Originally Posted by
chefcfp
Thanks for sharing all this info I have learned a lot the past day reading boards. I have just switched flying on BA as VA has lost all its Scottish connecting flights to LHR. I have purchased a LHR-SFO rt WT plus T class ticket for 18 Jan to 1 Feb and received an offer to upgrade to Club for cash. Is there any realistic chance of using avios for an upgrade in next two weeks? I think its unlikely I will ever get transatlantic award seats as I will never reach gold so am wondering if I will ever be able to use avios for anything but short hops across Europe, which seems like an "expensive" way to use my avios.
It's not as quite straightforward as 'is there a realistic chance'. SFO is a popular route - it's got a business heavy contingent on it too. The factors as to whether you'll see any avios seats in club will depend on what type of aircraft, the amount of seats sold in CW ... the number of avios redemptions already there ... how many seats BA think they'll sell etc.
But never say never - so keep looking each morning and see if it pops up.
On your other point - Gold only helps in that it allows you to redeem in the 'V' economy bucket. This isn't a great use of points across the atlantic because of the relatively high fees. You can end up paying hundreds of pounds in fees running up to similar amounts you'd pay on a straight economy ticket.
On the other hand - using your avios for europe can be very effective due to the low flight saver costings.
An example - One person, in economy to SFO return - 8th April to 20th April (random dates): 41250 avios and £345 in fees OR £695 straight cash. So that's 41250 v £350 or around 0.8p per avios.
Alternatively - one person - in economy to ZRH return - same dates:
8500 avios and £35 OR £149.61 straight cash. So you're paying £114 v 8500 avios or 1.3p per avios value.
I love the RFS European flights - beyond upgrading with Avios out of WTP - it's been my most common usage.
But the point of this being that just because you won't make gold doesn't mean you'll never get a transatlantic avios seat. If you have the points - you can spend them on any First, CW or WTP as easily as a (plain old) Gold can. Gold Guest List is a slightly different matter thanks to their 'jokers' which allow them to open up any revenue seat.