Amending connecting flights booked with BAPP Amex 2-4-1

[lsalander93]

Hey all,

Booked a return business flight to Tokyo next February. Was a bit late to the party so didn’t get to booked when the initial release of seats was. In the end had to book from Manchester for BA to be able to unlock extra business seats (great perk of the BAPP Amex 2-4-1!). So its a reward flight, nooked with Avios + cash using the BA 2-4-1.

Flight is Manchester to London then London to Tokyo and the same in reverse foe the return. This is not a major issue for us, as it means we get to travel with all our friends in business for this trip but I was wondering two things:

1. Would BA allow us to remove the Manchester to London part of the journey? As I said, not a huge deal breaker but its an extra ~£200 for train and hotel in Manc. (we live in London)

2. On the return will they allows us to cancel the London to Manchester – my initial thought was just going to be telling BA closer to the time, but then someone mentioned to me this cause issues with baggage.

Not particularly interested in a refund for these parts of the trips, just would be great to not have to do them!

Thanks,

[e14]

If you have used the Amex PP to get I class availability, then you will have a booking with married segments – these means that if you try and cancel the MAN-LHR or the LHR-MAN legs then they will also cancel the married long haul segment.

In short no you can’t have your cake and eat it (caveat BA may change schedules which might allow you to change the dates / cancel some legs).

[lsalander93]

If you have used the Amex PP to get I class availability, then you will have a booking with married segments – these means that if you try and cancel the MAN-LHR or the LHR-MAN legs then they will also cancel the married long haul segment.

In short no you can’t have your cake and eat it (caveat BA may change schedules which might allow you to change the dates / cancel some legs).

Yeah I suspected this would be the case! Will set up an alert and hope for the best.

Thanks,

[aq.1988]

You absolutely have to take the MAN-LHR leg at the start, if you decided to skip it, they would cancel the whole booking.

I’ve not done this, but I know some people that have travelled hand baggage only on the return, and skipped the last LHR-MAN leg, which is frowned upon by BA, but I think ok if a one-off. I think there is a trick to ensuring your checked luggage is offloaded at LHR, maybe scheduling it as an overnight, or when you choose the stopover dates, choose something in the future. Maybe someone else can confirm how to do this.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Yes that’s the case for cash flights – possible if you book the LHR-MAN sector for the day after you land at LHR so they have to give you your bags back.

But I’m not 100% sure if that’s the same for rewards and how they deal with stop-overs and if it affects the avios/cash costs.

[Anna]

If you use the stopover facility when booking online you can move the last leg out as far as it’s bookable. I think if the connection time is more than 24 hours you get your bags back automatically.

On the outbound you could always pick an earlier date for LHR-MAN and have a weekend break up north.