I’ve heard from so many readers over the last month having issues using Avios points for American Airlines flights. Typically, you should be able to do it like this:
- Go to aa.com and find saver award availability.
- With that quick bit of research done, head to the British Airways website to see if the flights pop up there.
- If those flights aren’t showing up on the shit-tastic British Airways website…call and ask them to waive the phone booking fee. Why? Because their website sucks and isn’t showing what it’s supposed to show.
For the last month, things have sounded worse. Certain tricks have helped show availability, including:
- Refreshing the website until you see flights pop up. This seems incredibly stupid (but it has worked).
- Clicking on other dates and then clicking back on the original one. This also seems ridiculous. But, yes, it often brought up availability.
- Sometimes attempting either/both of the above “tricks” 10 to 15 times. Sigh.
In the last week, we reached new lows:
- Some readers were seeing a message from British Airways on the website:
“Sorry, we can’t show you American Airlines flights at the moment. There is a technical problem with American Airlines’ reward flight availability which American Airlines is currently working to identify and resolve.” - Even when calling British Airways, many readers have been unable to book ANY flights on American Airlines with Avios points. Nothing shows up. Not on the website. Not even with the help of phone reps.
- A couple of readers found Alaska Airlines availability BUT the wrong number of Avios points was deducted to book the flights. I can vouch for this because it happened to me 3 days ago.
The point? Recently, trying to use Avios points has been a complete mess. Attempt the tricks above, call to see if that makes a difference, and make sure they don’t take too many points out of your account.
