Availability alert now available in Avios app

[phil]

Not seen any reference to this yet in the forums – apologies if it’s already been mentioned. There is now a feature in the Avios app to set up an alert to be notified when reward flights become available. Will be interesting to see how this compares to reward flight finder (e.g. which will notify first?!) Doesn’t seem to be an option to be notified of any of the “extra” availability that may open us to those holding a BA Amex premium plus card. That would be an excellent additional feature!

Phil

[Damian]

Yes, I noticed this a couple of weeks ago. I have set up a couple as a test to see how it works. I guess it might make Seatspy and Reward Flight Finder redundant for B.A flights.

[dannyhk]

I can’t find this? Is it in the Avios app? Or the BA app? And where?

[executiveclubber]

dannyhk wrote:

I can’t find this? Is it in the Avios app? Or the BA app? And where?

Avios app, tap Spend, tap the notification icon in the top right. Not massively intuitive but it’s there!

[Gosia44]

Not at all intuitive.. I could not set a date range, only a specific day for the notification. Cannot see it replacing SeatSpy.

[executiveclubber]

Gosia44 wrote:

Not at all intuitive.. I could not set a date range, only a specific day for the notification. Cannot see it replacing SeatSpy.

It’s ran by IAG Loyalty which, despite being exceptionally profitable, is just inexcusably bad at all the bits that matter: they seem to never do proper competitive analysis before releasing their half-baked ideas as products. I mean, they have all the tools and analytics at their disposal. It beggars belief. They also run Avios Hotels (poor marketing, interface & customer support).

[JDB]

executiveclubber wrote:

Gosia44 wrote:

Not at all intuitive.. I could not set a date range, only a specific day for the notification. Cannot see it replacing SeatSpy.

It’s ran by IAG Loyalty which, despite being exceptionally profitable, is just inexcusably bad at all the bits that matter: they seem to never do proper competitive analysis before releasing their half-baked ideas as products. I mean, they have all the tools and analytics at their disposal. It beggars belief. They also run Avios Hotels (poor marketing, interface & customer support).

Well, Amadeus which is an IT company and the one behind many airline IT messes can’t manage to operate CheckMyTrip properly (having actively worked to kill MyFlights) so why you expect IAG Loyalty to do any better?

[dannyhk]

executiveclubber wrote:

dannyhk wrote:

I can’t find this? Is it in the Avios app? Or the BA app? And where?

Avios app, tap Spend, tap the notification icon in the top right. Not massively intuitive but it’s there!

Sorry. I must be dense. But I still can’t find this anywhere in the Avios app? I presume the notification icon is the little bell icon in the top right? The one inbetween the heart and the 3 horizontal lines that bring up a menu? (wish there was some way to upload a screenshot).

When I click on the bell icon I just get a list of Latest Notifications with no way to add any kind of availability alert.

What am I doing wrong?

[executiveclubber]

Have you tapped Spend first, and then the little top right icon that says “Alerts” – under the notification icon? If it’s not there, you might need to double check you’ve got the latest app version.

[freckles]

When I go the app, and click Spend, I now have an icon just below the little bell thing that says very clearly ‘alerts’ – that’s where you set them.

If you don’t get that, try updating the app

[aq.1988]

If it doesn’t come up immediately, you could click on a date that doesn’t have availability in your chosen cabin, and it should let you set an alert.

[dannyhk]

executiveclubber wrote:

If it’s not there, you might need to double check you’ve got the latest app version.

Many thanks, it was indeed a case of needing to update the app. Have now replicated my SeatSpy alerts in the app, so will be interested to see which one is faster in alerting me to any available seats.

[Maples]

This is great, thanks!

One gripe (looking at flights to Tokyo) is that there’s no business class seats left. I cannot set an alert because I cannot even pick the business class seat option to start with.

[danimal]

It’s very clunky. Much prefer Seat Spy. Some of the buttons are barely visible on Android. You can’t set an alert if there is a flight on the same day with availability and you want a different flight.

[dannyhk]

Maples wrote:

This is great, thanks!

One gripe (looking at flights to Tokyo) is that there’s no business class seats left. I cannot set an alert because I cannot even pick the business class seat option to start with.

Choose the option to view availabilty for a whole month, you should then be able to create alerts for individual dates within that month even if there are no seats left for your preferred date (at least that’s what I did)

[dannyhk]

danimal wrote:

It’s very clunky. Much prefer Seat Spy. Some of the buttons are barely visible on Android. You can’t set an alert if there is a flight on the same day with availability and you want a different flight.

Entirely agree, and its a very painful process replicating multi-day/multi-cabin alterts from Seatspy day-by-day and cabine-by-cabin in the Avois app.

But it will be more than worth the extrq hassle if the Avios app turns out to be faster than Seatspy in alerting you when a seat becomes available? Does anyone have any data points on this yet?

[Dom]

Maples wrote:

This is great, thanks!

One gripe (looking at flights to Tokyo) is that there’s no business class seats left. I cannot set an alert because I cannot even pick the business class seat option to start with.

For outbound LHR-HND there are a few seats now available on 27/12/2024, so you can now select the business class seat option and set alerts for the outbound for other dates (whilst those seats last).
Interestingly seatspy shows no availability on that date, checking with a test booking it is the Avios app which is correct and seatspy which is wrong in this case.

[Maples]

I managed to do it at 2am to set an alert.