A Better Way to Search for Award Flights
For anyone who has burned an afternoon clicking through award calendars one day at a time, the new Find Reward Flights tool on the Avios website is a quiet but meaningful upgrade to how points redemptions actually work. International Airlines Group - parent company of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, and Level - has added a calendar-based search that displays an entire month of award seat availability in a single view. It covers flights operated by all three major carriers in the group and works across the British Airways Club, Iberia Club, and Aer Lingus AerClub programs.
The tool costs nothing to use. You need a free Avios loyalty account and nothing else - no paid subscription, no cobranded credit card required to access the search function itself.
How the Search Actually Works
Set your departure and arrival airports, the number of travelers, the travel month, and whether you want a one-way or return trip. The calendar populates with availability indicators: a half circle signals limited seats, a full circle means good availability. Hovering over any date tells you how many seats are on offer, which cabins they cover, and the Avios price for that date. Click the date itself and you get flight times, seat counts by cabin, and the exact Avios rate.
Say you’re planning two seats from Miami International Airport (MIA) to London in May - a month when the UK weather is genuinely agreeable and demand climbs. You’d set the search to show business class, watch the calendar populate, and quickly spot which dates have lie-flat availability without opening fourteen separate searches. When you find what you want, the tool passes you through to the operating airline’s website - in this case, British Airways Club - to complete the booking.
The same logic applies to Iberia and Aer Lingus routes. Iberia is worth flagging specifically: the airline offers some of the strongest award pricing for nonstop flights into Spain, and its carrier-imposed surcharges tend to run considerably lower than British Airways’ equivalent fees, which makes the calendar view genuinely useful for comparing date flexibility on Iberia routes out of Madrid.
What the Tool Won’t Show You
Three gaps are worth understanding before you build a redemption strategy around this.
First, the calendar currently shows nonstop flights only. Connecting itineraries do not appear, though Avios has confirmed that functionality is in development. If your route requires a connection - say, a North American city with no direct service to Dublin - this tool will return nothing useful for now. Second, and more consequentially for British Airways redemptions specifically, the tool does not display taxes and carrier-imposed surcharges. Those fees vary enormously across the three airlines. British Airways-operated flights are well known for attracting surcharges that can push cash costs into hundreds of dollars even on a “free” award ticket. Iberia and Aer Lingus tend to be more forgiving. The calendar will show you seat availability but leaves the fee calculation for the airline’s own booking page.
Third, you cannot complete a booking on the Avios site itself. Once you select a flight, you’re redirected to the relevant airline’s program to finish the redemption. That creates a friction point if, for example, you hold an Iberia Club account but want to book an Aer Lingus-operated route - the programs are related but not interchangeable for bookings.
Qatar Airways and Finnair both use Avios as their points currency, but neither airline is included in this tool.
Where This Tool Works Best
Because award availability pools at each carrier’s main hub, the search performs best on point-to-point routes originating from London Heathrow (LHR), Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD), or Dublin Airport (DUB). If you’re routing from a city that could plausibly connect through more than one of those hubs, run three separate searches - one from each hub - rather than expecting a single query to surface your options.
The companion voucher reference in the interface is worth a quick explanation to avoid confusion. UK-based American Express cardholders with a cobranded British Airways card can hold a Companion Voucher that unlocks additional award seats beyond standard availability. Chase issues a similar benefit called the Travel Together Ticket on its US Avios credit cards. However, Chase Travel Together Ticket holders do not get access to any additional award seats beyond what’s available to standard Avios members - so for US-based travelers using Chase cards, the companion voucher toggle in the tool is functionally irrelevant.
Earning Avios to Use the Tool
Part of what makes this search worth the effort is that Avios are among the more accessible points currencies to accumulate. British Airways Club, Aer Lingus AerClub, and Iberia Club all accept transfers from Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Bilt Points, Wells Fargo Rewards, and Marriott Bonvoy points. That’s a wide enough transfer network that most travelers with any US rewards card exposure have likely been earning Avios-transferable points without thinking about it.
Cobranded cards that earn Avios directly add another accumulation channel. The practical upshot: if you’ve been sitting on a Chase or Amex balance without a clear redemption target, running a search through this calendar tool before transferring points is a sensible order of operations. Transfer only when you have a specific award date confirmed - points transfers to airline programs are generally one-way and irreversible.
The Practical Travel Tips Takeaway
Use the calendar to identify flexible award windows rather than locked-in dates. The visual difference between a half-circle and a full-circle date can guide you toward travel weeks with better availability before you commit to anything. For routes where British Airways and Iberia both fly nonstop - London to Madrid being the obvious example - search both carriers separately and compare the Avios rates, then factor in that Iberia’s surcharges will likely be lower before deciding which program to book through.
For Aer Lingus specifically, the tool is most useful for transatlantic routes out of Dublin, where the airline operates nonstop service to multiple US cities. Aer Lingus clears US customs in Dublin before departure, which eliminates the customs queue on the US arrival end - a practical benefit that makes Dublin-origin awards worth considering even if you need to position there first.
The tool is live on the Avios website now. A free Avios account takes under five minutes to open, and searching costs nothing regardless of whether you ultimately book.
