dislikeofturningright

I thought it would be interesting to open a discussion around the T-355 day setup which is the earliest point in which you appear to be able to book a BA flight (and I think other airlines).

Originally, in 2019 I had booked a holiday to RHO for May 2020 (flight booked separately as I wanted to use Avios). Due to COVID, I cancelled the trip and a couple of months later (in June) booked pretty much the same trip 12 months after the original booking (for May 21).

Last week unfortunately BA cancelled that updated flight booking (with much more notice than in 2020) and I have been considering my rebooking options.

Like many people who love flying and traveling I am craving for a getaway. I am likely to be (and probably rightly so) in the final group offered the COVID vaccine in the UK and I am hearing more and more about vaccine passports being the only was to avoid destination quarantine aboard, (quarantine after an outbound flight) - which for a holiday makes a trip not a practical or enjoyable option.)
Given this situation, I share the view of many, that travel in 2021 is sadly looking less viable, at least for my situation, and therefore rebooking my RHO trip even for later this year would be unwise. I am therefore hoping to delay my planned trip for a further 12 months.

My challenge is that whilst the hotel is willing to accommodate the change now, I won’t be able to rebook flights and confirm the full change until June.
Whilst I am confident that the flights will become available, it would be much more convenient to rebook it all at once now (saving having to get everything refunded and rebooking once flights are available etc).

This got me thinking as to why 355 is the magic number?

As well as allowing for a longer planning horizon which maybe good for the traveller right now, could it not also be for the airlines in situations like this?
Could it not improve their immediate cash flow and longer term business outlook?
Perhaps, given initially these would be flights in lower fare buckets, it is not worth the hassle?
Maybe there are good technical, business or regulatory reason for this number?

I am certainly not well informed on the reasons behind it.

I think right now, there is a pent up but unobtainable desire to travel, and probably a large number of people will be longing for travel in 2022. Having something booked and in the diary to look forward to could surely only be a good thing.

Anonba

Ive been told that historically it was a system limitation and was never changed. Also it helps prevent someone booking flights in the wrong year. In terms of fare buckets being available at 355 days, its often the case that its not the lowest fare buckets available. A lot of the time lower fare buckets are actually zeroed out.

Nephoi

i really don’t want to be pedantic, but when the argumentation is that you prevent from booking the wrong year, flights should only be available 28 days from now to prevent booking for the wrong month.

erik123

It is airline specific. It can be anywhere between 330 and 360 days. I think BA has one of the longest booking windows.

FYI - there are hardly any OTAs that go beyond 330 days.

corporate-wage-slave

I will do my usual thing of pointing out that buying at the first opportunity is usually a bad idea. With very few exceptions, the lowest fares are available at about 6 weeks to departure, and it's unlikely that low fares on longhaul will be inexpensive until about 310 days to departure - BA has a near monopoly on fares at that point. For shorthaul you need to look at what FR and U2 are doing, they often operate on a 200 day system or thereabouts, but BA are competing against their fares when they start to settile down. RHO is firmly in this category so I wouldn't even start to look booking until the Low Cost Carriers have entered in the market and done a few Sale periods.. It's always important to know when there is a sellers' market and when there is a buyers' market.

Confus

There is a ‘hard limit’ of 364 days for any airline that uses a GDS to host their bookings, but airlines can choose any limit they like within that. For practical reasons it’s sensible to give a bit of a buffer, so BA’s 355 is about the most generous it could be (short of changing the GDS build, which immediately brings major complexity and £££££ which just isn’t worth it for what is and will remain a tiny number of people booking that far out).

Airlines that aren’t IATA members and don’t use GDSs can do what they like, which is why Thomson and similar will sell itineraries for the year after next.

Nephoi

so thats the reason i can buy easyjet tickets for Feb 22.

Globaliser

Not when:

1. The 1960s-era design of the underlying systems which remain in place code the month, but don't code the year, in the obvious place (ie the flight coupon). Look at any IATA-style e-ticket receipt, like the ones that Finnair send. The date on the coupon is DDMMM. No year. Just like in red carbon booklets once automation came in.
2. People very often need to book more than one month ahead. But people wanting to book more than one year ahead is very much an edge case within the perspective of this industry, so it's not worth throwing a ton of money at fixing problem a. Because of interlining, it would have to be an industry-wide fix. For history, just look at how long it took to implement standards for interlineable e-tickets.

Anonba

I am not saying either statement is correct but im saying thats what i was told when I started at BA. But it does make it easier if you say i want to book january you cant accidentally book january 2021 instead of 2022.

You also have to bear in mind the reservation system we use in contact centres is based on old software that has been changed and bolted onto.

IluvSQ

Thank you for clarifying. I always believed that " BA was created in 1974 after a British Airways Board was established by the British government to manage the two nationalised airline corporations, British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways, and two regional airlines, Cambrian Airways and Northeast Airlines." as per Wkipedia.
Now I know it was founded by Anonba.

Anonba

Hahahaha

Full Score

A limitation of using SeatSpy to anticipate award availability 355 days in advance is that they never show award seats at 355. Sometimes it's 335; sometimes 351 or 352. Never 355 which makes it unusable if you're trying to nab seats the moment they become available. Reward Flight Finder doesn't have this "defect", although its interface is considerably less appealing.

1Aturnleft

A lot will be to do with the underlying GDS that powers each airlines reservation system. Amadeus is the system powering BA reservations and availability and Amadeus works as far out as 355 days. American on the other hand is powered by the Sabre GDS and works as far out as 330 days. Worth mentioning you can't get around the issue by booking with a 3rd party agent who uses an alternative GDS. In the case of AA, they just won't show up as bookable if checking on BA.com or with an agent using Amadeus. Similarly Sabre agents struggle to secure availability on heavy demand BA flights because their furthest booking window is 25 days shorter than that of BA's system (I'm looking at you here Amex!)

erik123

AA India uses Amadeus. But it is still only 330 days.

Confus

He means as their PSS, not reservation engine. They might be making a reservation in Amadeus but it still translates into Sabre as the master system - trying to manage the same flight in two master systems simultaneously is nightmare fuel.