Finding oneworld availability to use Avios

[S879]

If you can find a reward flight available on say Qatar Airways, Qantas or AA’s own websites, can you ring BA and try to book that flight or does ba.com need to show availability? I can see different availability and the one I want is not showing on ba.com.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

No.

BA only shoes the availability that it has been given

AA for example only allows BA to sell its lowest level of reward flights and once those go that’s it.

[S879]

Thanks, that makes sense re BA showing lowest level of reward. While booking flight to Australia I wanted a longer transit in Doha so I called BA and they had other QR flights showing on their system (that were not showing on BA). They had to send them off for pricing to QR and not surprisingly, they came back much more expensive. So I think it may work for Avios rich people who wouldn’t mind paying a bit extra for a more convenient flight. I wasn’t sure if Qantas and AA followed the same rule or not.

[ekposh]

QR availability should be the same on BA with the exception of Flexi – which is double miles and only available on QR.

So BA and QR should have the same basic reward availability and then the Flexi “double miles” option is only available via QR and not BA.

[ZW]

Sometimes it might be bad IT. I previously booked BA avios flights on Finnair twice when there were avios tickets available on Finnair but not showing on BA.

[DonLee]

Just booked 4 J tickets from SIN-MAN next summer holiday with Finnair. No single seat was available on BA site but easly move avios from BA to Finnair for booking

[Dave1895]

Hi @ZW and @DonLee, do you think BA will honour these bookings made on FinnairePlus when there was no availability on ba.com for the BA flight?

@DonLee I appreciate you’ve only just booked this… So well done, and good luck!

@ZW when you booked this way twice before did your flights all go through fully ok in the end?

Thanks!

[Rob]

I booked a Qatar Airways ticket last year for my wife that BA was showing but Qatar Airways itself would not show. No problem flying it.

Bottom line …. if you can book it via Finnair, if it tickets, if you can select a seat at ba.com …. it’s fine.

[zapato1060]

@DonLee regarding moving Avios to Finnair, note that taxes are much lower booking via BA. Example. HKG-HEL via Finnair £119 in taxes and via BA £34.

[DonLee]

zapato1060 wrote:

@DonLee regarding moving Avios to Finnair, note that taxes are much lower booking via BA. Example. HKG-HEL via Finnair £119 in taxes and via BA £34.

There could be difference in tax. Also Finnair will have higher cancellation fee compare to BA. However, I think Finnair has better availabilities on its own flight. There were 2 J seats almost everyday in next Aug for SIN/BKK-UK. So I am happy to book through them.