Advice booking 3 CW to South Africa

[Grandad81]

Hi all,

I am planning to travel to South Africa about this time next year for about 2/3 weeks. I’m planning to go with my wife and also to take my mum as she’s never been. I have a BA Amex 2-4-1 and a Barclaycard voucher. I know we cannot use them both on same booking.

Is there any advice on the best way to combine/book ie order to book, whether to book as one way online then call to add return later (if this can be done for both types), who to phone etc. it’s been 10 years since I last booked such a popular route and I seem to remember I booked the outbound online and had to call a foreign call centre soon after midnight UK time to add the return before the tickets went. Is this still advisable?

We would ideally want to fly to JNB and back from CPT, with 3 seats needed each way in CW.

I have enough Avios for all 3 and that then wipes me out so I have downgraded to the free Amex after 12 years on the paid one, but I understand this doesn’t affect the use of the 2-4-1 voucher.

Thanks,

Paul

[Grandad81]

Also meant to ask, is it better to book the single person return using the Barclaycard voucher first, then the booking with the 2-4-1 as this opens up additional reward tickets rather than the other way around?

[NorthernLass]

Have you done some research on how fast the seats are getting snapped up at this time of year (e.g. on ba.com or SeatSpy)? Also, doing a few dummy bookings will show you if and when extra seats are available using the 241 (these often don’t appear until weeks or months after the initial T-355 release date).

Assuming September isn’t high season in SA, you may be ok at T-355, though for the best chance of securing 3 seats, you really need to have 2 of you making the bookings simultaneously (or be fast-fingered on 2 devices).

There is a long thread full of useful info on how to book the return leg, but basically if you haven’t got enough avios to book the returns online and claim 50% of the avios back, you’ll need to call BA, as you correctly recall, to request this. This isn’t always straightforward these days, again the “booking the return with the 241” thread is your friend here.

[Grandad81]

Thanks very much for responding, it’s appreciated.

Yes been looking at BA.com and playing with dummy bookings. Deffo won’t have enough to book the return without the reduced Avios and then call to request a refund, so it’s going to be a matter of calling up and whether there is a ‘better’ call centre, as I don’t have status.

Will look at the thread you recommended thank you. It was more whether it was advisable to book in order 2-4-1 then Barclay voucher or vice versa on basis of the ‘extra’ availability from 2-4-1.

Thanks again!

[NorthernLass]

There might not be extra availability at T-355 with the 241 though, you can’t count on it. So as previously suggested, your best chance is to be making both bookings simultaneously as soon as the seats are released, as you’ll need 3 out of the 4 guaranteed seats.

But I had a quick look at SeatSpy earlier and CPT at least is still showing some availability for next August, so it looks as though they’re not getting snapped up straight away.