Has avios.com removed its ‘extra’ award availability?

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One of more interesting quirks of the separate avios.com and British Airways Executive Club schemes is that avios.com had additional reward availability for European economy flights.

This goes back to the days of the old Air Miles scheme, when it was run totally separately from BA Miles. Because Air Miles was designed to appeal to the ‘man in the street’, it was made more attractive by making European economy flights – the core redemption product of the Air Miles scheme – easier to get.

Avios wing 14

This was done by making Economy ticket bucket ‘G’ – one of the cheaper price bands for cash tickets – also available for Air Miles redemptions.

When Air Miles became avios.com, this practice continued. You had the odd situation where ba.com would not show any reward availability but – by using Combine My Avios – you could still book by moving the required points over to avios.com and booking from there!

This now seems to be over.

Various discussions over at Flyertalk, one of which references a conversation with an Avios phone representative, confirm that ‘G’ class availability is no more.

(One extra benefit of these ‘G’ seats, if you got one, was that you would earn Avios points and British Airways tier points when you flew it.)

Whilst I can see the logic for standardising the two systems, this does devalue the avios.com product. By making it harder for low volume Avios collectors to get the flights they want – which will usually be economy European flights – they are more likely to stop collecting.

I understand that a recent BA survey found that under a third of British Airways Executive Club members were happy with how easy it was to spend their Avios points. I have no idea what the figure is for avios.com, but it will be heading downwards.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

matt says:

1 Sep1 September 07:09

This explains some of my recent searches on avios.com! I just presumed loads where high…
Phillip says:

1 Sep1 September 07:12

With regards to earning Avios on the ‘G’ seats – for about a year now (if not more), when booking one of those seats, and even though on BAEC you could initially see that the flight would earn Avios and Tier Points, sometime between booking and flying these would turn to zero and you would end up earning nothing. Not sure if the same would happen if you had your avios.com number instead of the BAEC number.

Also, this disappearance of extra availability seems to have come at the same time as the Avios Flight Finder.
- Jonathan says:
  
  1 Sep1 September 07:40
  
  I agree, it always showed as earning points on the system but on flying, it came up as ineligible for points.
- Rob says:
  
  1 Sep1 September 08:19
  
  A lot of people do get the Avios – if you credit them to Iberia Plus you have more chance of it crediting (although no BA tier points). avios.com also seems to work well.
  
  Not necessarily a fruitful discussion if the seats are no longer there though!
tony says:

1 Sep1 September 07:13

I’ve also noticed in many instances (long haul, booking a long way out) that Avios availability is now worse than BAEC…
Erico1875 says:

1 Sep1 September 07:16

Theres Monarch availability , from Manchester as well as London, for dates in October where there is no BA availability, when I was searching for Malaga flights.
Richard says:

1 Sep1 September 07:22

Darn it.

This was always a great back up for last minute flights to see the relatives in EDI. Next they will reduce the stopover functionality at ba.com to the same 24hr max as Avios!
susan says:

1 Sep1 September 07:25

Drat, for my regular route avios.com availability and RFS meant I would get have no problem getting redemption tickets which BA wanted £400+ for (no avios availability)
- tony says:
  
  1 Sep1 September 07:29
  
  Remember though that the G bucket hasn’t disappeared. So long as you’re booking a return flight, a cheap hotel or hire car booked as a package can get round this problem.
  - andy L says:
    
    1 Sep1 September 07:56
    
    tony – very interesting comment, could you explain why this is the case please (and any other related information) as this (ticket class) is an area many of us HfPers could do with a more informed opinion
    - tony says:
      
      1 Sep1 September 09:10
      
      “G” is a fare bucket normally reserved for group or inclusive tour sales. I also believe it’s what staff hotline tickets book into.
      
      So, what you can find on some prime business routes (where BA reckon if you need to fly you’ll pay whatever they ask) is that although the published fares are only the really expensive ones (like J& C) they will still sell the “G” bucket fares. I recall on one occasion being quoted £250+ for a one way flight GLA-LCY. However by booking a flight & hotel package on BA.com I was able to go LGW-GLA-LCY and get a night in an OK Glasgow hotel for about £160.
      
      Given the value of Avios, this can actually make sense, especially if you actually need the hotel.
  - jamie says:
    
    1 Sep1 September 10:30
    
    I think this is missing the point.
    
    What has disappeared here is the ability to book via avios.com into the G cash bucket using Avios i.e. a redemption that doesn’t rely on (traditional) redemption seats being made available.
    
    Adding a car to a cash booking has nothing to do with this.
john says:

1 Sep1 September 08:17

A BA survey found that under a third were happy with the ability to use Avios? Well, I suppose zero is under a third!
Lady London says:

1 Sep1 September 10:22

So first they introduce amendment charges for Golds, then they withdraw Avios access to G class, what will they think of next to degrade the offering? It’s amazing how quickly they roll the carpet up on loyalty benefits once their business starts to pick up again..
- fuggi says:
  
  1 Sep1 September 12:25
  
  When in actual fact, a company that’s doing well should reward all key stakeholders including loyal customers