British Airways Award Availability
British Airways can be pretty generous with business class award availability. The tough part is finding availability with low taxes, since British Airways typically charges the highest taxes and fuel surcharges on award bookings. Thankfully, British Airways has lowered their fuel surcharges to make them more palatable. Yet surprisingly, partners like Cathay and American are still charging really high surcharges on British awards.
We have found wide open British Airways award availability from Cincinnati (CVG), one of BA's newest routes, where British charges lower taxes and fees than any other oneworld partner. When you pair this availability with these lower surcharges and the current Amex transfer bonus to BA, you get a great deal on business class flights to Europe from Cincinnati!
British Airways Award Availability Details
British Airways launched non-stop service from London-Heathrow (LHR) to Cincinnati (CVG) earlier this summer. As expected, saver availability on this route is bookable not just with British Airways Avios, but also via their oneworld partners like American Airlines and Cathay Pacific. This route operates year-round, with 4 weekly flights in the winter, and 5 weekly flights in the summer.
We are seeing lots of availability for at least 2 people inbound and outbound throughout from November through the rest of the open calendar, all the way through June 2024! There is also some good availability from August through October.
British charges 80,000 miles one-way off-peak (90,000 peak). With the current 30% transfer bonus from Amex you can book this for 62,000 Membership Rewards each way!
Lower Taxes Booking through British Airways?!
Typically, Cathay Pacific offers the lowest surcharges on British Airways award bookings. But even though British Airways reduced the surcharges they charge on their awards back in December, Cathay and American are still charging those high amounts. British now charges a flat $350 each way for an award booking in Business class. This is lower than either Cathay or American are showing for the same flight! Even better: it's the same price in either direction!
I never though I'd see the day when British Airways would have the lowest surcharges on an award booking, but here we are. This is crazy!
To give you an idea of how good a deal this can be, an award flight on United Airlines from London to the U.S. still incurs around $330 in taxes and fees. United does not pass on any surcharges and it still gets hit with high taxes for flying out of London. This means British Airways is charging virtually the same amount of taxes and fees as United on an award ticket! And of course, Avios are much easier to earn than United miles.
Searching and Booking
Our favorite websites to search for oneworld availability include American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. You can book this via oneworld partners like American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and Cathay Pacific. Here are the costs for each program (all are for one way awards):
– American Airlines: 57,500 miles ($711.45)
– Alaska: 60,000 miles ($730)
– British Airways: 80,000 miles off-peak (90,000 peak) ($350)
– Qantas: 75,000 (GBP$ 552)
– Cathay: 61,000 (HKD$ 5,295)
With the lowest cash requirement, the current 30% transfer bonus from Amex, and how easy it is to earn Avios, booking this via British Airways is a no-brainer. We are seeing availability across most of the calendar (at least 2 seats if not more).
You can check out which points currencies transfer to each of these through our ToP transfer partner tool.
British Airways Award Availability: ToP Thoughts
Typically, London is a tough place to fly into and out of without breaking the bank. But with British Airways' lower surcharges, a juicy transfer bonus, and wide open availability, there's no excuse to skip out on visiting London if it's on your list. Get to booking!
