Where has all British Airways First Class Avios flight availability gone?

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For the last few days, ba.com has been showing virtually no Avios availability in First Class for 2019. I sat on the story because I thought it may be an IT glitch, but it does now seem that ‘something’ is up.

The ‘something’ is potentially linked to the Avios and British Airways Executive Club changes discussed here by Alex Cruz, although the problem with that conspiracy theory is that Cruz said that the IT required would not be in place until the year end.

What is odd is that not all First Class availability has been removed.

As of last night, there was still 2019 availability on the following routes (E&OE):

Abu Dhabi
Bahrain
Barbados
Bermuda
Doha
Dubai
Kuwait
Riyadh
St Lucia
Tel Aviv

It doesn’t take a genius to spot the pattern:

Middle East and Caribbean routes retain F Avios availability in 2019

North, South and Latin America, Africa and Asia routes have no F Avios availability in 2019

If you assume that this is not an IT issue and is not linked to reduced availability ahead of a big cash sale (but I normally get notification of those) then you can only assume that British Airways is trying to introduce some immediate changes to Avios redemptions. This would be in advance of the planned bigger moves, presumably ones that can be done now with the current IT infrastructure.

Options could be:

A major reduction in routes with First Class from 1st January (but if it was being cut, the Caribbean routes would be on the list and New York would not, and in any event seats are being sold for cash)

First Class to be relaunched from 1st January as an uber-premium service which will be so exclusive that BA does not want it tarnished by anyone unwilling to pay for it (but, if so, it would be put on the Middle East routes as a priority since BA is losing premium business to Emirates and Etihad, and those are still open for redemption – and anyway, does anyone believe that BA is capable of offering a super-premium First Class service like Lufthansa or Air France?)

First Class redemptions restricted to certain groups only (eg British Airways Silver and Gold members, potentially no oneworld partners or Blue / Bronze) – the issue here is that this strategy doesn’t have any benefit to BA, since BA First Class is not exactly a premium product on the world stage. This also makes no financial sense, because IAG makes a lot of money if a Blue member transfers 150,000 Amex points to book a BA First Class redemption, and zero money if a status member redeems 150,000 miles earned from flying.

‘Dynamic pricing’ to be introduced for First Class ahead of its introduction in other classes (but that would require IT capability which Cruz implied was not yet available)

…. or something else?

Whatever it is, British Airways will need to come clean very quickly as it is now clear that ‘something’ is up.

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.

mike oscar says:

3 Apr3 April 02:18

Don’t seem to find any TLV F availability post Jan 1.
DME too has nothing available!
Steve says:

3 Apr3 April 04:38

As much as I don’t like it the common sense is telling me that it will only become worse before it becomes better.

I mean, just reading this blog and comments here for the past few years, it seems like there hundreds of people with millions of avios, 2+ 2-4-1 vouchers etc. With a lot of time and money to travel x times per year. So what are we expecting? I understand that even redeeming avios make BA some money but surely it isn’t as good as paying cash prices.

It seems to me that they made earning avios and vouchers too easy and the only possible outcome of that is to loose the exclusivity. Something has to give. We live in the capilism. Shareholders wants their money, what ever it takes. We want our benefits.

The solution is simple. Stop moaning, and threatening how you will stop flying Ba and just do it! Stop flying BA. Times change.

It seems like whatever BA changes to the worse, how much they will mess up, people will just put up with it. And even fly more. Because let’s be honest, getting that 2-4-1 voucher is not that difficult for a LOT of people.
- Peter K says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 08:02
  
  It would be interesting to find out in 6 months time how many of the “this is the last time I fly with BA crowd” actually do permanently stop.
  - Genghis says:
    
    3 Apr3 April 08:05
    
    Indeed. Nothing confirmed as yet but if so I look forward to seeing lots more availability on my own bookings…
    - Genghis says:
      
      3 Apr3 April 08:17
      
      Given “change is the only constant” in this game, what “risk management” strategies do people employ? I try to keep as many points in convertible currencies as possible (difficult though as a churner. SPG an option but not without risk) but main one is earn and burn. Interested to hear others’ thoughts.
    - shd says:
      
      3 Apr3 April 10:24
      
      “Lots more availability”? You’re such a joker 🙂
      
      You’ve been around long enough to remember several rounds of BA enhancements. Any of them deliver on the spin? When Golds started paying change fees (2014) the pro-BA crowd expected to see “much better award availability” once those naughty Golds stopped “hogging” the availability.
      
      Didn’t really pan out that way, did it?
  - Catalan says:
    
    3 Apr3 April 08:11
    
    Trust me, they’d continue to fly BA but still moan!
    - Dan says:
      
      3 Apr3 April 08:26
      
      I used to hoard Avios (up to nearly 2m at one point) but I’ve steadily dwindled this down to around 100k being the max I’d keep at any one time in my BA account (couple of last minute RFS).
      
