BA doubles the number of Avios ‘reward seats’ on every flight

It should be twice as easy for frequent flyers to snare a seat using Avios.

By David Flynn, May 28 2021

BA doubles the number of Avios ‘reward seats’ on every flight

British Airways is making twice as many seats available for frequent flyers to book using Avios points on every flight in business class, economy and for the first time, premium economy.

The changes come into effect today, for flights from July 28, and the airline says they’ll put more than 250,000 additional reward seats into the skies.

That said, what BA calls the ‘guaranteed minimum number of reward seats’ may still strike some frequent flyers as being on the modest side.

For example, there’ll be as little as four Club World or Club Suites business class always set aside for Avios bookings on every long-range aircraft, including the 56-seat business class cabin of the Airbus A350-1000s and Boeing 777-300ERs.

Here’s the breakdown of where the extra seats can be found, and how many will be up for grabs as ‘guaranteed reward seats’.

Club Europe short-haul business class goes from two Avios seats per flight to four
Euro Traveller short-haul economy goes from four Avios seats per flight to eight
Club World long-haul business class goes from two Avios seats per flight to four
World Traveller long-haul economy goes from four Avios seats per flight to eight

In additional, there’ll always be at least two seats in BA’s World Traveller Plus long-haul premium economy cabins set aside to purchase with Avios.

But yes, first class is noticeably absent from this list – meaning the ‘guaranteed’ minimum number of Avios seats is zero, although this doesn’t mean you won’t find some First reward suites on some flights.

Tom Stevens, Director of Brand and Customer Experience at British Airways, says the boost “means that a family holiday, or that big friendship group trip away, will be much easier to book using Avios.”

“Our Members appreciate the benefits their Executive Club membership brings, but the feedback we hear is that people would like us to make it easier to book flights using Avios.”

“We have listened and acted on this, and today’s announcement directly addresses this feedback, opening up six extra reward seats on a short-haul flight, and eight on a long-haul flight.”