I got onto Avios.com chatline to figure out what's happening with DUB-LON reward availability and they told me that for Nov/Dec they only have 5 of the 12/13 flights available for reward booking and that they are all sold out - not one seat on any day (and they told me there are 8 reward seats on all these 5 flights) - considering how Nov is a "quieter" travel month, it seems incredibly unlikely that not one seat i s available. They then proceeded to tell me that on 1 Jan - there is loads of availability.!! Either they have pulled availability completely or there is an issue in the system ... IMHO

I had an issue yesterday trying to secure a DUB-BRU redemption for next year. All flights showing available with plenty of seats but for some reason the combination I wanted kept failing when I went to confirm and dumped me out on to a screen saying there is no availability for the dates I selected, which was clearly wrong as if I tried a combination on the same day but different times I could get through to the booking window.

Trying BA gave me the option to book the one I wanted but BA wanted an extra €50 in charges (only €50 on avios.com but €100 on BA with same avios required). Tried to call avios but gave up as it was taking too long.

I don't think this explanation is accurate. Theres some system problem more likely the cause imo. Esp when United is showing EI award availability that BA/avios.com is not. Probably the agent you spoke to was just making stuff up.

United awards may be coming from a different bucket. Short haul United awards tend to book into T. They also cost roughly 3x the price in miles (though you may value Avios higher than United miles)

I will also flag that when I originally posted this thread I noted that could see that flights from NOC-LHR had availability on BA/avios every single day exactly 60 days out and not on a single day within 2 months. I just re-checked and that still seems to be the case - I can see availability on most days starting Jan 6th but not on a single day before then.

I still have no idea what is going on or whether this is intentional or not. But I am always wary of complicated explanations by call center agents in the airline/hotel industry because I've found from experience that when they don't know why something is happening, they often just make stuff up rather than admit they don't know.

As follow up - I contacted AerClub directly and got this response:

"Avios redemption seats booked through www.avios.com are available to purchase on routes with Aer Lingus outside of 60 days. "

So it looks like you were spot on with the 60 Days!

Is this a new "benefit" or have i just not noticed this before? Wonder if they are trying to encourage the burning of Avios through the Pay With scheme on main site.

Wow that is a big devaluation in the flexibility and use of avios so!! That was certainly not the case before. Typically I suppose they have removed an option where customers could usually obtain good value from their Avios in booking flights on short notice. I mean last minute was always blocked somewhat understandably (I think 48hours??) but nearly 2 months is a joke.

Yes, a huge devaluation.

Most of my Avios redemptions are (relatively) last-minute. I was able to get home for a funeral earlier this year by making a redemption for travel the next morning, for example

AerClub just got drastically worse 👎👎👎

Not only AerClub, but the redemption availability is not available to BA or IB or other partners either. Shame really.

Wow, that's really strange!

I can't even imagine the logic behind that.

I think I've just gotten done by that. If I'm reading it right.

Was looking at the first weekend of the new year in Paris with a companion 4th or 5th Jan to 7th.. Plenty of seats available on numerous flights last night. Checked with companion. All good. Went to book there now and there's nothing but BA business class.

What the hell?

Yeah you've been done! If you can push the flights a few days you should catch the window. You might be able to book just the return on the 7th but that's probably not much good to you.
Feel free to go shout at EI on all our behalf.

just checked united.com, from the 5-Nov to 9th Dec,DUB-LHR. There is EI award availabilty everyday except for 9 days, and many days have availability on multiple flights. For example, On the 5th of Dec, united are showing availability on 8 EI flights for 4 passengers, 11th nov showing 4 seats available on both the 6:40 and 10:10 flights. 11.5K united plus £8.20 per person.

Why they are making endless flights available on United, but not on Avios....who knows.

Good to see the harmonisation of the Avios schemes is going well…..

This is a ridiculous development. Combined with QR effectively doubling redemption rates and BA increasing fees & charges up the wazoo, the brave new world of Avios is substantially less rosy than was portrayed.

Same. I booked a last minute (around T-24 hours) short haul avios.com redemption in mid Sept so they definitely made the change between then and early October.