In December I wrote about several positive changes that British Airways made with it’s award search engine. Before, it was annoying and required tons of clicks to display the information you needed. Their last improvement made it so you could immediately see partner airline flights, which was very useful.
Today’s new feature is that you can see availability for three classes of service at the same time instead of having to search for each one individually as you had to yesterday. This is a vast improvement in my eyes because if I want a premium cabin trip and can settle for Business Class or First Class, then I can now do one search instead of two to find availability.
It seems like they’re still working through some kinks as it didn’t display properly when I was using Google Chrome, but it worked fine when I pulled it up on Explorer (I know, I know). The tabs for other days also indicate whether availability exists or not, which is also an improvement when it works (you’ll notice many of mine still say “check availability”).
I’m glad British Airways has been making upgrades to their award search functionality, and hope that they will continue to do so. A huge win would be the ability to search by month or using some sort of calendar feature (a la United’s or American’s searches).
If you need help with using Avios, I recommend my Beginner’s Guide to Avios and Oneworld – it’s by far my most-read post (so I assume that people have found it useful).
I’m on it now and just saw the change including the kinks! You are quick 🙂
This is breaking news for some people! 😛
What’s the difference between “Flights Available” and “Check Availability”?
BTW, you should do this so you can get a custom avatar: http://travelwithgrant.com/how-to-guides/create-gravatar/
Flights available just means that the search you did knows that additional flights are available on those days. Check availability means that your search doesn’t necessarily know if flights are available. Not very useful when that happens!
For those with more experience with Avios:
I tried searching for short haul Alaska route (SEA-SFO) in Avios and got an error saying that BA and it’s partners don’t fly this route. I was very surprised because this post and other blogs have clearly stated that Alaska is a partner and it can be searched for using Avios.
So wondering if you folks had any insight into this matter and if things have changed recently.
The online search engine does not show Alaska flights. You’ll have to call in for this unfortunately. If the cheap award space is available on Alaska’s website, it should be available to British Airways.
Thanks.