Using air miles to book with BA- Help?

[SAN]

I don't know where else to ask this question.

I routinely fly British Airways using World Traveller Plus and have gained enough miles to book a trip to Nice next year. I am booking online, and when I put in the dates for summer, BA shows no availability for those dates. Does anybody have difficulty using air miles in the summer time? Should I call thier reservation desk and have them help me? Thank you for any suggestions.

[Leela]

They might not have released the dates yet. For instance, for me to book a Star Alliance reward for late May 2008, I had to wait until about July 6th 2007.

 

If you call the BA frequent flyer customer service number, they'll be able to tell you if the dates have even opened up yet.

[Fisherwoman]

I tried to book for May & June and most of the days were full. Good Luck!

 

Fisherwoman

 

:(

[DrKoob]

We have had nothing but trouble using our current 46000+ miles with BA. Never a seat available when we want one. Ever. We were able to book two business class with them for this fall but did it through Alaska Airlines (their partner). One of the things they now do is that they won't allow awards travelers to get their seats assigned until 24 hours before the flight. Ridiculous!

 

May I suggest you try Flyertalk. It is to award travel what Cruise Critic is to cruising. They know everything. Really helped us get the business class seats. You can find it http://flyertalk.com/

 

There is a British board. Ask there. They know it all and are very willing to share.

[TenerifeSharon]

I don't know where else to ask this question.

I routinely fly British Airways using World Traveller Plus and have gained enough miles to book a trip to Nice next year. I am booking online, and when I put in the dates for summer, BA shows no availability for those dates. Does anybody have difficulty using air miles in the summer time? Should I call thier reservation desk and have them help me? Thank you for any suggestions.

Flights will only be released 330 days in advance of travel (if you want a round-trip, then it's 330 days before the return flight. You may be able to put the flight to Nice on hold until the return flight is bookable). Flights for the summer are extremely hard to get on award tickets -- it's high season. Dr. Koob's idea is good - go to flyertalk. One warning, though -- those on that board are mostly big time fliers. You will feel like you are visiting a different world -- almost like the first time you read a post on CC:D

[fti]

I would suggest you call the BA award desk, not do it online. Hope for a very friendly agent. They are usually MUCH better in finding award availability than websites. Having said that, it is difficult at best to find award seats with most airlines.

 

One of the things they now do is that they won't allow awards travelers to get their seats assigned until 24 hours before the flight. Ridiculous!

 

Actually BA won't let most economy passengers, even on paid tickets, get advance seat assignments until 24 hours before the flight.

 

May I suggest you try Flyertalk. It is to award travel what Cruise Critic is to cruising. They know everything. Really helped us get the business class seats. You can find it http://flyertalk.com/

 

There is a British board. Ask there. They know it all and are very willing to share.

 

Actually Flyer Talk is to travel what CC is to cruising - it has WAY more than just award travel info. I use it all the time.

[smtcan]

We had a similar problem trying to book air for our trip to Australia & NZ with Air Canada points. We counted the days and called on the 330th day. We were told that no seats were available. We checked on line and found that both legs of the flight were available but we couldn't book into one city and out of another online (only return flights). Armed with this info we called again, and this time got a very helpful person who arranged the flights for us immediately. We didn't even have to quote the online info. I think sometimes it depends on the person you speak to.

 

Sheila

[warmwinds]

We booked FF seats on AA to London for our cruise next April - booked in June, still had availability (obviously). Decided to go another extra day early recently and NOTHING is available - this far out!

 

Booking through a live person will usually cost you $10 or so over booking yourself on line, but sometimes it's worth it for them to do the searching.

[Hebe]

I think it also based on supply and demand. When a flight first opens, only a few seats are marked for FF. People, like cruisers, who know when they have to be somewhere 330 days in advance will take these up quickly. As the time frame progresses, more FF may be released based on if the flight is selling. Just like online flight special sales, you see those great rates only to find out they are on the less desirable - less sellable flights.

[Lsimon]

I don't know if you'll find your answer, but:

 

first, I'd post the same question in the Cruise Air forum here on Cruise Critic: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=128

I got a lot of good advice there when I was looking for info on flights for our upcoming Med Cruise (first overseas trip for us).

 

Second, the posters there showed me a great site, expertflyer.com. It is not a free site but does have a very short free trial, and you can just subscribe for a short period then cancel. You can see all the codes and availability of each type of seat there. It takes a bit for a novice like me to figure out the codes, but it is great to be able to look on your own, without calling the airlines every day, for the availability of codes which will allow you to book your frequent flyer seats on the flights of your choice. They may or may not ever come up, but at least you can quickly check on line. I think I saw they might have a new feature that alerts you if a sought after booking code becomes available. This site has helped us find both FF seats and FF upgrades we might otherwise have missed.

 

I did try to get a BA flight using our American Airline points (the flights I wanted are code-share flights with AA and they are both is some sort of point sharing program) and had no luck. But we were looking to fly out of Venice on BA at a very popular date and time - and the flights we wanted sold out way in advance, so we just grabbed seats on the next best times rather than wait and search for FF tickets.