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My lovely wife decided she’d like to go to Lisbon for the weekend. Managed to get LHR-LIS using Avios and Barclays upgrade to CE, 24 hours in advance. Not necessarily the best use of Avios/vouchers, but the cash cost of doing something last minute is prohibitive.
Not sure if we’re just lucky, or if they release extra seats close to departure. Either way, a good way to spend a few Avios
We all forget some things (including one person in yesterday’s debate), but yes, its an underrated benefit.
Definitely a great perk of avios, especially when U.K. domestic flights are silly prices (and non-refundable)!
Last minute availability for short haul flights is generally very good even for busy dates. They’re dumping unsold seats that they know will otherwise fly empty. Sometimes other than the initial allocation of 8Y and 4J seats that become available at T-355 days before the flight, you might not see any additional availability until 00:01 GMT the day before the flight, although I’ve noticed that availability in J tends to become available a lot earlier than Y. You can usually book Club Europe for a good selection of flights 10 days out while for Economy sometimes no earlier than 00:01 the day before. The risk with waiting for Y seats to become available is that the much smaller Club cabin is by this point reduced in size to reflect the actual load and reward seats are sold out, leaving you high and dry.
Best to book in J if you see seats for the flight you want and if you’re happy to otherwise fly in Y, recheck availability for the day in question shortly after midnight the day before. If there are seats in Y you can book these then cancel your J bookings.
Yes, it’s good. I have done a lot of jiggling recently as we’ve tried to fit in hotel reviews around London commitments. I changed a Barcelona trip last week 3 times as better options / classes opened up on the outbound and inbound in the last couple of weeks.
Last minute availability for short haul flights is generally very good even for busy dates. They’re dumping unsold seats that they know will otherwise fly empty. Sometimes other than the initial allocation of 8Y and 4J seats that become available at T-355 days before the flight, you might not see any additional availability until 00:01 GMT the day before the flight, although I’ve noticed that availability in J tends to become available a lot earlier than Y. You can usually book Club Europe for a good selection of flights 10 days out while for Economy sometimes no earlier than 00:01 the day before. The risk with waiting for Y seats to become available is that the much smaller Club cabin is by this point reduced in size to reflect the actual load and reward seats are sold out, leaving you high and dry.
Best to book in J if you see seats for the flight you want and if you’re happy to otherwise fly in Y, recheck availability for the day in question shortly after midnight the day before. If there are seats in Y you can book these then cancel your J bookings.
Currently have flights home from Athens but not flights to Athens… am going to (perhaps foolishly) use your strategy and hope that BA dumps some late July tickets in a week or so, otherwise it’s extortionate easyjet fares
The other pattern used to be BA opening the IT fare buckets at the last minute, so you could often get a very cheap flight & night in a hotel. Was a while back now but got LGW-GLA, a night in the Holiday Inn at the airport then GLA-LCY the following evening for under £100 by booking as a BA Holiday. There was also something quirky with mixing the London airport as I recall…
Last minute availability for short haul flights is generally very good even for busy dates. They’re dumping unsold seats that they know will otherwise fly empty. Sometimes other than the initial allocation of 8Y and 4J seats that become available at T-355 days before the flight, you might not see any additional availability until 00:01 GMT the day before the flight, although I’ve noticed that availability in J tends to become available a lot earlier than Y. You can usually book Club Europe for a good selection of flights 10 days out while for Economy sometimes no earlier than 00:01 the day before. The risk with waiting for Y seats to become available is that the much smaller Club cabin is by this point reduced in size to reflect the actual load and reward seats are sold out, leaving you high and dry.
Best to book in J if you see seats for the flight you want and if you’re happy to otherwise fly in Y, recheck availability for the day in question shortly after midnight the day before. If there are seats in Y you can book these then cancel your J bookings.
Currently have flights home from Athens but not flights to Athens… am going to (perhaps foolishly) use your strategy and hope that BA dumps some late July tickets in a week or so, otherwise it’s extortionate easyjet fares
You’d likely need to leave it much longer for the glut of last minute availability, which is rather nerve wracking if you’ve got to be somewhere!
I believe the crazy pricing into Barcelona and Athens is one of the reasons Virgin cruises struggle – flights can be as much as your cruise fare!
Currently have flights home from Athens but not flights to Athens… am going to (perhaps foolishly) use your strategy and hope that BA dumps some late July tickets in a week or so, otherwise it’s extortionate easyjet fares
Don’t expect any availability in Economy until 00:01 the day before the flight you’re targeting. If it’s around the time the schools break up for summer don’t expect ANY availability to become available even then as any flights heading to Greece on or around the weekend will be extremely busy and will probably sell out for cash. I’d suggest grabbing a seat in Club Europe as and when it becomes available, probably a week in advance. Check availability first thing in the morning each day from now.
Thanks both. I have alerts set up and I’m prepared to pay full whack if I have to! Can’t find any alternative routings that make sense so I might just end up paying the £500 for both easyJet seats. Praying for a CE miracle in the meantime. And it would need to be a miracle for 27th July to Athens 😂
Needed to go UK-Germany return for a meeting, and by the time all participants were able to agree on the dates, the prices were around £1000 return.
I only agreed to the date because I had noticed that redemptions were possible. I wouldn’t have paid the £1000 but it worked out to around 11p per avios
I’ve booked a number of very short notice Avios tickets recently when the odd flight appeared about 4-7 days in advance. All were in business and no seats other than Avios were available to book. All flights were full on departure. On my last flight, two people had been allocated the same seat so one lucky person got moved upfront and sat next to me, in the last remaining seat on the plane.
@LD27 – yes can confirm both flights were full – 11 rows of CE out and 8 back.
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