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So recently BA haven’t been having the best of time in the press following their ‘minor IT glitch‘, with competitor Virgin Atlantic quick to get a reactionary status match offer and £50 off if you re-book with them.

You might have heard about the charm offensive BA has launched to try and win back some positive coverage by extending the elite status of anyone affected by the issues by 2 years.

Well they’ve taken that another step further and released 10,000 additional Avios reward seats for the Christmas and New Year period 2017.

Yeah right, what’s the catch?

It looks like BA are being genuine this time. A quick search shows availability wide open to Philadelphia on Boxing Day, including 6 seats in First!

If you were looking to get away using Avios over Christmas/New Year but missed out at T-355 days, now might just be a second chance to bag those elusive reward seats, even for larger groups.

Using the “Start Redemption Search” button on the announcement page will allow you to search for a destination, and display availability by month. Which as you can see below, can be a much more pleasant sight than usually greets you on the BA reward flight finder over peak periods!

Key things to remember.

• Be Flexible – When booking reward flights, even with 10,000 additional seats, you need to be flexible both in dates and destination. Can’t get 4 Club World seats to New York? How about flying into Philadelphia instead?  It’s then just a short hop on a domestic flight or a few hour’s drive up to the Big Apple. These “secondary” cities can often have much better availability than the usual suspects, people forget how extensive BA’s network is.
• Act now, change/cancel later. Avios redemption bookings are subject to a £35 change/cancellation fee. This can be a small price to pay compared to missing out on the elusive Club World reward seats if you procrastinate over booking. If you’ve got the Avios and can afford the change/cancellation fees (which let’s face it, if you’re paying ~£500 in taxes what’s another £35!) I’d recommend nabbing the seats, then booking your annual leave if you haven’t already got it booked!

If you were looking for an Avios getaway over Christmas, hopefully this is just the early present from BA you’ve been waiting for!

Hat-tip to the ever watchful people over on  the BA FlyerTalk board for spotting this.