Reply To: Long haul in Club World RFS – what Avios + money options for inbound flight?

[Jonathans]

For those that are interested (my booking to DXB over May half term), i have taught several BA agents something new with this and learnt a lot myself… I booked the outbound leg of my trip for 4 people at t-355 days for in club. This was my first long haul booking with the new RFS options, the first time i have had to pay for 2 kids (since they are now both over 2) and the first time i haven’t had any 241 vouchers to spend so the options were daunting and scary. I ultimately chose the worst option of low money and high avios.

As mentioned above by @NorthernLass, the return\inbound booking cash\avios payment option must be the same as the original outbound booking.

But you can change the cash\avios payment option on a booking over the phone as long as their is a change to the itinerary (i.e. adding the return leg at t-355). The UK bronze exec office confirmed this was possible during a dummy run i did in the week. Speaking to the overseas agent at 1am this morning when booking the return\inbound, initially told me it wasn’t possible to change the payment option but eventually checked with a supervisor and agreed its acceptable (but its a manual calculation on their side which take a little bit longer).

So i went from the prospect of having to pay £1400 + 680k avios which would have wiped me out. To actually paying £2874 and 440k avios. The overseas call centre then tried to charge me £35 change fee plus £15 admin fee per person (there are 4 of us) and refused to back down. I asked them to save the flights and I’d pay later when the UK office opened. Speaking to the UK bronze exec office at 8am instantly confirmed that this was incorrect (for my specific circumstance) and waived all the additional fees.

Happy days but I’ve had no sleep and spent nearly 3 hours on the phone to BA sorting it all out.

The lesson…..know your avios worth (as per @rob method above) before you book as its a pain to undo later.