Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA Forum dood125. It's good to see you here and please contribute to this resource in future postings too.

I'd first suggest you spend a little while looking the stickies and dashboard. I am highlighting the following thread, even though it doesn't directly apply to your circumstances, purely because it has some good background:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...tart-here.html

followed by this one:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...os-2014-a.html

Now redemption availability comes and goes, broadly speaking it's at it's best 355 days before departure when inventory starts becoming available, also in the 10 days before departure too. In between it can be more difficult particularly if you have one fixed route in mind - Avios work best with flexibility.

Also one of the best uses of Avios is actually buying WTP - ideally in a sale - and then upgrading to CW, using Avios. Now WT to WTP is generally considered poor use, as is getting a plain redemption ticket in WT, unless there are extenuating circumstances (e.g. no Saturday night stay over, flexibility required etc).

But good luck, with perseverance then many things become possible.