      I don’t churn Amex cards, so tend to keep quite a significant stash of MR points there, which as ghengis mentioned, gives flexibility.
    - meta says:
      
      3 Apr3 April 08:47
      
      Not me. Unless I’m burning Avios, Since BoB, I am actually flying Star Alliance on all short-haul flights. They are actually cheaper than BA on my regular routes. For long haul paid flights, I still consider BA if it suits me time/price wise which is very rare nowdays. I used to hoard Avios, but now it’s mainly earn and burn, but keeping MR and SPG stash.
Mycity says:

3 Apr3 April 06:41

I can’t check but on FT it’s said you can still get F in February to NY going through On Business redemptions.
- Polly says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 07:35
  
  Useless for most hobby air mile collectors…v worrying. Let’s hope it’s a glitch.
  - Mycity says:
    
    3 Apr3 April 07:51
    
    Agreed Polly, the fact that it seems On Business have them and not as you say available for us Hobby Collectors is a worry.
    - shd says:
      
      3 Apr3 April 12:00
      
      OnBusiness redemptions book into a cash fare bucket (A in the case of First redemptions), so saying OnBusiness “still has F redemptions” is currently the same as saying “BA is still selling F seats for cash”.
- HAM76 says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 08:06
  
  OnBusiness doesn’t share the same inventory as Avios and has much better availability. First to JFK on OB is wide open in February 2019 (4 seats per flight). The cost is 34,000 points per person, though, so approximately £37K spent on BA tickets since January 2016.
Steve says:

3 Apr3 April 06:44

Seychelles winter service flights now added in system in the last week starting November 18, plenty of J, no F loaded at all from Nov thru March ????
Wendy says:

3 Apr3 April 07:07

Along with others, if FC awards are gone I will burn our last companion ticket and be done with BA.
- Barnaby100 says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 10:04
  
  Burn as in destroy? As they are electronic that would be messy. Or burn as in use up?
  - Stu N says:
    
    3 Apr3 April 10:40
    
    Burn = use up.
    
    I try to get a trip lined up as soon as I have the Avios and Amex 2-4-1 to do so. Am just at that point in the cycle now – my high balance (by my standards!) plus sudden disappearance of F rewards makes me quite nervous.
    
    Have started to focus more on SPG and Amex MRs as that keeps options open for us if this really is a step change in Avios usability.
Alan says:

3 Apr3 April 08:17

Unless I misunderstood the Cruz article he said that the IT for “Dynamic Pricing” would be in place by the end of 2018. If this is the case could it be that they are holding off releasing First Class redemptions until after this date?
Nick says:

3 Apr3 April 09:09

It says something for the success of this site that my wife and I have gone from aspiring to redemptions in club world, to only redeeming in F as CW is so underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong-CW is a very comfortable way to get from A to B and I think much of the criticism is unfair, but we no longer see it as a treat as we do with F. On our last trip we used a 241 for one leg in F and paid cash to another airline for their J product on the other leg rather than redeeming for CW. Even with a 241, it is sometimes hard to justify CW redemptions when cash fares in J can be so low.

If they get rid of F and or restrict redemptions to places I don’t travel, that will seriously undermine the value of the 241 for me. No complaints – just a shrug of the shoulders and keep an eye out for other ways to travel. I’ve rediscovered the value of European redemptions recently, so avios will still be my main currency for a while.
- Archie Bob says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 10:42
  
  I for one will definitely be changing my behaviour if redemptions in F are no more. Paying £1100 in charges, plus £200 for the 241 voucher, and 150k or so Avios for two mediocre Club World seats won’t be happening. So many better deals out there using both cash and points.
  
  Good luck to those who still see the value in the above or believe that those expressing such views will just put up with it anyway after having their moan. You’re very welcome to all the ‘extra’ availability they’ll now be…
Clive says:

3 Apr3 April 09:43

The current mood feels like an opportunity for VS, if they could announce their own 241 and a decent credit card, to get people to jump ship to them en masses to use the network opened up by AF/KLM.
- Clive says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 09:45
  
  *en masse
- Davide says:
  
  3 Apr3 April 10:55
  
  Yes, I have been thinking this too. If Virgin’s card can match the current BA AMEX offering I can see a lot of people switching as the AF option could be a massive game changer.
  
  The problem however is the economics of it all. How affordable is such a card in a world of 0.3% IC rates? I ask as the majority of us have decent concepts of finance, which means we all clear our balances at the end of the month and avoid F/X fees through certain other cards. Additionally, the majority of us are not loyal whatsoever and churn cards like they are going our of fashion. This is why I think the end game is nigh for people with PAYE wages under £70k, since to maintain profit the credit card companies will either have to cut the sign up bonuses or not allow people to churn. This will ultimately cut the rate massively for people without very high wages/their own companies/do not fly for work as they will only be able to generate enough points for a return J/Z flight for two, every 2 years or so at most.