biertje

I've had a read through the advice, but I'm still a bit confused. Long story short I will be flying out to the US in June/July time with work. Work will pay for a WT+ flight. I have about 300,000 avios so I thought it would be sensible to use them to upgrade to business class. Now I have a few questions for regarding this.
1. Considering work is paying for my base fare I assume it's sensible to upgrade using my avios. Am I correct?
2. As it's booked through the work travel agent, am I then able to pay any differences (I assume taxes?) off my own credit card or will it go through the work one (which is obviously a big no no)?
3.Now the important question: It doesn't really matter which airport I fly into (anywhere West of Houston will do ) and I'm fairly flexible on dates, is there an easy way to just find any flights with upgrade availability? Or will i have to manually go through each flight option to multiple airports?
4. Am I limited to BA or can I upgrade on AA too?

Thanks for any insight.

mikeyfly

eugegall

Use this website. It's just about as easy as it gets.

You can set up alerts too!

https://rewardflightfinder.com

cysyuen

1. I suppose it also depends on wheather it's a day or night flight. I will happily stay in WT+ for day and CW for night flights. Given you can upgrade to CW in any WT+ fare class then yeah quite sensible.
2. There will be difference in taxes and I think you need to pay £100 or so ex-LHR to upgrade. Unsure about the return sector tho. You surely can pay using your own card.
3. On BA website there is a button to feel availbility by month. Just search as normal and the option will appear on the results page!

cysyuen

If you prefer a robot to do the search for you and be able to save the resutls for free then use https://award.flights/!

biertje

Perfect thanks for the tips all

golfmad

One rarely quoted alternative is the reward Reward Flight Finder on the BA App. One of the advantages over rewardflightfinder.com is that you're able to see all the cities in one go. Click on the hamburger in the BA App and select Reward Flights. Touch Go under Reward Flight Finder and put in your search criteria (e.g. From London to North America, the month in question and your preferred cabin). Touch Find Flights and see the cities with availability.

RB211

Never seems to work for me!

rb211.

golfmad

What goes wrong for you? I've not had a problem with it.

RB211

"Sorry, Flight Finder cannot be accessed at the moment."
"Please try again later"
And an "OK" button.

rb211.

rpjepson

This is really helpful, thank you. Im assuming you have to call to upgrade? The website says no, even though there is reward availability.

jfallesen

Bookings through my company travel agent always show as eligible for upgrading with Avios (provided there is availability) but then fails after taking payment information. I then call BA and tell them that I get an error and they can sort it by changing something on the ticket.

Some travel agents may book under special deals that do not permit Avios upgrades but if you call up BA, they can tell you whether or not it is possible.

Andriyko

You are limited to BA flights as your original booking will be made through a travel agent. There can't be flights by any other carrier either (for example, AA domestic flights) as it will make upgrading BA flights impossible.

golfmad

I must be one of the lucky ones then

BertieBadger

I agree that it's a really useful feature of the app (I'm on Android) and not as well known as it could be. The ability to search areas or countries at one go is very helpful I find.

It usually works for me, I occasionally get the error reported by RB211 but it seems to go away and return to working in due course - certainly I've never done anything to fix it, such as reinstall etc.