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Morning. New member here. Have tried to find the information to a booking I’d like to make here but just wondered if someone could help guide me on best solution.
Have 200k hard earned Avois and am on track to get the BAPP 241 voucher. Am hoping to use for 2 of us to fly East Coast USA in Club. Never been in business class before so this is a really exciting.1- We live in Manchester so want to connect to LHR. Am I correct in that this kind of Avios booking cannot be made online and that I have to call or can this be made online?
2- I see on here a lot of people secure the outbound leg before the return becomes available. I am a little confused on this especially with needing to use 241. I think I have enough Avios to book 2 singles for outbound without using the 241, so my question is when the return becomes available is it possible to call BA to convert the 2 one way outbounds to a return and then use the 241? Or is this not possible?
Sorry but I am new to the quirks of spending Avios, and just looking for best option for me. Thanks very much for you help.
Hopefully @NorthernLass will shortly come along and answer (1)
On 2, if you are going to east coast US you probably don’t need to book 355 days in advance. I have seen Rob made several comments about starting in the region is much easier. But if you need very specific dates and want security on dates then go ahead. You will need to use your 241 when booking the outbound, so you need to earn that first. If it is not a competitive route and you have flexibility, then you can should be able to book that online. It is the inbound where you have a choice, you either call and get the inbound added, or book the inbound paying the normal avios and calling to get half of it back by having the online booked inbound added to your outbound.
There are several 241 threads you should read, the answer to (1) is probably somewhere in the first one. I don’t live in the regions so only glance at those responses in passing. Here are a few for you to start on.
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/booking-return-leg-with-companion-voucher/
Booking from Manchester should be fine online using BAPP 241 voucher. It’s the Barclays one that doesn’t work online with connections.
For 2, best would be to book outbound when it becomes available using 241, then call to add inbound to existing booking.
You can book all the way through from MAN, but the earlier the better as services have been cut drastically and you can end up with terrible layover times if you don’t bag seats on a convenient connecting flight. Delays and cancellations also seem to have turned into a regular thing so think seriously about flying down to LHR the night before – if you were going to stay at MAN the night before anyway, you’re not really extending your trip.
Which east coast destination were you thinking of, and when? Unless you’re travelling at absolute peak time (e.g. Thanksgiving), availability to NYC, BOS and IAD tends to be so ubiquitous that you’re probably safe waiting until your return flights are released and book the whole thing in one go.
It might be useful to note that there are daytime flights back from JFK, EWR and BOS which I can thoroughly recommend! These are very short flights and probably very doable in Y or PE if done during the day.
*Also, you may well be able to bag F seats to one of these destinations, which would be really lovely!
Tip – use the “stopover” facility when booking; this lets you pick your MAN-LHR flights separately and can actually give you more choice, IME, especially when travelling on different days. Remember MAN flights vary by date – they seem to run later during the summer schedule, for example.
I’ve just re-read Q2 – do NOT book your outbound without the voucher, they won’t apply it if you do that. If you don’t book the whole trip in one go, use the 241 for your outbound flights then add the return using one of the methods discussed at length on this site. Good luck!
Thank you @NorthernLass for the tips, really helpful thank you. Out of interest do you know if availability is any different for West coast destinations? As I’m sure I just have enough now too for LAX or SFO.
Generally less so than east coast but you can usually find something unless it’s peak season, again. Have a look at SeatSpy and you’ll see patterns of availability throughout the year, although only for the standard avios seats, not the “extra” ones. If you can’t get LAX or SFO, think San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc.
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