Limited Time: British Airways Adds 50,000 More Business Class Award Seats

Nov. 16, 2018

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3 min read

Limited Time: British Airways Adds 50,000 More Business Class Award Seats

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If you're looking to take a trip to London or beyond, you're in luck: British Airways just announced that it's "made more than 50,000 extra reward seats available for its Executive Club members" in the airline's Club World international business-class cabin.

This additional availability is only good through Dec. 2 — if it lasts that long — and is good for flights from Dec. 16, 2018, to March 31, 2019. The terms and conditions specifically note that award space has been opened on the following routes:

London Gatwick (LGW): Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando Las Vegas, San Jose (Costa Rica), New York JFK and Mauritius
London Heathrow (LHR): Abuja, Accra, Amman, Atlanta, Austin, Bahrain, Baltimore, Bangalore, Beijing, Beirut, Boston, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Calgary, Cape Town, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Durban, Houston, Jeddah, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Lagos, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Miami, Montreal, Moscow, Nairobi, Nashville, New Orleans, New York JFK, New York EWR, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Rio de Janeiro, Riyadh, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, CA, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Seattle, Seoul, Seychelles, Shanghai, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Tokyo NRT, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington.

Although BA's announcement focuses on opening this award availability to British Airways members, we are also seeing this award space available through American Airlines and other BA partners. Even on some of the routes with the tightest award availability — such as Los Angeles (LAX) to London Heathrow (LHR) — have business-class availability for 4+ passengers on every day for weeks:

An award search on AA.com for four passengers in business class from Los Angeles (LAX) to London Heathrow (LHR), limited to nonstop flights.

Also available: British Airways' all-business-class flight between New York (JFK) and London City (LCY). Read our full review of that unique flight.

An award search on AA.com in business class between New York (JFK) and London City (LCY), limited to nonstop flights.

British Airways isn't exactly known for an incredible business-class product. The most recent redesign was nearly 13 years ago. That's changing soon, with a new product debuting in BA's A350 starting July 2019. But, even then, it'll take a while to be retrofit on existing aircraft. Until then, you'll be flying in an aging product that's laid out in up to a 2-4-2 arrangement.

British Airways 777-200 Club World cabin.

The other issue with British Airways awards are the significant fees and absurd fuel surcharges. There are some techniques to reduce the out-of-pocket cost by booking two one-way award flights instead of round-trip or booking awards through a partner like Cathay Pacific Asia Miles.

Another great use of this award availability is to book a "World Traveller Plus" premium economy revenue flight and use Avios to upgrade from premium economy to business class. This using requires a reasonable amount of Avios and a small difference in taxes and fees.

H/T: One Mile at a Time