When it comes to booking award flights, there’s something to be said for the ease with which you can search award availability, as that can make a big difference in terms of the luck you’ll have with actually securing award space.
Along those lines, we’ve just seen the Avios currency centrally add a new award calendar feature, and this is useful if trying to book award flights on British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus (thanks to The Flight Club for flagging this).
In this post:
Avios adds monthly calendar award search feature
Avios is the rewards currency of British Airways Club, Iberia Club, Aer Lingus Club, etc. While you can search award availability on the individual airline websites, you can also search awards through the Avios website, and there’s now a major advantage to doing so.
If you visit this link on the Avios website, you’ll now find an option to search award availability with a calendar that shows space for months at a time. Now, there are a few things to be aware of:
- This calendar feature works for awards on British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus (it doesn’t work on carriers like Qatar Airways, but the airline has its own calendar search feature)
- You can search availability, and then filter by class of service on the next page
- The calendar only shows nonstop award availability, so if you’re looking for availability for connecting itineraries, this isn’t that useful
For example, I searched award availability from Madrid (MAD) to Tokyo Narita (NRT) for early 2027. This would obviously be for nonstop travel on Iberia, since it’s the only eligible airline operating the route.
The first page then shows availability across cabins.
However, when you unchecked everything except “Business,” you’ll quickly find how sad premium cabin award availability is.
I appreciate when it’s easier to search award availability
Personally, I immensely value when frequent flyer programs make it easy to actually search award availability, so you can at least get a realistic sense of what availability is like. If you go to the individual British Airways website, for example, searching award availability is a pain.
You can filter availability for several days at a time, but that’s not nearly as useful as being able to search availability for an entire year in a matter of seconds.
Admittedly the whole reason that sites like Seats.aero have become so popular is because of how hard airlines have made it to search availability. If airlines actually made it easy to search availability, then there would be little need for sites like that.
Bottom line
Avios, the central rewards currency of IAG carriers (among others) has added a useful award calendar feature. You can now search award seats on British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus, for months at a time, which is a fantastic functional improvement.
Availability seems to be accurate, though the catch is that only nonstop award seats are showing up for now, so this is ideal when seeking point-to-point availability.
What do you make of the new Avios award search feature?
There were a lot of comments here and they suddenly disappeared.
BA searches are notoriously unreliable. Sometimes shows days (orweeks) of non-availabllity, whereas if you search the same daue on AA, or other O/W search engines.
Seems to get a fit of the sulks and shuts down!
Sorry for the typos above! Hey Ben, how about installing SpellCheck in your next set of improvements! haha.
Well that was cool. I've got alerts going and been checking often for a return from Europe to Western US in October. I was just wondering why BA flights never pop up in the services I use...
So I used this page and found the flight at a good price (2 in J), just 2 days after my ideal date, which I can probably make work. Then I snagged 2 more in J at the...
Well that was cool. I've got alerts going and been checking often for a return from Europe to Western US in October. I was just wondering why BA flights never pop up in the services I use...
So I used this page and found the flight at a good price (2 in J), just 2 days after my ideal date, which I can probably make work. Then I snagged 2 more in J at the end of May 2027 to go back over.
The first two used points I had stranded there, then I did an Amex transfer with 30% bonus for the additional 2.
I didn't have any issues with the site, and found it quite intuitive unless you try to type in a route they don't service direct.
The site is buggy and unintuitive.
On top of that, availability still sucks out loud.
Mhm. Sucks and blows.
Interface looks suspiciously like Seatspy.com - did they partner up?
Was thinking the same thing. I pay for a Seat Spy sub because the others don't reliably track BA availability, but this looks like the exact same interface. Guess that's one sub I don't need to pay for anymore!
This is definitely a good thing.
But, it's also a little bit sad. You used to be able to trade a lot of work for a chance of some availability. But with lack of premium cabin award availability in general, and the ability for loads of people to easily find and book it, it's much tougher these days.
I'm also generally searching for 2 seats now, which is also much tougher than just finding 1.
I agree and even with seats.aero alerts set up, I still find myself logging on the minute I get the email and by the time I'm in and searching the route the availability is gone. Have to be so quick these days.
About time. Even some improvement is a major upgrade. For years searching AVIOS award availability has been a pain.
AVIOS carriers IT is still woefully mediocre despite the their fare costs. Amazing how budget airlines both in US and abroad have better IT than legacy carriers/market share leaders.
If by budget carriers in the US you mean, United and Delta then yes, I agree.
Hey Ben! have you taken a look at QR's redemption discount offer? HFP covered it a few days ago
Fundamentally, IAG's IT is problematic. Not just this feature. Its whole system. But, with respect to award searches in general, they rarely present partner inventory EVEN WHEN SUCH PARTNER INVENTORY IS VISIBLE VIA OTHER ONE WORLD AIRLINES. One of the many detractors that led me to Air France.