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Can you no longer ring BA at midnight to use a BA Amex 2-4-1 voucher?

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British Airways guarantees to release at least 2 Club World and 4 World Traveller seats on every long haul flight for Avios redemption.  These are made available as soon as tickets for the flight go on sale, which is at midnight 355 days before departure.

Further Avios redemption seats in Club World and World Traveller, as well as seats in First and World Traveller Plus, are likely to be made available later on.  This is a random process, however, driven by how well the flight is selling.

These seats do not seem to be immediately available via ba.com because of the way the site is updated.  They are available on the dot of midnight (or 1am during British Summer Time) to anyone who calls BA.

Avios wing 7

The problem, if you are determined to snag seats on a particular flight, is that the UK call centres are not open at midnight.

I recently ran an article to promote a website which will give you the telephone numbers of BA call centres around the world which are currently open.   It looks like you might not need it any longer.

According to a few recent experiences of Head for Points readers, the USA call centres are now refusing to process 2-4-1 bookings during hours when the UK call centre is closed.  Whether this applies to both UK and US based BA account holders is still not clear – I have heard stories both ways.

Take a look at this comment here and this comment here, for example.

The excuse being given is that this is somehow ‘fairer’.  It isn’t, because the seats become available for online booking in the early morning irrespective of whether the call centre will book them.

This means that anyone wanting to add a return leg to an existing one-way 241 booking is at a 5-6 hour disadvantage to anyone who is not using a voucher.  The latter can book online during the night whilst the former needs to wait until the UK call centre opens at 6am.

I’m not sure how this will play itself out.  I can understand that the overseas call centres are fed up with an influx of calls at midnight UK time, especially as that may be a peak time in their own time zones.

This will clearly make it harder for some people to snag the 241 return flights they wanted, but how many remains to be seen.   I don’t have any skin in this game – I have only ever once booked an Avios redemption at 355 days in advance.  As a family of four, the release of two Club World seats doesn’t excite me much.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (153)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Flyoff says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:32

    I assume the US call centre still doesn’t exist anymore and the calls get routed to Newcastle. It always has been bizarre you can’t speak directly to the UK BA centres unless you phoned the US number. I learnt my lesson last year, as soon as flights were released, when I was going through the online booking process and there was an error after the payment page – someone had already booked the same tickets. I phoned the next evening and secured the newly released CPT Club seats.

    • Anon says:
      16 Jan16 January 07:41

      Flyoff – but what’s changed recently that they are refusing to deal with you if your account is registered in the UK.

      eg You could be in the US phone the US number (be redirected to Newcastle) and they refuse to deal with you.

      BA – One World?

  • Concerto says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:34

    Totally agree. I am right there with you. Outside the UK there are plenty options. Maybe less if you’re based in the UK though.

  • Guy says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:35

    Slightly OT but if book business class tickets using the 2-4-1 voucher and first class became available at a later date, could I upgrade the tickets and just pay the points difference for one? – Thanks.

  • Andrew Knight says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:47

    It is pretty poor that the paltry availability of redemptions means that a 5 hour delay booking a year in advance makes a big difference. But, with economy prices during next Christmas’ school holidays to JNB already coming in at £1700+ who can blame BA?

    • Rob says:
      16 Jan16 January 08:52

      And then you pay that, and BA starts selling Club World for the same dates for £1007 return as it did in the Christmas sale two years ago!

  • Mark says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:50

    My experience trying to get Christmas flights to CPT (as a relative newvbie to 2-4-1s), was waiting online until 00:00, doing the search, Business class tickets available, clicking through through to payment (could do it in a matter of seconds after a few nights!), and then it would say unable to process when paying. I am guessing people on the phone beating me to it in terms of getting them reserved? Any ideas? Is the best way via phone?

    • Lev441 says:
      16 Jan16 January 08:01

      +1
      Happened to me twice for Christmas 2017 to South Africa. Luckily I was able to get tickets on the third attempt for my outbound.. and for the inbound journey after not managing to get through to the US call centre after 40+ mins I tried Japan on the stroke of midnight the following day and secured the seats for the 241.. stressful experience mind..

      • Mark says:
        16 Jan16 January 10:51

        Did you manage to book the outbound online? I tried for a few nights and eventually settled on economy!

        Do people phone a 5 / 10 mins before and wait in the line with the agent! Sorry fairly naive question!

    • Anna says:
      16 Jan16 January 09:08

      I keep explaining to family and friends who don’t “get” avios that often you just have to go with what’s available and not have your heart set on a specific destination. This year, for the first time ever, I’ve managed to get 2 4 1 CW to Grand Cayman by booking at 1 am, but we are flying on week days in August which probably explains it (it’s their low season). By contrast, a couple of years ago I had no trouble whatsoever getting 3 CW redemptions into JFK and out of EWR (which has a surprisingly good lounge) at February half term, presumably because there is so much competition on that route that it gives BA an incentive to release more seats. But I would never assume I am going to get my first choice of destination, especially as my dates are fixed to the school holidays at the moment!

      • Mike says:
        16 Jan16 January 09:34

        Good point, totally agree. I usually sit with the iPad and decide “anywhere in the States will do” and build up the holiday around that destination. Miami, Orlando and Tampa always difficult to secure at Easter, so opted for Atlanta in F followed by a domestic biz flight with AA (30,000 Avios return and £9 tax pp gets me to Miami for our cruise.

        • Fenny says:
          16 Jan16 January 11:18

          Internal US flights can be quite cheap, so if you can’t get your preferred destination, it can be easy enough to get around. I fly in and out of Boston because I have friends there, but pick up decently priced internal flights on JetBlue for the rest of my visit.

  • Simon says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:59

    O/T How long should it take to transfer Heathrow Reward points to BA exec?…. A week later I’m still waiting for them to appear in my account….

  • chiefy says:
    16 Jan16 January 08:01

    Last week I called up the UK executive club number to make an avios redemptions late at night – around 11pm UK time – and was surprised to get through. That led me to believe they’d changed their hours so that the calls got picked up 24/7. Perhaps I just got lucky? Or perhaps the call centres are open later but not until midnight GMT?

    • Anon says:
      16 Jan16 January 08:20

      Which number you dialling, some get rerouted to India

      A wee update is that the 0800 597 7580 is not 24 hours, and even if you call during UK opening hours and chose options for amend booking using Avios you get told to redial 0344..xxx xxxx.

  • Anna says:
    16 Jan16 January 08:27

    Why the heck don’t they just issue the voucher in two parts (I know, I know, you are more likely to get your full value out of it that way!). I vented about this on another thread, having recently been refused the redemption of my return portion on the phone. I have emailed Mr Cruz about it, as another reader suggested. But you book your flight in 2 segments, so I can’t see why they can’t issue the vouchers in the same way.

    • Anon says:
      16 Jan16 January 08:41

      Totally agree and I also echo Lev441 comment above…

      “What really needs to happen is for the whole adding a return journey to a 241 booking to be completely bookable online… and that if you’ve selected the seats they actually hold them for you (twice have I got all the way to the payment page for it to tell me there’s an error as the seats have clearly been snagged quicker… it would remove the need to call up!”

      Its crazy that you can book 241 online on way out but not the return, if its an issue due to calculation of the taxes, then maybe even if it offered holding the flights and delayed taking payment til the next day over the phone, that would be easier.

    • Radiata says:
      17 Jan17 January 10:02

      Might I ask why were you refused the return leg redemption?

      Does booking the outbound only initially risk one not being permitted to book a return leg and, if so, why?

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