Are you sure you have sufficient Avios in your BAEC account? 2 x CW / CE return tickets will be 231,000 Avios off-peak and 276,000 peak (PHL-LHR-BSL, BSL-LHR-PHL). If you don't have enough the reward flight page won't give any availability.in CW but will show economy.

Quick side Q, Sir. At that ungodly hour, does the Gold line connect to India? I’d be barely functional at that time anyway, and fighting language barriers and the risk of an unskilled Agent is a bit worrying!

I had many positive experience with the Indian call centre and I doubt it can be a problem to book a simple Avios award. I don’t think the UK gold line automatically will connect at that time but there are local numbers you can call.

:confused: I just searched for 2xF return LON-SCL return and it showed me availability - even though I'm almost 400k Avios short. I'm even too far away from the fewest Avios/most cash option to be able to purchase the shortfall.

I stand corrected.

I just checked the OP's route PHL-BSL via LHR outbound 10 Nov 2020 return 24 Nov 2020 and found availbility in Club for 2 passengers costing 251,000 Avios + an eye-watering £2,079.82 in Taxes Fees and Charges return even though I am a few thousand short of 251,000 Avios. It also showed availability in First for those dates.

If you’re looking for flights on release at T-355; that happens at midnight GMT all year round (so 01:00 BST during UK daylight saving time). Best to be on the phone a few mins before if the transaction can’t be done online (guessing a 2-4-1 is involved).

Two weeks ago the Gold line did indeed transfer to India at midnight. A very competent and personable agent handled my booking successfully and, when the line dropped, called me back immediately. Perfect service standards.

Thanks to all those whop have reassured me ... I'll try to remember to report back in a week's time!

Happy Christmas and Safe Travels in 2020.

It is well reported in the other midnight release threads, but one thing some FTers do is call the USA number on Skype or similar VOIP providers, since they are still open, and generally it will be handled by the Newcastle Contact Centre. The alternative is the Singapore or Tokyo number (which is handled by Hong Kong). There are some differences about this in terms of daylight saving time (which the Tropics don't need to do) so best researched a bit before the calling time. For many routes it's not necessary, but for CPT, MRU, SEZ, SYD it's probably worth doing.

An update...when I was making a choice using booking via Avios the drop down box showed ONLY Economy, however, I decided to proceed and, lo and behold, when it went through it machinations it DID show the other classes for my itinerary.
Again, I thank everyone for their input and, in particular, for the couple of tools mentioned which I have used and have found to be EXTREMELY USEFUL.
Merry Christmas everyone and thanx for your help.

If you type in the origin or destination airport and don't then select the auto-complete option it offers you it will often only allow you to select economy to search for. By that I mean you type in LHR for example and then don't click to select "London Heathrow" or whatever the form loads up. You just need to wait a couple of seconds

If there is only availability in one direction, how does one go about getting a one way redemption and paying for the other leg? Can't seem to work it out, and it's the first time I'm confronted with the possibility of doing this. Can this be done on BA.com or is it best to call up?

As such it can't be done, you can't mix redemption and revenue tickets, they are internally structured in a different way. Having separate tickets is a risk flying in one continuous trip, but if you are going to Place A, stay there a few days, return home to B, then having separate tickets isn't much of a risk.