mjtoal

Just had a look for availability for a Book and Upgrade (WT+ to CW) for a flight into the NE US, for onward connection to RDU, ideally with AA.

Can't find a single flight to or from ORD, BOS, JFK, EWR, IAD, PHL, and the availability calendars seemed totally barren.

Is this the current state of things, or is it likely to free up a bit? It used to be a lot easier if you were somewhat flexible on destination.

My company uses BA mostly, but WT+, and if I can't get flights using B&U, I won't be travelling as much.

Sixth Freedom

You might find that there is better availability if you just book to a US point and then purchase a separate ticket for the RDU sectors.

Of course this might be risky and/or could be more expensive than you would prefer.

clubman

We like to call that an MFU in these parts, "miles for upgrade"

Good luck!

imarks

In my experience, there's definitely far less MFU availability than usual. My usual longhaul route (operates thrice weekly and currently flying with very poor loads in all cabins) seems wide open on seatcounter.com for many dates during 2010 but I can only find one flight each way that I can MFU to CW from August onwards for the rest of the year! I wonder if this is strike or sale related?

mjtoal

Thanks. I was just looking at point of arrival in the US and will get the onward flights separately

Thanks, MFU it is now.

I have used MFU (thanks, clubman) off and on before but haven't seen a situation where there is not a single flight available any day that month to any of the destinations. There is usually a flight here and there, even a busy times. I checked some of the flights on expertflyer.com and they were showing 9+ seats, the maximum that is visible.

imarks

Lucky you!

mjtoal

Had another look today, and can't find anything outbound to BOS, JFK, EWR, IAD, ORD, ATL, IAH, PHL, YUL, YYC or YYZ in the next month, let alone the dates I need. In most cases there is no outbound availability whatsoever in the next month.

This is a level of unavailability I haven't seen before.

Problem for me is I need to book something soon, and since I use BA in order to get miles to use for this purpose, there is not much bloody point if they have no availability for redemption, and I would be better going with someone else.

BA seems to covet the Club passenger, but what if you work somewhere where the policy is WTP but you want to try to use upgrades?

HIDDY

One reason amongst many for the lack of availability is because many companies are now sending their employees in WT+ rather than CW so I guess many more are now looking to MFU compared to a couple of years ago.

toothy

I think another reason is the Chase 100K offer. I don't know how many people have taken it up but I would be surprised if it hasn't affected availability TATL.


T

HIDDY

Indeed...you only have to look at the Chase thread over on the MilesBuzz forum to see the number of views and posts it has attracted. Nearly 500,000 views and over 3,500 posts.

mjtoal

Not sure about that. I just checked for availability in Club for dates this week, and I could see availability for full miles redemption flights, never mind MFU, to all 6 of the first 6 destinations I tried for the next few days.

On expertflyer, there is plenty of availability on plenty of suitable flights on dates I need, but seems like BA will only release them too late for business travellers who need to book onward flights, which in my case were intended to be with AA in F to preserve silver BAEC status, or hotels.

HilFly

A ton of availability disappeared earlier this year. I can't remember exactly when, but sometime in January or February. I was in the process of booking several WTP to CW MFUs before the Chase companion vouchers for 2009 hit and before people racked up the 30K spend for 2010. I was looking at June/July, September/October and December for BOS - LHR. There was availability on every flight on every day that I looked. I booked one trip but before I could book the others the availability disappeared literally overnight. I think it was removed by BA rather than gobbled up by pax.

It was definitely before the 2009 companion vouchers appeared in accounts.

My experience in having to change the one WTP/CW that I did snag is that there is some availability BOS - LHR but virtually none LHR - BOS in July & August. I snagged one that was available on one day in August but there was nothing in the time frame in which Mr H has to return.

From Expertflyer and from conversations with CS agents, the flights are far from full but nothing is being released for awards.

I've been racking my brains for a reason why it would be in BA's interests to fly with so many empty seats instead of burning up some of their miles liability. The only thing that I could think of was that they removed availability so that they didn't have planes full of award flyers that they had to make costly arrangements for in the case of strikes or volcanoes. They would also have availability to rebook people who chose to give up hope on a summer trip and wanted to rebook for later in the year.