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Odd things are happening when you add a return to a one-way British Airways 2-4-1 flight ticket

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British Airways seems to have tweaked its rules on how you can book a return ticket using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, assuming you want to book as soon as tickets are released.

Let me recap the position for the benefit of readers who are not fully familiar with it:

Unlike most airlines, BA guarantees to release 2 x Club World or Club Europe seats and 4 x World Traveller or Euro Travellers seats on EVERY flight as soon as booking opens up at 355 days before departure.

Many more seats, including First and World Traveller Plus, are usually made available over the next 355 days.  However, if you absolutely MUST travel on a certain date to a certain place, your only guarantee of Avios tickets is to call an open BA call centre at midnight (1am during BST) 355 days before departure and grab some of the six guaranteed seats.

The reason you need to call – even though the seats also appear online at midnight – is that call centre agents can put tickets on hold during the payment process.  If you book online, it doesn’t matter if the seats are in your basket or not.  They are not yours until you’ve filled in all the passenger and payment details and hit ‘Pay’.  You have usually lost them to a call centre agent by that point.

The obvious snag with this process is that you can only book your outbound flight initially.  You need to wait 7-10 days (or however long you plan to be away) before the return flight opens up.

So far so good.

The historic position for booking your return flight was this:

You would call British Airways and tell them you wanted to add a return flight to an existing one-way booking

The call centre would do this and charge you the additional Avios and the difference between the taxes you paid and the total taxes for a return flight

BA even waived the £35 per person change fee

However, in the last year or so BA has allowed you to do something else:

You book the two return flights online for full Avios (this requires you to have enough Avios to do this) and full one-way taxes

At your convenience, you call British Airways.  The two bookings are merged into one – leaving you with just one booking reference – and you are refunded the additional Avios you used for the return flight and any excess taxes paid.

I think the reason BA wanted to encourage this was to reduce the volume of calls at midnight.

British Airways Premium Plus 241 voucher

What has changed?

According to reports from HfP readers and Flyertalk users over the last few weeks, BA is now implementing a new position if you book your return flights online and try to merge them with an existing outbound flight.

When you call up:

BA refunds you the extra Avios you used for the 2nd ticket to reflect the fact it is ‘2 for 1’

You do NOT get your outbound flight merged into your inbound flight.  This means that you retain two separate booking references.

You do NOT get any excess taxes and charges refunded.  You are stuck with paying 2 x one-way taxes and charges rather than the taxes and charges on a return flight.

Why is this is a problem?

The taxes and charges on 2 x one-way flights are NOT the same as those for a return flight. 

This is because BA manipulates its charges based on what the local market will bear.  In particular, tickets which start in North America incur substantially higher charges than those which start elsewhere.

Here’s an example:

Return Club World Avios redemption to San Francisco:  £662.57

One-way Club World Avios redemption TO San Francisco:  £440.37

One-way Club World Avios redemption FROM San Francisco:  £485.90 (+ £440.37 = £926.27)

People who have been booking their return flight separately and asking BA to merge it into an existing 2-4-1 redemption are now having to pay an additional £527.40 (£263.70 x 2) in taxes and charges for a couple.

How can you avoid this additional cost?

If you need to contact British Airways to add a return leg to an existing 2-4-1 one-way booking, do NOT book the return online and call BA to merge the two flights together.  You are likely to end up overpaying your taxes and charges.

Instead, call up British Airways and ask them to book the return seats and add them to your existing booking.  Your wallet will thank you.

You can learn more about how the British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher works in this ‘Avios Redemption University’ article.

PS.  There are a couple of places where this trick could work in your favour.  Some countries cap the charges that airlines can add to their tickets.  Some ban them entirely.

Here is an example for Hong Kong:

Return Club World Avios redemption to Hong Kong:  £576.37

One-way Club World Avios redemption TO Hong Kong:  £377.37

One-way Club World Avios redemption FROM Hong Kong:  £34.50 (+ £377.37 = £411.87)

In this case, you SHOULD book the return leg of a 2-4-1 online and call BA to have half of the Avios refunded.  As long as they keep your two bookings separate, a couple will save £329 (£164.50 x 2) in taxes and charges.

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Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (99)

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

  • Jonathan says:
    22 Nov22 November 07:35

    In my experience, when I called to add my return leg to my 2-4-1 for HKG, then automatically made it into a rerun flight rather than two one ways. I wanted it to be as two one ways to save tax as above but they advised the system wouldn’t allow them given the designation and departure airport was the same. Hence I had to pay the full return taxes.

    • Secret Squirrel says:
      22 Nov22 November 07:37

      Avios related:
      How long are T C B avios taking at present? My first transfer over a week ago now..

      • Shoestring says:
        22 Nov22 November 07:51

        was +1 or +2 days just a week or so ago but still haven’t received my 15th Nov transfer – you are not alone

        • Shoestring says:
          22 Nov22 November 07:56

          went up a level with stage 2 of the £100 payout cheap insurances on Monday (all the earlier ones paid out), had to pay £3.50/ month but happy with that – not worth choosing the same end insurer IMV but YMMV

          • Boi says:
            22 Nov22 November 10:02

            How much are you guys “insuring” yourselves for? I am getting higher quotes and wonder if it’s the 20K I put?

          • sloth says:
            22 Nov22 November 11:02

            are you using the same TBC account each time, or creating new ones?

          • Allycat says:
            22 Nov22 November 11:03

            I’ve recently received a £100 payout but T C B would only let me payout via BACS, not avios. I couldn’t choose Avios as it said morethan would not allow it. I used the payout to buy avios in the 50% bonus sale, but still less than I was expecting. Has this been other’s experiences ? If not morethan then which insurer or aggregator to choose … ?

