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I’m hoping for some advice on the best option here:
My family hope to travel to Hong Kong, with my wife flying out a few days before myself and my son fly out (for us all to return together).
We have a 241 voucher in my wife’s name and a Barclays upgrade voucher in my name. Annoyingly the 241 must have my wife flying on it, so this messes up our original plans of how to maximise the vouchers.
Would the following (in theory) work:
Wife – economy outbound (utilising the 241 voucher but as the 50% avios discount)
Wife and son – business return (utilising the 241 voucher)
Myself and son – premium economy (utilising the upgrade voucher)
Myself – business return (utilising the upgrade voucher)
I hope this makes sense! The issue may be the fact that my sons outbound and incoming flights are on different tickets? (ie outgoing with me and return with my wife, although I will be with them for the return too).
Our original plan was more simple – myself and my son use the 241 and my wife uses the upgrade voucher. If only they were in the opposite names!
I should add, we mainly want to fly business on return as the 3 of us will be flying together. The outbound can either be premium or economy.
Thanks for your help.
I don’t think that will work. If your son is on separate tickets, you can’t just apply the voucher for both.
I can’t think of a solution here except:
– your wife using the 241 for half miles as a single traveller (outbound home she pleases, return J)
– buy a one way ON Avios for you and son LON-HKG
– you use your voucher to upgrade you and your son to business on return (do this as a one way as taxes will be cheap)Perhaps someone can think of a better solution.
I don’t think that will work. If your son is on separate tickets, you can’t just apply the voucher for both.
I can’t think of a solution here except:
– your wife using the 241 for half miles as a single traveller (outbound home she pleases, return J)
– buy a one way ON Avios for you and son LON-HKG
– you use your voucher to upgrade you and your son to business on return (do this as a one way as taxes will be cheap)Perhaps someone can think of a better solution.
Thanks yes that may work – so the upgrade voucher can be used for upgrading myself and my son to business on return? I thought this voucher had to be used from the UK..
You can’t use the upgrade voucher for a standalone booking from outside the U.K. It might be possible if you were both on one return booking starting in the UK – is that the plan?
If using the voucher to upgrade the return for 2 (dependent obviously on award seat availability), it would need to be on the same PNR as the outbound. But as the upgrade voucher only allows you to use max avios/min cash, the taxes aren’t an issue.
Yeah – this is awkward. But not disastrous!
What I would be doing (assuming you have the Avios) is have Mrs ekposh using her 241 as a single traveler to halve the miles required for her. I would strongly advocate her doing this in business class both ways (even if you don’t really mean it) as otherwise she might accidentally elbow you in the eye.
I would use the upgrade voucher to book a one way for you and your good son to Hong Kong in your preferred class of travel. For reference, Club is better than WT+.
Smiley face.
Coming back, remember that one-ways from HK to the UK with BA have lower fees than normal. So you would only be around £70 per ticket and not £275 which reduces somewhat the loss from not maximising your wife’s 241. So I would book you and your son one-way back from HK at full Avios.
You could also look at coming back together with Finnair or Qatar which, apart from the airport change, would be more civilised and Finnair is a bit cheaper than BA.
Try pricing these up. It won’t be that much overall than if you could have fully utilised the 241.
You can’t use the upgrade voucher for a standalone booking from outside the U.K. It might be possible if you were both on one return booking starting in the U.K., but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case?
Myself and my son are yes, but not business on the outbound, so to maximise the voucher we’d want to use the voucher on the 2 business returns.
In the end I think the only way to maximise the vouchers is for us all to fly out at the same time. That way my wife is on the 241 with my son (economy outbound and business return), and I use my upgrade voucher for premium outbound and business return.
The only annoying thing is there same to be max 2 premium reward seats per flight, so we won’t all be together for the outbound.
Thanks all for your help!
Yes, BA only guarantees 2 x PE per flight.
You can still use the upgrade voucher for you and your son – you can just apply it to the inbound leg of the booking. I think you would need to call to book mixed cabins, but BA should be able to do it by phone. You’d only need CW availability, not PE.
I’m concerned that Mrs Ekposh is travelling with mhuk1. 🙂
You cannot use the vouchers with finnair but have you checked this?
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/04/16/using-avios-on-finnair-flights/
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