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Been looking at several routes I’d actually like to fly ex-LHR, e.g. with BA direct to SIN/SYD or HND or KUL or HKG, with QR via DOH to similar or AKL or MEL.
Hardly seeing any availability for Jan to Mar 2026. Exception is a load of QR DOH-AKL seats that seem to have appeared recently for January, but there are no QR connecting flights from the UK available, so you have to go via/start in HEL or similar and the Avios cost jumps from 90k each way to about 175k each way 😮 .
Am I just unlucky/incompetent at searching or is there a real drought out there ? About 500k Avios to burn from refunds of other flights I couldn’t take last year plus a few Amex SUBs, and increasingly nervous about possible devaluation…
It’s BAU for those destinations except possibly KUL.
Particularly at any time after the first hour any award seats became available to book on any particular date ~355 days ahead, to those destinations. And more so (if that’s possible) if you want to fly to those in the early part of the date period you mention.Can’t just rock up and get unicorn redemptions I am afraid. It takes speed, luck and good tech.
Yeah, I’ve hooked LHR-SIN-SYD a couple of times like that, once online and once by calling, but what I’m saying is that in previous years there just seemed to be more dribs and drabs of extra availability coming on during the year, especially with QR, but so far in 2025 I’m not seeing it.
Maybe I should sign back up to seatspy, but I gave it up a year or so ago because it was unreliable: https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/seatspy-not-accurate/
I found seatspy unreliable as the free Avios one gave me a notice 4 hours earlier. I suggest search BA flights via flighttimecalendar. Easy.
@occasionalranter drop me an email if you want access to Alerts on FlightTimeCalendar – my handle at flighttimecalendar.com
You might be seeing “flexi” availability on QR which they charge at double avios pricing.
There has been massive demand for the BA “unicorn” routes for the past year or so, and they’re getting snapped up at T-355 as the long thread on booking with the 241 can attest to!
You might be seeing “flexi” availability on QR which they charge at double avios pricing.
I’m looking at it initially via aa.com as it shows a month at a time for non-BA flights, then confirming via ba.com. I think it’s at normal pricing: 70k off peak, 94,500 peak.
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