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Huge amounts of BA US First Class Avios availability released – for the next 45 days

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In our article on the Avios sale yesterday, we discussed some of the weird patterns that we had seen in Avios availability since an IT update on 1st July.

This initially led to no First Class seats being made available, anywhere.

As I said yesterday, availability had started to come back. Last night it came in a flood – but only for the next 45 days and only, I think, on US routes.

Huge amounts of BA US First Class Avios availability released

Here is a SeatSpy screenshot of First Class availability to/from New York, as at 10.30pm last night:

British Airways First Class Avios availability

There are a LOT of seats available on some flights. 6th August, for example, has 4 x First seats on one JFK flight and 5 x First seats on another, plus one or two seats on a further three flights.

Here is Boston:

British Airways First Class Avios availability

Here is Los Angeles:

British Airways First Class Avios availability

The pattern is similar on the other US routes with First Class (this is a HfP-created list, it may not be 100% accurate):

  • Atlanta
  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Houston
  • Los Angeles
  • Miami
  • Nashville
  • New Orleans
  • New York
  • Pittsburgh
  • Portland, Oregon
  • San Diego
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Washington DC

However, when I used SeatSpy to look at non-US routes – Johannesburg, Dubai etc – there has been no mass opening of seats.

If this availability is still there when you read this on Friday morning, you may want to jump in if you want to give British Airways First Class a try this summer.

You can read more about British Airways First in our guide here, albeit this article is three years old. Note that the seat pictured at the top of this article is not actually flying yet!

Comments (84)

  • Whisper2 says:

    Successfully upgraded 2 bookings to NYC this morning to F both ways. Lady on the phone quoted an additional charge of £752 per person which was more than I was expecting (new test online booking was £894 per person, so minus the £375 paid and plus £35 should be £554 per person). I queried it but she said it was correct.
    I went with what she said to make sure I got the seats.
    Two hours later the e-ticket change email came with the correct £554 per person charge. A happy result for BA IT, it does work sometimes. 🙂

  • Paul says:

    So finally found a seat and 160,000 avios is not bad but the near £900 in BAcharges is delusional for BA pretty desperate product. Real costs is around £2500 which compared to cash fares is not so bad but its still a lot for a sub par product.

  • JohnTh says:

    Bagged 1st class return to Chicago mid August! (Are we mad? Years since last visit). What would you say are good areas to stay – central, river or Lake Mitch?

  • ashic says:

    You mean people aren’t paying ludicrous amounts for F to chase 20k points (businesses don’t usually pay for employees to fly F) and the seats would’ve gone empty? Wow… Who could have seen that coming?

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