Sea2Lhr

I have been looking for a transatlantic award in J for next September (330 days out) and I am not seeing anything on BA, not even Y class. Is this an Alaska IT issue, or is BA holding back award seats?

aCavalierInCoach

Keep looking. I found I had to wait about two weeks from the booking window for some award space to pop up. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes it never shows up -- but it is increasingly rare to see it right at the 330 day mark for BA and frankly most carriers. FJ is the only airline that seems to be reliably opening space at the window.

SF1K

It probably has more to do with BA opening earlier than 330 but you can’t book with AS miles until 330. I think BA added a rule where they release at least 2J and a certain number of PE and Y Award seats on each flight.

enzian

BA Executive Club members can book award seats at T-355 days, when they are released. The J seats (2 to 4 on each flight) on popular routes (like SEA to LHR) during peak travel season (May through September) often get snapped up that day or shortly thereafter.

Looking on BA.com, right now there are J seats left for one or both of the SEA to LHR flights on Sept. 18-19, 21-24, and 26. But right now the Alaska booking system ends on Sept. 9. Maybe those Sept. 18 J seats will still be there in 9 days—-it is worth looking.

CX860

I was seeing BA intra-Europe availability until about Friday night for September (usual 330 days from departure) but it seems to have all vanished and availability is only up to end of July now. Does anyone know what happened there?

CX860

I was looking at redeeming a LIS-LHR-BNA ticket in early September on BA and there was generally availability on the LIS-LHR leg late last week but over the weekend, the inventory seems to have been generally removed (last date there is a seat is 25 July and I find it a bit hard to believe that over the weekend every seat from 25 July including all of August got snapped up on LIS-LHR...). Does anyone know if there a change in policy or something (like introducing blackout dates on certain routes)? I tried looking at a few other ones like MAD-LHR, BCN-LHR and FCO-LHR and I don't see anything either the week I am looking at.

eponymous_coward

AS never formally announced BA availability intra-Europe. Up until fairly recently you would not have gotten any search results for intra-EU BA awards.

That being said, enjoy, it's not a blanket block.

notquiteaff

Does AS.com still have pages that spell out what regions are allowed for a given partner’s awards? I looked around recently and right now and can’t seem to find them anymore. May be explained by a lack of coffee..

But in any case, not allowing intra European flights on a partner like BA makes little sense, especially now that they are part of OW.

Flying for Fun

No such list exists anymore.

I did post about the BA awards no longer being tied to NA. You can redeem AS miles on flights to/from EU, ME, Africa & Asia. I haven't seen anything to AU. You can even book through UK to other regions like CPT-LHR-AMS or CPT-LGW//LHR-DOH.

Similarly, you can redeem awards on JL TYO to/from AU, EU, & UK; no longer just Asia/Subcontinent

There was, as usual, a lot of availability on BA when I first noticed. That has since dwindled, but could be the result of updates to booking functionality or dynamic pricing. I didn't see any awards strickly within the UK.

I haven't seen any changes to CX or QF yet. When QF is "enhanced," I suspect other regions will become available independent of an NA award like AU-NZ/Asia/ME/UK/South Pacific. Maybe even AU-South America.

CX will likely be "enhanced" as well. You could always book CX to/from AU/ME/ASIA/South Africa with or without a NA O/D but all awards outside of Asia terminated in HKG if not to/from NA. CX to EU/UK was also available but as standalone only; NA O/D required two awards. I think we may see the HKG terminating restrictions lifted and options like DXB-HKG-SYD/TYO open up.

James

Omnivore

It’s been feeling very difficult to get anything anywhere above Y, especially for me looking for two.

eponymous_coward

I am sad, SYD-SIN-SYD on BA would open up some options.

Not seeing much J TYO-AU though.

WrightHI

Just got 2x UK-West Coast for next May over the weekend, which I really wasn't expecting. (Also surprisingly good flights/cost from Flying Blue for the outbound.)

Flying for Fun

I have only seen a couple JL TYO-SYD options, one in J. I have also seen JL J LHR/HEL-TYO. The infamous LHR APD results in significant fees & Taxes for JL departures. My approach would be to find HEL-TYO 70K + $71 and then either purchase a BA repositioning flight or a Y award to HEL.

I am not sure I would redeem 7.5K & $47 LHR-AMS which I would value at $197. Flying in the EU & UK is pretty much crap anyway (sans AYs A350 LHR-HEL service, 20K in J). I would just buy a cheap non HBO fare and as a OWE would still get First Wing security, F lounge access, able to select exit row seating at booking which has more legroom than CE, 500 AS EQM & 1250 RDM. That is a $25 rebate. I did that to reposition LHR-IST. Last minute purchase was $152.

For AU-SIN SQ was always an option before. SQ never showed in the region maps for AU-Asia. SQ only showed up in the Asia-South Pacific regions, but included AU. It was 65K for AU/NZ-SE Asia, but no SIN stopover was/is permitted. I know we haven't seen SQ awards in a while, but some did briefly show (less than a day) about a month ago, even Inter-Asia J at 20K. It may be that SQ awards are off-line as AS renegotiates their partnership.

James

Repooc17

I am not sad not seeing BA award on AS site. Not also is it cleaner from a search results POV, the amount of surcharge is insulting. Ironically, it's called an award flight.

eponymous_coward

I don’t mean to imply that the redemption is good value, but merely to rebut OH NOES SOMEONE IS BLOCKING ALL INTRA-EU REDEMPTION ON BA USING AS MILES.

Frankly everything AS gets is leftover slop, BA and some other OW programs got nearly a month head start booking those awards.