Adding extra legs

[shurik]

Hi All,

Long time lurker but first time poster.

I have return Business tickets Madrid – Bogota booked with Amex 2-4-1. I want to change the return flight to BOG – MAD – LHR – NCL.

I can see avios availability in both Economy and Club for the 16:45 MAD-LHR-NCL on BA website. Searching for BOG-LHR there is also availability in Club with connection to the same 16:45 flight from MAD.

Trying to search BOG – NCL shows no availability. Called BA and was told there is no availability. Was happy to take the MAD-NCL sections in Economy if required. The best they could offer is a cash booking MAD-LHR-NCL but not checked through from BOG.

Is my only option trying to call and add MAD-LHR only to the return leg so at least I get to the UK on the same ticket? Or am I missing a trick somewhere and should be pointing BA CS assistant in a different direction?

Thanks in advance

[John]

Likely has to do with married segments so if you can accept going to LHR and they can add that to a 241 ticket that’s probably the best

[zio]

This sounds like a “married segment” issue.
I think you may have one hope: a 2-4-1 voucher can open up extra availability to NCL which won’t be visible unless you search with a voucher. If you don’t have another voucher in your account you could post dates/times here and a kind soul might be able to check.
Or you could ring BA and say you want to use a voucher for a booking- a helpful agent may be able to make the search even if you don’t have a voucher in your account. I would trust someone on here more…
If there is availability showing, again a helpful agent might be able to add the leg on to your booking if you can point them to the “extra” availability, but I expect that you would need to cancel your existing booking so that the voucher reappears in your account. This does lead to issues of whether you should be happy with your “bird in the hand.”

[shurik]

Thank you John and zio

If anyone has 5 min and a 2-4-1 voucher and can check availability on 19/11/24 (arriving next day) for BOG – NCL, that would probably push me towards cancelling the existing booking.

Otherwise, I will try to book at least to London and then figure out my options from there

[Deek]

Sorry there’s no availablity through to NCL on 19/11 with a 241, however there are J tickets available to LHR via MAD. Most options only have 2 seats left, but there are a couple of options with more than that.

[shurik]

Thank you Deek

[e14]

zio wrote:

This sounds like a “married segment” issue.
I think you may have one hope: a 2-4-1 voucher can open up extra availability to NCL which won’t be visible unless you search with a voucher. If you don’t have another voucher in your account you could post dates/times here and a kind soul might be able to check.
Or you could ring BA and say you want to use a voucher for a booking- a helpful agent may be able to make the search even if you don’t have a voucher in your account. I would trust someone on here more…
If there is availability showing, again a helpful agent might be able to add the leg on to your booking if you can point them to the “extra” availability, but I expect that you would need to cancel your existing booking so that the voucher reappears in your account. This does lead to issues of whether you should be happy with your “bird in the hand.”

Just a point of note – the Amex Prem 241 does not open up extra shorthaul seats. It is longhaul revenue I class that is made available. Gold members also get extra economy seat availability.

The issue here is that the BA booking engine for some unknown reason can’t string an IB LH with an IB SH and a BA domestic when using Avios (well it can sometimes but then the autoprice fails), it is possible but takes an agent that is willing to look into the problem and refer to the one world help desk.

[JDB]

@e14 – the Amex 241 can open up extra short haul availability, but only as part of a married segment as identified by @zio and that married segment availability would rarely, if ever, be offered when you mix IB/BA.