How Far In Advance Can You Book BA Avios Flights?

If you are looking to secure your seats on popular BA routes you may be wondering how far in advance you can book BA Avios Flights. Particularly if when you search for tickets there never seems to be any available! In this post, we are going to take a look at when BA release Avios seats & the best way to secure your tickets!

From when can I book BA Avios Flights?

British Airways release BA Avios Flight tickets 355 days in advance at midnight GMT (1am BST.) They guarantee to release a minimum of four seats in economy and two seats in business class. This applies to ALL their flights, long-haul and short-haul. For example, if you were booking on the 26th of March 2021 you’d see availability for up to the 15th of March 2022.

Notice that we said ‘minimum’ and only economy & business class seats. BA might decide (and often does!) to release more seats and/or Premium economy/First Class seats… but this isn’t guaranteed!

What’s the best way to secure BA Avios flights?

The most important thing you can do is to plan in advance! Work out when the flights you want are going to be released. You can use a handy website like this to help you – https://www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadd.html – put the start date as when you want to fly and then subtract 355 days. When the clock strikes midnight on the date you are given that’s when your flights will be released!

If you want to get tickets on popular routes such as the Maldives this is the only way to do it! You just need to decide if you want to book via phone or online.

Online

It’s a bit like fastest finger first so every little thing helps! Firstly make sure all your details are correct! If you are booking online for more than one ticket you can speed up the process by creating a travel companion on the BA website for your +1 and finally, make sure you add British Airways to your credit card Express List and save the card to your account to save a few more seconds (they all count!)

I recommend doing a few trial runs if you are new to the process and want to book online (you don’t have to go through with the booking just exit when you are asked for your credit card details.) If you are unsure on how to book flights with Avios check out our guide on How To Book Flights With Avios.

On the phone

For many people this is the preferred way of getting tickets as the agent can put a hold on the ticket whilst you complete payment. If booking via telephone you will need to call an international BA call centre as the UK one is closed at midnight. I generally use the US office which is open at the right times. You can view the different numbers on BA’s website here – https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/help-and-contacts/contact-us

You will need to make sure you get through early enough to pass security so the agent is ready to book your tickets dead on midnight. If you get through too early however the agent won’t wait, so you may need to cut off and redial in.

Don’t forget the return flight

If you manage to secure the flights you want… Congratulations! But it isn’t over yet! You now need to follow the same process 355 days before your desired return date to try and book the return flight. Just because you have secured the outbound does not mean you will get the inbound.

Using the BA 2-4-1 Voucher for BA Avios flights

If you are booking the return online you will need the Avios for 2 x one-way tickets even when using a BA 2-4-1 voucher (as technically it’s will have already been used on the outbound.) You can then ring up at your own convenience to have the BA 2-4-1 voucher applied and half the Avios refunded.

If you book the return via telephone you only need the Avios for 1 x one way when using the BA 2-4-1 voucher (just ask to amend your booking to add the return) the agent will automatically apply the voucher to the return leg.

I can’t book 355 days in advance

This is only essential for very popular routes! Other routes that have lots of flights e.g. New York you should have no problems picking up the seats you want, particularly when flying off-peak. It is also possible more availability will open up closer to the departure date depending on how busy the flight is. This isn’t guaranteed however so don’t get your hopes up too much!

Conclusion

If you are looking to book popular routes/dates with Avios be prepared to take part in a game of fastest finger first! But for most other destinations and dates with a little flexibility, you should be able to pick up the tickets you want. Have you managed to pick up some great tickets at T-355? Let us know in the comments below!

If you are looking to kick-start your Avios with a huge 200,000 haul don’t forget to take a look at our guide to fast track yourself to a rather cool 200,000 Avios points – https://pointsuncovered.com/american-express/fast-track-yourself-to-2000000-avios-points/ – Enough to get a business class return to the Maldives!

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