British Airways Executive Club can be a controversial program. While there are plenty of great uses of British Airways Avios, the program is also known for its high fees and ever increasing redemption rates on British Airways.
In this post I wanted to talk a bit about what I’d consider to be one of the best aspects of being able to redeem Avios for travel on British Airways — the award seat guarantee. British Airways is one of only a couple of airlines to offer such a guarantee (with the other being Finnair Plus), and it’s worth being aware of.
In this post:
Details of British Airways’ award seat guarantee
For several years, British Airways Executive Club has offered an award seat guarantee. These guaranteed seats are all loaded when British Airways’ schedule first opens, 355 days before departure.
Note that this applies when booking through Executive Club using Avios, so these guaranteed seats won’t necessarily be loaded through partner programs, like Alaska Mileage Plan and American AAdvantage (though they may sometimes have access to award space as well).
So, how many award seats does British Airways guarantee? It depends if you’re traveling short haul or long haul.
On short haul flights, British Airways makes at least 12 award seats available per flight, as soon as the schedule opens. This is comprised of:
- At least eight Euro Traveller (short haul economy) award seats per flight
- At least four Club Europe (short haul business) award seats per flight
On long haul flights, British Airways makes at least 14 award seats available per flight, as soon as the schedule opens. This is comprised of:
- At least eight World Traveller (long haul economy) award seats per flight
- At least two World Traveller Plus (long haul premium economy) award seats per flight
- At least four Club World (long haul business class) award seats per flight
- There are no guarantees on first class award seats
It’s worth mentioning that British Airways will in many cases make more award seats available (especially closer to departure), as the above just represents the absolute minimum number of award seats that you’ll see.
This is a meaningfully positive benefit
Miles & points can unlock all kinds of amazing travel, including first and business class flights. One thing that understandably frustrates people is that actually finding award availability can be tough, especially if you don’t have much flexibility.
If you’re working around school schedules, when you can take time off work, etc., it can sometimes be hard to lock in a great award in advance. I think that’s why British Airways’ award seat guarantee is so awesome. It doesn’t matter if you want to go to the Maldives over Christmas or Italy over summer, award seats will be made available.
Now, admittedly there will sometimes be competition for those seats, but if you’re quick and set an alarm, it’s pretty realistic to get even the most elusive awards. For example, who doesn’t like to see this amount of award space as far out as the schedule goes?
British Airways Executive Club has historically had really high carrier imposed surcharges on awards. However, the airline has expanded its Reward Flight Saver scheme, whereby you can redeem more Avios and then pay less of a cash co-pay on awards.
For example, a New York to London award might cost you 80,000 Avios plus $375 in taxes and fees.
British Airways Executive Club is rarely my first option, as someone who likes to maximize value, since you can pay fewer points and cash through other programs. However, I can’t overstate how valuable it is to have a guarantee, since this is an area where other programs just aren’t very useful.
Bottom line
British Airways Executive Club has an award seat guarantee. With this, you can expect that the airline will make 12-14 award seats available on each flight as soon as the schedule opens, 355 days before departure. This includes four business class award seats per flight.
For all the criticisms I have of British Airways Executive Club, this is a positive aspect of the program, and I wish we’d see more airlines have policies like this.
What do you make of British Airways Executive Club’s guaranteed award space?
BUT BA remain an unreliable, poor quality carrier for the fares charged. In addition to the ongoing cuts to catering, the much spun claimed "investment" is largely -essential- fleet replacement (new airframes coming predensified) amd more than two full years since the initial announcement zero improvement in the famously unreliable, insecure and user unfriendly IT systems.
Best Avoided if you want comfort, honesty, reliability or value for your fare... They're not even British (SpangloQatari Airways...
BUT BA remain an unreliable, poor quality carrier for the fares charged. In addition to the ongoing cuts to catering, the much spun claimed "investment" is largely -essential- fleet replacement (new airframes coming predensified) amd more than two full years since the initial announcement zero improvement in the famously unreliable, insecure and user unfriendly IT systems.
Best Avoided if you want comfort, honesty, reliability or value for your fare... They're not even British (SpangloQatari Airways would be accurate).
Having flown Club Suites from London to Washington earlier this week, I couldn’t agree less. BA is probably the best business class option between the US and Europe (with Air France also in close competition).
The new BA hard product is widely available across the fleet and a truly fantastic offering — the suites are spacious with amply sized footwells, plenty of storage, operable doors, and luxurious finishes. The soft product is similarly fantastic...
Having flown Club Suites from London to Washington earlier this week, I couldn’t agree less. BA is probably the best business class option between the US and Europe (with Air France also in close competition).
The new BA hard product is widely available across the fleet and a truly fantastic offering — the suites are spacious with amply sized footwells, plenty of storage, operable doors, and luxurious finishes. The soft product is similarly fantastic — DO&CO catering hit the mark with beautifully presented, high-quality food. The bedding package from the White Company includes what I find to be the most comfortable pillow in the skies, a comfortable mattress pad and plush blanket. Best of all, the cabin crews really take pride in the product and the “brand” of BA…I would argue that alongside SQ and AF, BA is the only other carrier where there is such pride in the brand that translates down into the service.
While the taxes and fuel surcharges can be high (especially if departing London), I find them to be more than worth it given the quality of the flight product offered. Our homebound flight was infinitely better than United Polaris outbound (which was so bad we canceled the return flight originally booked). I’d argue it’s even better than Delta One (despite being a Diamond Medallion), and at ¼ the number of points required for a redemption.