57

      ‘before’ seems pretty clear to me!

      • The Savage Squirrel says:
        6 Nov6 November 13:32

        However “period” is not clear. Are we talking the period of seconds before departure or the period of months. Yes I’m being silly by exaggerating, but some sense of timescale would be useful to the Avios newbie.

    • MD says:
      6 Nov6 November 10:12

      @Dubious – Do you really not understand the meaning of the word ‘before’?

      • Danny says:
        6 Nov6 November 13:41

        When is “before”? …Close to departure implies its a few days or a week before. By just saying ‘before’ it can literally mean any time up to T-355 days

  • Definitas says:
    6 Nov6 November 09:14

    AA severely reduced US domestic availability that was bookable for Avios on BA.com when they introduced websAAver fares but blocked access to BA. I used to get my best value per Avios on AA domestic flights. Now they are virtually impossible to find on the routes I fly.

  • David S says:
    6 Nov6 November 09:38

    I have found it impossible to book Intra Malaysia flights via either BA or QR (QR only says it flies between different countries! ). Whereas I’ve had some great deals on Avios using BA on routes that AA flies such as MIA to GCM where cash fares are astronomical. It’s difficult to work out exactly where you can book using each loyalty scheme.

    • Numpty says:
      6 Nov6 November 09:47

      When MAS (MH) joined oneworld the reward availability was wide open and it was a great redemption (e.g. First Class on their A380 from HK to KUL), but something changed and on most flights they only seem to open up one reward seat per cabin per flight.

  • lcylocal says:
    6 Nov6 November 09:38

    Are you sure the BAPP companion voucher can open up extra short-haul availability, I thought it was Club World only, not Club Europe.

    Amex website suggests the same: “British Airways American Express® Premium Plus Cardmembers will have access to additional British Airways Reward Flight seats within business (Club World) when booking with a Companion Voucher, subject to availability.”

  • Andrew says:
    6 Nov6 November 09:54

    It should really be a rule of any major airline alliance that all members should have equal access to any reward inventory. Doing anything else makes a bit of a mockery of the point of an alliance in the first place.

    • Mikeact says:
      6 Nov6 November 12:10

      An Alliance is not just about Reward seats…far from it.

    • Lady London says:
      6 Nov6 November 16:02

      Not really.

      Do you really want 30 million American Express cardholders and 100,000 credit card signup bonuses chasing all award seats on BA from the moment of their release.

    • Hak says:
      6 Nov6 November 18:36

      An alliance does not equate to equality across the board. See for international politics for examples. Hah!

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

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