British Airways launches a new flight and holidays sale – save more when you ‘part pay with Avios’

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• Matt B says:

  4 May4 May 10:46

  OT – I’ve got 2 reward Flights booked on BA metal but via Iberia using points from the 9000 promo. Both flights have been moved from LHR to LGW. The timings of new inbound aren’t great meaning I’d need to take an extra day off work, so I’d rather move to an earlier indirect flight. I assume I need to ring Iberia? Looking at other options would they book me on Vueling instead? Or just BA/Iberia?

  • Lady London says:

    4 May4 May 12:51

    The normally best advice would be to look at the schedules to find alternative flights / reasonable reroutings that would work for you. Then calk them and ask for those instead. If your booking was an Avios one in this case thé airline is not restricted to just avios seats fir the rebooking.

    Although you have a right to choose something very close in timing to what you had booked originally and theoretically you can assert this right, practically airlines would rather book you in order of their preference rather than yours.(and you have the right to your preference over theirs, within reason). Airline preferred order as follows
    1. Their own flights. Particularly, keeping the first flight on the ticket as theirs. Because first flight in a ticket determines where the lions share of revenue from that ticket goes. So they would rather you travel a whole day or two later on their own flight, than 2 hours later on a competitor’s flight. They wll just rebook you on their choice. But you have the right to request what is closer to what you booked even on a competitors flight which they will try not to provide.

    2. Their next choice would normally be another airline they own or have a deal with. Iberia Vueling for example.

    3. Their next choice, routings within their own alliance in this case OneWorld.

    4. Any other flight. They really are unlikely to go for this even if you have the right, without a serious bit of prodding.

    However in the case of Iberia if you ask for anything different than what they have booked you to for their own convenience, the agent is going to say they are not allowed and quite likely hang up on you.

    had that 12/14 times (logged) on my Christmas flights when Iberia chose their own rerouting that made the trip not worthwhile and refused to consider alternatives that would still keep the purpose of my trip. And yes Shoestring I am still going to go after Iberia under EU261 for that one.

    Good luck @MattB when you call them perhaps you will get better results than me. Please let us know.

    • Lady London says:

      4 May4 May 12:59

      PS even if they:ve just changed only the outgoing or the return you can get the whole ticket changed to something that gives you something closer in terme of time away, date of arrival back, particular days of the week that you needed to be at your destination, etc. A change from lhr to lgw does change lots and I would not accept it or any additional costs (which if you negotiate an alternative will not be paid by the airline but should be paid if they are necessarily incurred by the airline’s rescheduling that you did not change)unless i wanted the over all results.

      • BJ says:

        4 May4 May 13:16

        OT @LadyLondon, sorry but I’m clueless what you were referring to in comments directed at me yesterday, Am I missing something important?

        • Lady London says:

          4 May4 May 13:39

          Rob’s also said it today in comments. You mentioned no bonii for a while on amex and mentioned two years. Yet you mentioned elsewhere you have a business. In that case on amex it’s not 24/its 6. Unless I missed something.

        • BJ says:

          4 May4 May 14:31

          Ah ok, sorry for the confusion. I may have mentioned before my partners family have business and we travel sometimes so he can help with that. We make money from buying and selling property here and there, now and then but nothing formal. I have already retired from my main profession and I have two volunteer positions that I enjoy so not really interested in developing business interests and opportunities in any serious way, it’s just not me. Thus, I’m stuck with personal cards only. Thanks though for being perceptive and nudging me in the right direction 🙂

      • Shoestring says:

        4 May4 May 15:41

        @Lady London – IAG treat all their London airports as ‘London’ for EC261 compo so it is quite difficult to get them to accept that moving you from one airport to another is inconvenient. They have even refused to reimburse the cost of taxis if they make you arrive back at Gatwick when you left your car at LHR! But on appeal, people win. Even then, don’t go over £50 on a taxi as they expect you to take the standard public transport.

        • Lady London says:

          4 May4 May 16:14

          I’d like to see that tested in court. I don’t think it woud sustain particular with anything involving a switch between Heathrow and Gatwick.

