Credit where credit’s due, this is an improvement to the British Airways Executive Club program that a lot of members will benefit from.
British Airways guarantees more award seats
Unlike other frequent flyer programs, British Airways Executive Club guarantees a certain amount of award availability on each British Airways flight. While the program has high carrier imposed surcharges for travel on British Airways, at least you’re guaranteed that some number of award seats will be released.
There’s some fantastic news on that front, as British Airways has more than doubled the number of Avios award seats it guarantees per flight. These guaranteed seats are all loaded when British Airways’ schedule opens, 355 days before departure.
This new award seat commitment is permanent (well, as permanent as anything in the airline industry can be), and is valid for flights as of July 28, 2021.
As a result, we’re seeing an additional 250,000 award seats loaded today, to reflect this change.
British Airways is now guaranteeing 12-14 award seats per flight
Breakdown of British Airways award seats per flight
On short haul flights you can expect a total of at least 12 award seats per flight:
- At least eight Euro Traveller (short haul economy) award seats per flight, up from four
- At least four Club Europe (short haul business) award seats per flight, up from two
Expect at least four Club Europe seats per flight
On long haul flights you can expect a total of at least 14 award seats per flight:
- At least eight World Traveller (long haul economy) award seats per flight, up from four
- At least two World Traveller Plus (long haul premium economy) award seats per flight, up from zero
- At least four Club World (long haul business class) award seats per flight
- There are no guarantees on first class award seats
Expect at least four Club World seats per flight
It’s worth mentioning that British Airways will in many cases make more award seats available (especially closer to…