British Airways Doubles Reward Seats
Enjoy more reward seats than ever before.
There are now over 250,000 more reward seats available.
British Airways has announced an increase in the minimum number of seats available for reward redemptions, on all its flights.
For the first time, BA has doubled the guaranteed minimum number of reward seats in short and long-haul Economy and Business class cabins and added a minimum number of guaranteed reward flight seats in World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy).
When booking opens up 355 days before departure dates, at least 14 reward flight seats on long-haul flights will be released. On short-haul flights at least 12 reward seats will be released. This change applies to flights departing from the 28th of July, 2021.
Reward Flight Finder has checked and can confirm that BA has increased availability on flights leaving from this date, even though the time to their departure falls well below the 355 day threshold. British Airways claims to have added an additional 250,000 reward seats to its inventory since May this year. This makes sense, since an empty seat is an expensive seat to fly, for any airline. UK covid restrictions have resulted in BA operating hundreds of flights below their operating capacity, so tempting loyal British Airways Executive Club members back to the skies is an obvious way to accelerate recovery:
“Our Members appreciate the benefits their Executive Club membership brings, but the feedback we hear is that people would like us to make it easier to book flights using Avios. We have listened and acted on this, and today’s announcement directly addresses this feedback, opening up six extra reward seats on a short-haul flight, and eight on a long-haul flight. We hope this means that a family holiday, or that big friendship group trip away, will be much easier to book using Avios.”
Tom Stevens, Director of Brand and Customer Experience at British Airways.
A game-changing boost to the Avios points programme
The following table provides a breakdown of the changes to British Airways’ reward seat availability.
On both peak and off-peak days, the reward seat guarantee applies to all British Airways and British Airways CityFlyer flights in and out of London.
There is still no guarantee of First Class reward seat availability despite the changes applied to guaranteed reward seat allocations in other classes, on flights departing from 28th July, 2021. Nonetheless, a Reward Flight Finder data shows that First class seats are being made available to purchase as reward flights, in far greater numbers than we typically saw pre-pandemic, particularly to long haul destinations, including The Caribbean and Asia.
The increased reward flight availability announced by BA only applies to flights operated by British Airways and their franchisees. It excludes Aer Lingus and Iberia operated flights, as well as British Airways’ partner carriers, like American Airlines.
Iberia has made its own recent improvements to reward flight availability, including an increase in the number of guaranteed economy seats and the addition of two guaranteed Premium Economy seats, available to redeem with Avios.
More Avios points spending opportunities
Reward Flights typically offer the best value for money when it comes to redeeming Avios. In fact often the greatest savings, compared to cash-equivalent prices, are to be found when redeeming Avios for long-haul air tickets in premium cabin classes. However, the historical challenge has always been finding sufficient availability of seats, which can be booked with Avios, on the right dates, for the right number of seats. With BA increasing the number of guaranteed reward flight seats, this should become less of an issue, even as demand starts to return with the increase in fully vaccinated travellers and a corresponding reduction in travel restrictions.
It’s worth noting that an increase in the “guaranteed” number of seats, bookable as reward flights, is not the same as an increase in the total number of available reward flight seats. BA has always released an initial batch of “guaranteed” reward flight seats, on each flight, 355 days before departure then subsequently released more reward flight seats, up to the departure date, depending on forecast sales of tickets bought with cash. However, an increase in the guaranteed number of seats will favour those who like the certainty of booking in advance, want to book flights that tend to sell out quickly or who can only travel on specific dates. Furthermore, it seems in this instance that BA has both increased the number of guaranteed reward flight seats and the total number of tickets redeemable with Avios in its system.
Families. Reward Seat availability has typically been a problem at times when two or more individuals are travelling, particularly for families with children. These extra reward seats should increase the chances of families being able to get reward tickets for everyone in their group.
Couples. An increase in the number of guaranteed reward flight seats will help couples who find it hard to find times and dates that they are both available to travel on, to places they both want to go to and which have reward flight availability. They now stand a better chance of finding and booking their tickets in advance. Plus, the increase in overall availability will make it easier for British Airways American Express cardholders to redeem their companion vouchers, giving them the opportunity to redeem two flight tickets for the number of Avios normally required for just one.
Solo Travellers. This could be what you’re searching for if you’re a solo traveller seeking availability on popular dates.
What are you waiting for?
Reward Flight Finder can help you search and find available reward seats, on your chosen routes, for a full year in advance. If the seats you need aren’t available yet, you can set up alerts to be among the first to know. In short, Reward Flight Finder gives you a better chance to land your ideal reward flight seats.
Then you can go ahead and book them through the British Airways Executive Club website.
