Reply To: Avios not refunded

[Londonsteve]

I don’t want to disappoint you, but, there probably would have been reward flight availability at short notice. BA tends to add extra availability from T-7 days and often the best selection of available flights is from 00:01 GMT the calendar day before you want to travel. BA uses this as a way of dumping empty seats out the back door without having to discount the public cash fare which can easily upset people who’ve paid a lot more to book months in advance.

The exception to this tends to be guaranteed sell out flights, e.g. next to no chance you’ll get last minute availability to Sydney on December 20, to use a stark example. However, I’ve managed to get last minute availability on some flights I knew would be busy because of the destination and/or time of year, sometimes it felt like I got the last seat on the plane, which I guess is exactly BA’s aim in an ideal world: fill the plane to capacity at the last minute with reward ticket holders if you need to.