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So I booked the out going leg LHR-SIN for 10 Dec 24 and have been trying to book the return for Jan,I missed the 5 & 6. So I called the US call centre before midnight (11.30pm) and was on hold and didn’t speak to anyone as the flights became available. So I was left with no choice but to grab the flights, I paid £490 and 35,000 Avios. I stay on the line for another 15 minutes and still didn’t speak to anyone.
I have called back this morning and just got off the phone with a young Indian lady. Initially, she said it’s not policy, it can’t be done, they can’t link the booking etc etc After a little pushing and speaking to her manager, it was agreed it can be done. Then after 10 minutes, she came back and said as I paid half Avios and half cash the BA systems won’t let her link the booking and refund me the over payment!
Has anyone heard of this? Is it true? Or shall I call back later and try again with the UK staff?
@lastcall – BA has no official published policy about this as it’s all done by concession. However, some have reported that in order to get your 50% back you need to have picked the same Avios/cash mix on the two bookings. There is some logic to this, but whether it is immutable, I don’t know so it may be worth another call and hope the first agent didn’t note too much in your booking.
thanks for your reply. The problem was a I wasn’t able to pick the same Avios/cash mix as that would been 80,000 Avios and I only had 45,000 available. I think I read somewhere in these circumstances they can cancel the ticket and quickly rebook it at the correct mix. Am I right in thinking that?
That is possible but a tad risky.
I am 99.9% convinced that Avios seats which were released at T-355 go back into inventory (my conviction is partly based on reports here and also when I cancelled two Avios seats I had booked on a flight that was by then completely sold out, they popped back into inventory meaning you could not buy a ticket with cash but you could with Avios)
You would need a friendly agent, you would probably be stung for 2x £35 cancellation charges and possibly the offline fee. And it might go pear shaped.
I might almost be tempted to try and do it myself. Cancel both, log out of account and back in. I have done this and my 241 voucher reappeared but you may end up disappointed.
I am a bit confused – are you trying to get half the Avios and Cash returned as well as linking the return flight to the outbound? If so I believe as @JDB says it can only be done if you used the same number of Avios and Cash for the return flight as you did for the outbound.
As it is you appear to have paid 80k + cash plus a further 45k Avios +£450 to get a return trip. Which cabin did you book and for how many passengers? because I think the business class fare to SIN is 110k each way (off peak)per passenger. If youv3 booked WTP, then you’ve paid 125k Avios and at least £665. That’s still a decent deal for 2 passengers. And even for 1.
Personally, I’d just keep what you’ve booked as it is not guaranteed that the seats will go back into inventory and be available for you to book again. Especially as you still don’t have enough Avios to book what you wanted.
Singapore in economy is:
40000 Avios + £ 125.00
31000 Avios + £ 155.00
22750 Avios + £ 215.00
17500 Avios + £ 245.00
12000 Avios + £ 280.00
7950 Avios + £ 320.00
So without the voucher one way in the middle of that table would be 35,000 + £490.
Going out the OP will have paid 40,000 Avios + £250.
So current cost is 75,000 Avios + £740 by my reckoning.
Assuming OP prefers least cash option, rebooking would be 80,000 Avios + £500.
I erred earlier as cancellation will be 4x£35 i.e. £140.
So rebooking if all needs to be cancelled would be 80,000 + £640. So 5,000 more Avios and a saving of £100.
I agree with @AJA unless a kindly and magical agent can fix this which I doubt.
With a 2-4-1 booked in this way –
1. The bookings aren’t linked in any meaningful way. Other than by a note in the PNR that will only be seen if someone goes looking for it (which no one will unless they have a reason to). So you’ll always have two separate booking refs and ticket numbers and pay the cancellation fees applicable to each separate ticket.
2.The cash element is not refunded down to the level it would be if you had booked a return from the get go. You will always be charged the two one ways fees etc.
3. With a 2-4-1 only the avios are refunded for the companions booking,
So without the voucher one way in the middle of that table would be 35,000 + £490.
Going out the OP will have paid 40,000 Avios + £250.
So current cost is 75,000 Avios + £740 by my reckoning.
Assuming OP prefers least cash option, rebooking would be 80,000 Avios + £500.
You are correct as above. My feeling is what’s the point in gaining the 241 voucher if you can’t get the full benefit!
Update: Have just spoken to a lovely northern lass called Sarah and she offered the options of cancelling and rebooking the SIN-LHR flight, but with no guarantee that it could be done. She said its a 50/50. Or the other option of linking the booking, using the companion voucher on the second flight, so they would return 17,500 Avios but they don’t return any of the cash.
So in the end, return to Singapore for 2 passengers cost 57,500 Avios and £740 and I still have 22,500 Avios to use for next year! I’m quite happy with that outcome.
Thanks to all for your time and input, happy travels!
Well done! That just shows that it never hurts to call again.
With a 2-4-1 booked in this way –
1. The bookings aren’t linked in any meaningful way. Other than by a note in the PNR that will only be seen if someone goes looking for it (which no one will unless they have a reason to). So you’ll always have two separate booking refs and ticket numbers and pay the cancellation fees applicable to each separate ticket.
2.The cash element is not refunded down to the level it would be if you had booked a return from the get go. You will always be charged the two one ways fees etc.
3. With a 2-4-1 only the avios are refunded for the companions booking,
Thanks, 100% correct with the discussion I just had on the phone. The best way to do this in the future would be to have 80,000 Avios available to book the return and then they would refund 40,000. Not sure how viable that is for many people!
Indeed – this is far from a disaster. Given Rob’s highly scientific, trademarked, patented, copyrighted, and enforced-with-baseball-bat valuation of 1p per Avios you are only £15 worse off than if you had managed to book your preferred option.
More importantly you have two tickets to Australia for the equivalent of £1,315 which you have the option of cancelling for £140.
This is totally and utterly #winning all day long.
I think OP is heading to Singapore not Australia but the return fare is still decent for 2 even in economy.
Doops. Indeed. Face plant.
So without the voucher one way in the middle of that table would be 35,000 + £490.
Going out the OP will have paid 40,000 Avios + £250.
So current cost is 75,000 Avios + £740 by my reckoning.
Assuming OP prefers least cash option, rebooking would be 80,000 Avios + £500.
You are correct as above. My feeling is what’s the point in gaining the 241 voucher if you can’t get the full benefit!
Update: Have just spoken to a lovely northern lass called Sarah and she offered the options of cancelling and rebooking the SIN-LHR flight, but with no guarantee that it could be done. She said its a 50/50. Or the other option of linking the booking, using the companion voucher on the second flight, so they would return 17,500 Avios but they don’t return any of the cash.
So in the end, return to Singapore for 2 passengers cost 57,500 Avios and £740 and I still have 22,500 Avios to use for next year! I’m quite happy with that outcome.
Thanks to all for your time and input, happy travels!
This sounds like a great result, hope I can manage something like this when we finally get a 2 4 1 🙂
Also very happy at the use of the word immutable up thread.
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