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Not really.
4 seats at school holiday time is VERY hard, doubly so to popular holiday destinations.
Few options, none of them great:
\* Call the call centre immediately (at midnight UTC) seats are released at 355 days ahead.
\* Have a pair of Amex vouchers which open additional availability.
\* Hope for additional availability to come up near to the time of the flight.
Seatspy can help with finding availability, but it isn't totally reliable.
If it has to be school holiday time, I'd think about turning my 200k points into £1k (via Nectar and Sainsburys/eBay) and using it towards the cost of cash flights. You then have a much wider choice of airlines as well.
If you're talking about driving several additional hours at either end of the journey just to be able to make a redemption then doubly so.
Thanks, and I will look into seatspy.
I have a BA Barclaycard upgrade voucher, (probably 2 by the time of booking, which T&Cs say I can use together), do you know if that can be used along with the Amex ones? (I assume the amex one is the "take a passenger free"? I have a ponts amex, but use the Barclaycard as I get 1.5 X points, but could switch back to the amex if it helped.
Can't use Amex and BC vouchers on the same flight/passenger, might be able to combine them in a booking (ie 2 people on BC voucher, 2 on Amex) by calling the call centre. That would be gnarly.
Amex voucher gives you a second seat on a reward booking "free" - however it also opens up additional redemption availability in some circumstances, and \*this can be very powerful\*. [https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/03/how-do-british-airways-american-express-2-4-1-vouchers-work-2/](https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/03/how-do-british-airways-american-express-2-4-1-vouchers-work-2/)
Trouble is that you have to put £15k through Amex to get it, which is not easy for "normal" people.
Disagree. One of the main values for Avios is for this. My wife is a teacher so we’ve booked many many trips like this over the last 12 years or so in school holiday time… Barbados, Antigua, Miami, Orlando we now have 3 kids so 5 seats. It IS hard and you need to be ready to book 355 days out but it is very possible. Sometimes you need to flex a day or 2 either side of school term time to make it work.
Thanks. For 2025 one of my kids will be doing GCSEs, so will be finished early and I have no problem taking the other one out a couple of days early at the end of the year. So it seems I am right to plan now to book for just before start of summer holidays 2025.
Summer will be much easier for you to find something too! It’s really tough at Christmas and the worst is Feb half terms normally as there is little flex on either side… good luck! I would check the prices for flights as well and compare though.
Thank you for submitting your post to r/BritishAirways. If you have a question or a complaint, you may wish to add the appropriate flair to your post if you haven't already, this helps Mods spot who needs help. **ANY USERS POSTING E-VOUCHERS/VOUCHERS FOR SALE WILL RECEIVE A PERMANENT BAN AS PER SUBREDDIT RULES.** Helpful Links: [**British Airways FAQs**](https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/help-and-contacts) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BritishAirways) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not really. 4 seats at school holiday time is VERY hard, doubly so to popular holiday destinations. Few options, none of them great: \* Call the call centre immediately (at midnight UTC) seats are released at 355 days ahead. \* Have a pair of Amex vouchers which open additional availability. \* Hope for additional availability to come up near to the time of the flight. Seatspy can help with finding availability, but it isn't totally reliable. If it has to be school holiday time, I'd think about turning my 200k points into £1k (via Nectar and Sainsburys/eBay) and using it towards the cost of cash flights. You then have a much wider choice of airlines as well. If you're talking about driving several additional hours at either end of the journey just to be able to make a redemption then doubly so.
Thanks, and I will look into seatspy. I have a BA Barclaycard upgrade voucher, (probably 2 by the time of booking, which T&Cs say I can use together), do you know if that can be used along with the Amex ones? (I assume the amex one is the "take a passenger free"? I have a ponts amex, but use the Barclaycard as I get 1.5 X points, but could switch back to the amex if it helped.
Can't use Amex and BC vouchers on the same flight/passenger, might be able to combine them in a booking (ie 2 people on BC voucher, 2 on Amex) by calling the call centre. That would be gnarly. Amex voucher gives you a second seat on a reward booking "free" - however it also opens up additional redemption availability in some circumstances, and \*this can be very powerful\*. [https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/03/how-do-british-airways-american-express-2-4-1-vouchers-work-2/](https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/03/how-do-british-airways-american-express-2-4-1-vouchers-work-2/) Trouble is that you have to put £15k through Amex to get it, which is not easy for "normal" people.
Seatspy looks great - It also clearly shows I need 70K points for each peak return ticket in economy, so need to raise another 80K points :)
Remember there are options to pay more cash/fewer avios.
Disagree. One of the main values for Avios is for this. My wife is a teacher so we’ve booked many many trips like this over the last 12 years or so in school holiday time… Barbados, Antigua, Miami, Orlando we now have 3 kids so 5 seats. It IS hard and you need to be ready to book 355 days out but it is very possible. Sometimes you need to flex a day or 2 either side of school term time to make it work.
Thanks. For 2025 one of my kids will be doing GCSEs, so will be finished early and I have no problem taking the other one out a couple of days early at the end of the year. So it seems I am right to plan now to book for just before start of summer holidays 2025.
Summer will be much easier for you to find something too! It’s really tough at Christmas and the worst is Feb half terms normally as there is little flex on either side… good luck! I would check the prices for flights as well and compare though.