Working out Avios reward flight taxes?

[keeven]

I was trying to book reward flights to Caribbean for my family of 4. I have only one 2-4-1 companion voucher. I found out that when I use the companion voucher to book for one adult and one child, the taxes are £296 and £212 respectively. However if I book without companion voucher, the taxes became £350 each, same for adult and child ( using the same amount of Avios points)! I called BA Executive Club, they saw the same price as I did. Anyway I had book it in case the seats are gone. It means I paid nearly £200 more taxes than using the companion voucher. I don’t understand how it worked but I think the system is wrong.

• This topic was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .

[keeven]

I meant for companion voucher booking I spent 50000 points. For the booking without companion voucher I also spent 50000 points for each ticket.

[meta]

Were you booking economy tickets? If so, there are a few options where you pay a varying amounts of cash and Avios and it might well be that there is an option of 50k + £350 which consists of surcharges of £296/212 + extra for the fact you’re selling Avios back to BA. However, when you use companion voucher, then it will only allow you Avios+surcharges. Avios+cash option is not available when using companion voucher.

[keeven]

I paid the exact amount of the points for the flight (the same as when I booked with companion voucher), so I don’t understand why the taxes are different. Is there anyway that I can contact customer services to ask?

[ChrisC]

Before doing anything more look at the detailed fare breakdown (that shows the individual elements that make up the taxes, fees and surcharges) of the two different options -do dummy bookings if necessary – to see where the additional charges are actually coming from.

It may or may not be an actual tax issue but a surcharge one or an airport fee issue.

It’s possible that some of the charges may not apply to reward bookings but do apply to cash bookings.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .

[John]

If you post exactly what you booked and the numbers you saw for the “cheaper” taxes option, someone here might be able to decipher it for you, otherwise we can only guess.

[keeven]

This is when I book with companion voucher:

Total Avios Price per person Taxes, fees and carrier charges* per person Total price
1 Adult 50000 £ 0.00 £ 296.73 £ 296.73
1 Child 0 £ 0.00 £ 212.73 £ 212.73
Voucher used BA American Express Credit Card Companion Voucher
Total 50000Avios + £ 509.46

This is when I book for one adult and one child, no voucher:

Avios per person Price per person Taxes, fees and carrier charges* per person Total price
1 Adult 50000 £ 0.00 £ 0.00 £ 350.00
1 Child 50000 £ 0.00 £ 0.00 £ 350.00
Total 100000Avios + £ 700.00

[NorthernLass]

Are these both return trips? What’s the destination, I can check and see if I get the same without a voucher.

[keeven]

Yes, they are return flights. 25000 points each way. It is London to Antigua, in December peak time.

[NorthernLass]

I’m getting options of 140k avios plus £300 and 100k avios plus £700 (plus others) – these appear to be RFS options. I’m thinking the discrepancy is because you don’t get RFS with 241 bookings. If you don’t have enough avios for the any of the options, these will be greyed out and you’ll only be able to choose the ones you have enough for.

On non-241 bookings, the old-style price of avios plus BA’s standard taxes/fees doesn’t seem to exist any more so you’d have to see if one of the options particularly suits your circumstances. Amount of avios and cash needed for these RFS seems to vary by destination, for the US they seem to be much better value, for instance.

[Rob]

This is an unfortunate side effect of the new BA long haul Avios pricing system.

BA has added extra price points as you know – you can pay as little as £100 in taxes per person, up to ‘quite a lot but few Avios’. When you use a 2-4-1, it is meant to use the ‘middle’ option which is what everyone used to pay before BA started messing about offering ‘more Avios, less tax’ options.

For some reason, BA will occasionally fiddle with the numbers to round them up/down when you don’t use a 2-4-1. This is why you get £350 with the standard redemption and £296 (which is actual, legal taxes and charges figure) with the voucher.

Heaven knows why BA likes to make it this complicated, but it does.

[NorthernLass]

JFK-LHR-MAN on RFS is 30k avios and £50 at peak time, which is great value. Maybe BA decides how much cash to charge on the desirability and frequency of route?