Avios availability over Easter weekend

[MarkC1978]

Hi,

Apologies if this has been stated or explained previously, I haven’t been around for a while.

I am looking to use my 2-4-1 to travel to the US, tried ten different cities but couldn’t find one city available to travel to with return business or first in April/ May. I realise that I am leaving this late but normally in the big cities its generally ok for me historically. This was on the BA website and Seet spy.

Is this due to the seats not being released yet or are they likely to have been taken and I’m too late?

Thanks
Mark

[The Savage Squirrel]

There is a fair bit. In Biz for roughly 14-day breaks in early May for exaxmple: have a look at Washington, Houston or Nashville. Boston has a ton of availability; nearly every day.

Seatspy “where can I go” will give you a decent overview in 2-week chunks.

[MarkC1978]

Thanks for the reply, sorry, I must have deleted the last two sentences.

We are limited on dates to 14th / 15th April outbound and the only F available was Nigeria on both days and nothing in Business either. The 16th has Business available to Boston but nothing else.

I have not seen that before where over a 2–3-day period there is no availability in business to major US cities. I must have been spoilt!

Virgin availability is far greater for the same period.

[Reney]

MarkC1978 wrote:

Thanks for the reply, sorry, I must have deleted the last two sentences.

We are limited on dates to 14th / 15th April outbound and the only F available was Nigeria on both days and nothing in Business either. The 16th has Business available to Boston but nothing else.

I have not seen that before where over a 2–3-day period there is no availability in business to major US cities. I must have been spoilt!

Virgin availability is far greater for the same period.

I couldn’t find anything in May for Virgin but I had a specific set of cities in mind, ended up finding something on BA instead.

[NorthernLass]

You’re travelling on Easter weekend so I’m not surprised there’s no availability, it’s also in the school holidays for many people and a prime time for travel. These are the kind of dates early booking is essential for, and why we’re up at midnight at T-355!

[NorthernLass]

Having said that, Reward Flight Finder, though not always reliable, is showing 6 CW seats to NYC on all those dates.

[memesweeper]

It’s not just BA that have low availability 2 – 4 months out in premium cabins. United have almost nothing to or from the west coast.

[zio]

MarkC1978 wrote:

We are limited on dates to 14th / 15th April outbound and the only F available was Nigeria on both days and nothing in Business either. The 16th has Business available to Boston but nothing else.

Lots of F cabins have been retired during the pandemic. This will be putting additional pressure on J availability.

15th April is Good Friday so you are restricting yourself to a peak weekend.

Keep checking, though. I hope you have luck with finding suitable availability opening up.

[The Savage Squirrel]

Not sure I’d be looking at First. BA aren’t releasing much anywhere because they want to limit downgrade liabilities in the event of equipment changes etc; and then you are travelling on super-premium dates.

Availabilty in Biz into Chicago on two of your dates which should get you connected pretty much anywhere in North America you want to go…

[SteveJ]

Chicago and Montreal. No point looking for first availability as seems they’ve changed the planes being used so just focus on biz.

[MattB]

2 seats to Houston in F on the 15/4 currently showing

[MarkC1978]

Thanks for all the replies, appreciated.

Ended up with a F to Washington and upper class return from Bahamas, other half happy so easter is saved 👍

[zio]

Great news. Thanks for reporting back, and have a great holiday.

[NorthernLass]

Sounds like a great trip and you have 3 major airports in that area which should give you plenty of connecting options.