One Mile at a Time reports a positive development from the British Airways Executive Club program: they have doubled the number of guaranteed award seats on every flight. Note of course that British Airways award seats come with hefty carrier-imposed surcharges, but it is nonetheless great to see that they will guarantee a certain number of seats are available for those looking to redeem Avios.
As One Mile at a Time reports, short-haul flights will have a guaranteed minimum of:
- 8 Euro Traveller (short haul economy) award seats
- 4 Club Europe (short haul business) award seats
On long-haul British Airways flights, the following guaranteed minimum number of award seats will be available in each cabin:
- 8 World Traveller (long haul economy) award seats
- 2 World Traveller Plus (long haul premium economy) award seats
- 4 Club World (long haul business class) award seats
- There are no guarantees on first class award seats
Keep in mind that these are guaranteed minimums that should come available when British Airways releases its schedule 355 days in advance of departure (which means that some quarter million new seats were added today). Note that they still may release more availability than this — either from schedule open or closer to departure or any time in between — these are just guaranteed minimums.
While the ~$700 in carrier-imposed surcharges each way on business class awards between the US and Europe have been enough to deter me from booking British Airways awards, I am nonetheless glad to see a guarantee like this for those folks who can stomach the surcharges to get their preferred nonstop flight from the US. It can be especially difficult to get 4 award seats in a premium cabin with most carriers, so the ability to fly an entire family up front could make this particularly appealing.
Keep in mind that the British Airways Visa Signature offers a $200 rebate up to 3 times per year when you book an award ticket to London and use your card to pay the taxes & fees. With a guaranteed minimum of 4 seats in long-haul business class on each flight, it should therefore be possible to pick up $600 in rebates on a single flight (Note that I am not sure whether this would require booking the tickets separately).
Overall, this is good news for Avios / British Airways enthusiasts.
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Not that this changes the math too much, but isn’t there an AARP discount for BA? Might help enough for the single traveler
That’s only for paid flights.
All, I usually travel via BA to GLA two times a year. I do go thru LHR because I have to. High surcharges fro sure. My question is the following. In the past I have always used my AA loyalty # instead of BA. Next flight in Sept (hopefully Covid restrictions clear). With the reduced BA status should I switch to using BA loyality or stay with AA and hope that AA does a reduction in June as reported coming? What is the difference between AA and BA for BA flights??
Best use of Avios to avoid the fees is to book a trip somewhere other than LHR, but with a stopover in LHR if you are wanting to spend a few days there.
Did it a couple of years ago to go to Singapore.
sooo, $1,400 r/t in YQ, * 4 pax, offset by $200 in credits * 3. i.e. $5K for 4 upfront. yeah, no thanks.
I don’t disagree. I definitely wouldn’t do it round trip (unless you have more than one BA card in the family) since there is no advantage to booking round trip (use someone else’s miles on the return. I rarely ever book an award as a round trip ticket rather than two one-ways).. $700 x 4 = $2800 – $600 = $2200. At $550 per person plus the miles, that will be acceptable for some. It’s more than I’d be willing to pay, but for others it is reasonable if the other option is buying an economy class ticket for about the same cash co-pay. To me, that’s really the way to look at Avios: like you’re buying an economy class ticket and using the miles to upgrade.