How to find airline seat availability using your Avios Points

Posted on September 4th, 2013. Written by bookingbusinesstravel.

You’ve accrued tens of thousands of Avios but can’t spend them?

You never see seats on flight dates that you want to travel on?

We’ve found a solution.

British Airways only offer reward tickets in a very restricted booking class (U class for business and X class for economy).

Very few seats are allocated to these fare classes.

Avios.com however, books economy seats in G class and invariably there are more seats available in this class.

On two trips this year, Berlin and Prague, I found seats on Avios.com but none on BA.com

You need to create an Avios account and you can transfer your Avios from British Airways using a “combine my Avios” function on the BA executive club website.

After logging in to your Executive Account, go to Manage My Booking and in the centre of the page under My Options, is a Combine my Avios option

Here is the direct link to the British Airways page

It makes sense to keep a decent balance in each as there are occasions when BA will have availability. Indeed, I recently had to book Avios outbound and BA.com inbound!

I suggest you transfer now rather than wait until you’re next trying to make a booking as the transfer process may take several days – although mine went through in 24 hours.

Please note that if you have a “household” or “family” Avios account you cannot make transfers in from British Airways.

Once you have an Avios.com account you’ll see additional ways to boost your account. Shell Petrol loyalty scheme and Tescos are my favourites.

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