SeatSpy showing incorrect availability and Avios values?

[stmiche]

I recently subscribed to seat spy after reading about it on this website.
Currently just browsing for return seats LHR Tokyo in April – May.

First question : Seatspy shows very limited availability. Only a few days outbound and none inbound.
When going on the BA website, I have plenty of availability on multiple days and multiple flights per day.

Second anomaly : Avios needed 1 way on Seatspy is 19500 , however on BA its 35000 (Off Peak – Reward seat – one way)

I’ve tried other searches on different months, and the same 2 issues persist.

If the seat spy website is so wrong on availability and Avios values, I dont really see the point of using and paying for it.

Do I see this wrong?

Thank you

[JDB]

Two issues, if you are using a new Amex voucher you will see Club World extra availability on BA that neither SeatSpy nor any other service of this type can see. On pricing, since the RFS changes it has become more complicated as Avios pricing can depend on a variety of factors – whether your account is eligible for RFS, whether using old or new Amex voucher, Barclays voucher etc. SeatSpy is great!

[stmiche]

I am not using an Amex voucher or any other vouchers.
Just plain Avios from my Exec account and this is only looking at regular economy seat.
I’ve tried various options to get to the 19500 Avios needed one way, which seat spy claims and there is no way.
I can understand a small discrepancy but not between 19500 and 35000.

I also saw on the daily chat that someone equally has issues with Seatspy.

Not impressed at the moment.

[nectar collector]

On BA, you’ll be offered several different Avios/cash combinations……the default one they show is max Avios, min cash, but if you choose ‘see other pricing options’ you’ll find them, including the kind of mid rate one that Seat Spy mentions?

[NorthernLass]

Seatspy is best used for availability of award seats, not costing, as it’s very difficult to say how many avios/cash anyone is going to be paying these days! I don’t think they’ve ever agreed to provide correct pricing, plus it can’t even guarantee to know peak/off peak dates as BA doesn’t release these until after some of the redemptions are loaded.

Which route is that on, @stmiche?

[stmiche]

@Northernlass understood on costing.
I am going to ignore that going forward.

Route is LHR to HAN

As you can see , hardly any availability in April outbound and none in April inbound – this does not match what I can find on BA website.
There are plenty of options in regular economy, almost every day.

[Froggee]

I take it you mean HND?

I don’t suppose you’re BA Gold are you? I just checked and could see loads of availability when I logged in with a cheery message that they’d made extra seats available because BA loves me so much.

Then I checked under Mrs Froggee’s BA account (she is now a lonely bronze) and she could but see the same single seat on the 24th of April flying to Tokyo that Seatspy shows.

[stmiche]

Hi @Froggee,
You are right on both accounts, it is HND and I am Gold.
So that explains the additional availability.

However, this makes me wonder if Seatspy is beneficial to me if I cant count on costing and availability.
There is perhaps little benefit for a BA Gold unless someone can point out what these are?

[TGLoyalty]

Seatspy is great for seeing the standard Avios availability

If you’re will to pay double for a gold reward or have a voucher then you have to go the old fashioned way via website and find flights that work for you

[Froggee]

Costing doesn’t matter. The price is the price. If there is somewhere you are keen to go to, you can find out the price easily enough by doing a dummy booking on BA.

Availability is the issue. If you’re only looking to fly economy (and will remain gold) then Seatspy probably won’t be of much use to you. If you’re using an Amex 241 voucher and are hoping to access the added availability in I class then Seatspy will be of zero use to you.

So it depends what you’re looking for.

A random example from me – I wanted flights to Marseille for the rugby World Cup and failed to get my preferred ones at midnight 355 days beforehand. Beggars can’t be choosers so I booked the 7:10am ones (in club Europe).

I set a Seatspy alert on the off chance that someone cancelled the flights they’d booked and after several weeks I got pinged on WhatsApp. By a happy coincidence the seats that had come available were for the 9:25am flight (in economy).

Cancelling the 7:10 flights will cost £35 per pax but is well worth it to me for two hours more in bed. And I’ll actually be saving “money” as the economy flights were cheaper.

But Seatspy got me the flights I wanted and that in itself is well worth the annual subscription to me.

I’ve also had success when pinged by them when BA opened the floodgates on US west coast availability. I might have spotted that one by myself but that’s a family of four in business class on our choice dates for Easter.

So it’s down to what you will be using it for.

I’m currently happy paying but I can understand some people would not be.

[NorthernLass]

I think I’ll keep it going forward as I can search for BA seats and also VS from MAN. I was able to change MIA-LHR-MAN to MCO-MAN a couple of weeks ago at very short notice which suited us better by checking SeatSpy once a day. Just need them to add QR now!