Avios has finally built a proper, free, reward seat calendar, and it shows Companion Voucher availability

Let us be the first in the points and miles space to say it: well done, Avios.

Avios has been updating something behind the scenes that's been missing from its toolkit for years, something so overdue that third-party tools had to build it for us all first.

Without so much as a press release, at the time of publishing, Avios has rolled out a much-improved calendar that allows you to search for reward seats, with additional Companion Voucher availability built in (even if you haven't earned one yet!), and improved search for Aer Lingus and Iberia reward seats as well.

How a search appears on a month by month overview

We only caught wind of these changes because the "Product Manager for Reward Flights" mentioned it on LinkedIn. Yes, we have to be those people, and no, I don't post AI slop talking about how the new Emirates U-Dream headrest made me realise the sanctity of B2B marketing, and that it's wholly responsible for my inability to connect on an emotional level with my enemies.

We spent last night testing it properly before writing a word of this, and the short version is: so far, so good.

What has Avios actually changed?

For years, searching for Avios reward flights has meant either learning to love the ba.com date-by-date grind or paying a third-party service to do the legwork for you.

Avios has had a calendar function for a while, but it simply wasn't as good as the third-party alternatives.

Hover over each day and you'll see the total amount of seats available

The updated calendar search lets you see reward seat availability across an entire month at a glance, clearly, cleanly, with both the outbound and the return shown on a single screen. You are also able to easily filter the cabin class as you so desire.

Rejoice.

Hover over a particular day and it will show you how many available seats there are on that day. Click into that day and it will breakdown the available seats on each individual flight. This works the same way for Aer Lingus and Iberia flights too.

If you click on a date, you will see the flight by flight breakdown

You are also able to filter for cabin class too.

If I was to be picky here, for a route like Heathrow to New York JFK with multiple flights a day, this list is needlessly long. A more condensed list, avoiding an endless scroll would be fine.

Can I find the extra Companion Voucher availability on the new Avios calendar search?

YES, and this is probably the part you guys are going to care about most.

The updated calendar search allows you to select Companion Vouchers for both the free BA Amex and the Premium Plus card, and this doesn't just alter the price shown, but it is now the only calendar search that will show you the increased availability that comes with a Premium Plus voucher. No third-party tool you have has been able to do this.

Simply tick the Companion Voucher box before you search, and the calendar will show you availability with your voucher already factored in.

To show you an example, here is the availability for two adults to Cape Town in March 2027, looking for seats in Club World.

Nada.

Then I select a Premium Plus Companion Voucher, which can unlock additional availability, if there is any.

Now, three dates across the month show at least two available Club World seats thanks to the extra availability from a Premium Plus Companion Voucher. The only way to see this extra availability before was to trawl through endless search results on the BA website and just hope that you stumble across some. This is a gamechanger for those of you with Premium Plus cards.

Why does companion voucher pricing look different on the calendar?

Great question! When you tick the box to say you have a Companion Voucher, the calendar shows each leg priced at half the normal Avios cost per person, rather than showing it as a straightforward two-for-one. If you're searching for two people, that per-person figure is what you'll pay each, not the total.

Odd way of showing this.

Our best guess is that this comes down to how the backend prices things: the system likely can't display a leg at 0 Avios, so it splits the saving across both passengers instead. It doesn't change what you actually pay, but it's worth knowing so the numbers make sense when you see them.

How to find and use the Avios calendar search

It's a straightforward process, even for beginners:

1. Start on avios.com, find "Spend Avios" along the top, hover over it, and then you'll see "Search Reward Flights", or you can just click here.

2. Enter your route, month of travel, and how many people are travelling.

3. Add your Companion Voucher, if you have one.

4. Browse the calendar view.

5. Pick your dates, then your flight time if there's a choice as some routes only run once a day, or less.

6. You'll be sent to ba.com to log in and finish booking. This is the clunkiest part: you'll need to re-enter your route, dates and passenger numbers, since the two systems don't currently talk to each other. From there, the booking flow continues as normal on the BA site.

How do I set up an alert for a particular reward seat on the Avios calendar search?

Here she is. The one gripe I have.

You can't set up an alert directly from the calendar search itself if you are on the Avios website, which feels like a fairly obvious feature to have built in.

Instead, if you want to be notified when a seat opens up, you'll need to download the Avios app, head to the "Spend" section, search for a route, and then select a date that currently has no availability.

It works, but it's a deliberate nudge to get more people using the app rather than the website.

Alert setting on the Avios app

And it's worth saying: not everyone wants, or can use, the app. Some people manage their Avios purely through the website by choice, and some simply don't have room, or patience, for another notification pinging on their phone.

Does this make third-party reward seat finders redundant?

Mostly, but not entirely for now.

This updated tool does most of what third-party finders have been charging for: an easy calendar view, packaged along with Companion Voucher availability, and coverage across BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus in one place. For everyday searches, this is now the easiest way to check Avios availability.

As mentioned above, alerts are perhaps the weakest part, but the Avios search also lacks a "Club Suite" filter to show you which BA flights you may want to avoid wasting your Avios on. So if that's you, or if you want a proper "tell me the second a seat appears" alert by email, without needing the app at all, tools like Reward Flight Finder could still earn their keep for now.

Can I trust what I see on the calendar?

It's a fair question. This is still Avios and BA we're talking about, and neither is exactly famous for glitch-free IT.

But because this calendar search pulls directly from Avios' own live booking data, rather than being scraped by a third-party tool, it should in theory be more accurate, not less.

We didn't find any discrepancies between what the calendar showed and what came up when we carried the search through to ba.com. That said, this is new, so we'd treat it with the normal caution you'd apply to any freshly launched airline tech, and we'll flag it here if that changes.

The verdict

We have waited far too long for this. Avios have managed to create something that is clean, quick, and finally brings Companion Voucher and multi-programme availability. This should have been the standard for years.

The current iteration is not perfect, but it's a big step forward.

We know for certain that the ability to search connecting flights will be coming soon, and they've teased more, so we'll be keeping an eye on what Avios rolls out next. I would like to see availability across all Avios airlines in one place, and not just the ones owned by IAG (as it does here). Why have a shared currency if each airline can't share this?

This is one of the reasons we built our own Avios Calculator, because nowhere else on the internet allows you to directly compare pricing between all the Avios airlines.

If anything new gets added, we'll of course let you know.

Helena

Points Well Made is a passion project from Sam and Helena. If you've enjoyed this and want to help us keep the lights on, please consider buying us a Ko-fi or subscribing monthly. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for more of the same. Thanks for reading.