-
Hi All, apologies if this has already been covered, but has anyone else noticed a noticeable change in Avios reward seats coming online at 00.01 GMT for unsold seats appears to have been removed. I’m also noticing that a rolling 14 days of availability looks like it is being removed also. So if lots of seats were available today for 15 days time, by tomorrow all availability is removed.It’s a huge inconvenience for me. I just bought 150k Avios also to us domestically. Ironic as VS open every seat for redemption no surprise really that BA seem to be going backwards. Just would love to know if this is a conscious decision, permanent or temporary if anyone knows. If BA think it’s suddenly going to force me to pay £607 one way for a 1hr domestic connection, they are sadly mistaken. I fly twice a week and guess what, my last 3wks have been back on Easyjet. Hmmmm
I think I know what you’re saying here, but just to clarify BA aren’t blocking all redemptions within 14 days of departure. There’s loads heading LON-EDI today and tomorrow for example.
ABZ (if that’s your route) does look particularly barren next week Mon-Thurs, but tomorrow or next weekend are good.
If BA believe redemptions on a specific route are cannibalising revenues, then the right thing to do is limit availability in some way, surely?
There is a thread here which states the opposite and that avios availability increases very close to departure as BA tries to fill seats.
Of course it’s all route dependent.
You haven’t even mentioned the route as there maybe specific reasons for it.
Surely the way to ensure an avios seat if you are that regular a flyer is to book them in advance?
I had a booking for 2 x CE seats on an expiring Barclaycard upgrade voucher from Heathrow to Venice in June, but had only booked it as no reward flights were available to Ljubljana (we were staying 4 nights in Bled then 2 in Ljubljana). As an alternative I’d reluctantly planned one night in Venice then the train onward to Slovenia (and already had reward flights booked back from Ljubljana 6 days later). I had Seatspy alerts and was checking daily to see if any outbound Heathrow to Ljubljana CE seats opened up in the weeks approaching departure. Sure enough, 1.5 days before departure they did! I instantly cancelled the Barclaycard Venice booking for 50p each and rebooked for Ljubljana, happy days.
Had good experiences with last-minute bookings (< 1 week). But as “Swiss Tony” says, if the same people are regularly booking routes then they might pull them (at least short-term) to stop canniballisation. Where people are commuting etc. it will change behaviours very quickly.
Personally last minute availability costs me a fortune, as I keep extending holidays or going on weekend breaks 😁
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