          • sloth says:
            22 Nov22 November 11:06

            @alleycat – i think that’s the expectation now for any cover taken out since april ish? i took mine out in feb and was able to select avios, although i am still waiting for them to be credited to baec as per others

        • Secret Squirrel says:
          22 Nov22 November 08:33

          Good to know I’m not alone.
          So your on another round of insurance, think I might give it another whirl😊

          • Shoestring says:
            22 Nov22 November 08:37

            this one wasn’t instant approval (unlike my first ones) but they confirmed it all OK online within 1hr

          • Secret Squirrel says:
            22 Nov22 November 08:50

            Went with HSBC this time @£2.91 a month. 😆

    • Geoff says:
      22 Nov22 November 11:14

      Yes, in your case you would better tax-wise booking the return separately online, although you might have been pipped at the post by someone on the phone. Swings and roundabouts.

  • Robert says:
    22 Nov22 November 07:36

    If you use your 2-4-1 when making the outbound one way booking, doesn’t that mean you no longer have a 2-4-1 voucher left to use when you ring back in a week or two to add the return leg?

  • David says:
    22 Nov22 November 07:41

    Where can we find a list of BA offices that are open at midnight and their telephone numbers? Thank you

    • Shoestring says:
      22 Nov22 November 08:02

      depends what you mean by ‘work’ – the HK example is exceptional because of the restrictions on charges in law – but other locations can still be cheaper for a 1-way than BA would charge you in a return, though maybe not as exciting in terms of money saved – don’t forget this can work all over the place including Europe

      at one time ISTR Brazil charges were very cheap – not sure if still true?

  • LewisB says:
    22 Nov22 November 07:45

    Only at the end of September did a CS agent still add the extra taxes on my 241 booking coming back from Rio (open jaw, outbound to Lima). Obviously I merged it into one booking to get the avios refund. Should I had just been given the avios refund and kept two tickers at singles with significant tax savings?

  • David Jones says:
    22 Nov22 November 07:49

    Virgin Atlantic refused on 2 occasions to merge a return flight with s previous outward ticket. Only on a third call and a lot of persuading did I manage it but at a cost of £30 pp ticket change fee which was non negotiable
    However on the app and online the return fees are higher (as per this BA article) for booking an online separate return.
    The only App and online in UC was with connection but both flights Delta 1st and UC. However the agent said her system only allowed Economy (connection) / UC despite it appearing live during the booking process.
    Even after the booking was made the connecting flight availability was still showing on VA web site for miles!

    • Mel Saunders says:
      22 Nov22 November 09:08

      I have had similar problems booking our UC flights over the last few years with Virgin. This year I called several times in advance to find out what the policy was. Got 3 different answers, from yes you can add it on, to no you can’t, to no you cant if the outbound is a Delta. This years I’ve just booked and as with yourself, had to persuade them to add the return on. I’ve also had similar problems with the agent saying the flight isn’t available when its in front of me on line and ended up booking online.

      I’m glad I’m not the one one who is up at silly o’clock to book the flights.

  • Tony says:
    22 Nov22 November 07:56

    Yes, for at least my past two 2-4-1 bookings the return flight was treated as a separate booking, I was not aware of the tax/charge implications! So which locations apart from Hong Kong does this work?? At least I will know for my next redemption… Thanks.

    • pauldb says:
      22 Nov22 November 08:20

      Brazil is strange because BA are charging YQ on redemptions only. The inconsistency versus HKG (where YQ is not actually outlawerd any more) is perhaps not worth lingering over!

      I can only see it working for Japan (-£90pp) and SYD (-£60) these days. Most of the Far East used to work but seems to have rebalanced.

    • Lev441 says:
      22 Nov22 November 09:24

      Avios.com doesn’t charge the surcharge for Brazil so best to book via that. Used my Lloyd’s upgrade voucher last year to fly CW for and paid just £20 or so in taxes. One of my best redemptions to date!

  • Yorkieflyer says:
    22 Nov22 November 08:19

    This has been the case since January. I have 2 booking refs for our Christmas 241 trip. For our destination the additional cost was marginal, ie not visiting Trumpworld

  • Gary says:
    22 Nov22 November 08:44

    Trying to find a BA office that actually answers the phone at midnight can be quite stressful.

    As BA will allow the return leg to be booked online with the then messing about of claiming the Avios back afterwards, but now not the additional fees, surely it wouldn’t be that difficult for BA to simply allow the system to recognise the return booking of a 2-4-1 and avoid all this rubbish?

    They do seem to make this as complicated as possible for the user? Then again maybe I shouldn’t complain because if it was easy perhaps there wouldn’t be as many seats available????

    • Andrew says:
      22 Nov22 November 09:02

      If BA really wanted to make it easy for the user they could just not allow adding an extra flight to an already ‘used’ 2-4-1 voucher. They’re under no obligation to do so. It would be far simpler for all involved to simply cancel the booking, refund avios, taxes (minus cancellation fees) and voucher and then just let the customer make their entire booking in one go.

      Sometimes we should be careful what we wish for. The current approach massively favours us dedicated avios collectors who first even know that this is possible and secondly are willing to be up at midnight trying to call the other side of the world.

      • Anna says:
        22 Nov22 November 09:47

        Don’t the Ts and Cs entitle the voucher holder to a return trip though? I think they’d have to amend this if they were going to say that you can only use the voucher for one transaction (either a return flight or a one-way).

    • Andrew says:
      22 Nov22 November 09:46

      “Surely it wouldn’t be that difficult…”. You’d think, wouldn’t you… but then BA struggle with IT systems that manage baggage/file flight plans at the moment. I’d hope (but you can never be sure!) that their IT teams and contractors would focus on systems that keep planes flying for now. Although it’s a bit of a sorry state of affairs…

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