          Without a chauffeur driven car it’s going to take you realistically well over 2 hours at minimum to transit between those 2 airports. Add that to a later flight time and you’re over the 3 hrs min for compo 5 hours (or whatever it is) on longhaul. The fact that an airport in Crawley, Sussex (not even an adjacent Country to London or Middlesex where Heathrow is) markets itself as “London” does not change the fact of the extra time imposed onto the poor passenger’s journey before he gets back to the destination he paid for.

          Even with a chauffeur driven car and even not considering traffic the transit time impact is still huge of this particular change.

        • Shoestring says:

          4 May4 May 16:21

          People have won delay compo from BA based on arrival time after taxis back at LHR when they have been forced to land at Gatwick not the planned LHR and take a taxi to pick up their car at LHR. See the Flyertalk EC261 compo thread yet again. But they had to drag BA all the way to a threatened MCOL hearing before BA caved.

        • Lady London says:

          4 May4 May 20:32

          *nothing new there then is there Shoestring in having to threaten mcol (or even do it) to make British Airways give you your rights under EU261.

        • Lady London says:

          4 May4 May 20:34

          * however Matt B got his ticket off Iberia so he will have to go via Iberia to deal with it which is even worse.

        • Shoestring says:

          4 May4 May 20:51

          With codeshares you can seek redress from either the operating carrier (BA metal = BA) or the marketing carrier (IB here, the one that sold Matt the ticket). However, getting fobbed off by one or the other is fairly common (and getting told to ask the other one). I suggest it is far easier to try to get compo from BA than IB if you are UK-based.

          Why does this matter? If you are on a BA/ AA codeshare & the operating carrier is BA, with AA as the marketing carrier, & route is USA—>EU, you are entitled to compo from BA under EC261 but not from AA.

    • Matt B says:

      4 May4 May 18:55

      Thanks for the detailed reply. Yes I have preferred alternatives, one on iberia via Madrid with a short connection, the other via Barcelona with a longer connection on Vueling. I would personally prefer the Vueling option. According to a message when I try and access my booking, It appears my flight has not been ticketed unless I confirm the alternative Iberia have given me.

      • Lady London says:

        4 May4 May 20:36

        Hum. I would try to do non-Vueling if what I want could be achieved on IB or particularly BA flights.

  • Tracy says:

    4 May4 May 23:41

    I had booked Madrid to jfk using the promotional avois then booked cash flights edi to Madrid to position. My return Madrid to edi was cancelled by Iberia and a later indirect via London was the only option. I argued that the later rescheduled flight meant that my stop over in Madrid was longer and I wanted my jfk to mad flight moved to a later one too, I was pleasantly surprised when they agreed, especially as that flight was a totally separate booking and had been unavailable for redemption when I originally booked (was my preferred time anyway). Long story, doesn’t hurt to ask 🙂

• Janie says:

  4 May4 May 14:43

  I can’t seem to find First to Mexico City for less than £2,700?

  • Rob says:

    4 May4 May 15:12

    Just checked …. the one remaining departure date at that price is Christmas Day.

    • janie says:

      4 May4 May 16:00

      Thanks for that, can’t even find those! Was waiting for this sale too, how disappointing. Peru seems to be the only decent non US destinstion.

• Sue says:

  4 May4 May 19:21

  Can only seem to find HK for £397 in eco in Feb 2020, WTP is showing as £898?

• Sergey says:

  4 May4 May 22:14

  If I buy an economy ticket with a BA Holidays package, will it be eligible for an upgrade with Avios? I understand it depends on the ticket fare being applied, but which fare is being used in this case?

  • Rob says:

    4 May4 May 22:15

    I would be very surprised if it was semi-flexible, which is what you need.

    • Piers says:

      7 May7 May 08:06

      My flights on BA holiday were class S. I had economy return this month. I called about upgrade options on the first day of this sale (without realising) and (because of it) my return leg was upgraded to Premium Economy for a £160 refund. There were no options to upgrade with Avios but I didn’t think to ask why.

• Journeying John says:

  5 May5 May 12:56

  Great ways to use BAEC Avios before swapping to a quality, premium airline who reliably deliver a basic service in clean and maintained cabins

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