Barclaycard upgrade voucher one way / return

[APL03]

I have booked 4 outbound flights from LHR to Tokyo for December this year. 2 are in CW using a companion voucher, and 2 in PE using the Barclaycard upgrade voucher.

I just tried to book the returns on the phone and was told by the agent that they could add the flights to the companion voucher booking, but I couldn’t amend the PE / upgrade voucher seats to turn them into a return booking and use the other spare upgrade voucher in my account. I know that the upgrade voucher only works on flights from the U.K., and I’m sure I had read on here that it is possible to do what I wanted. But I’ve tried calling twice now and have had the same response.

Am I getting this wrong, or do I just need to keep trying until I get an agent who knows what to do? Or is the problem that the upgrade voucher has effectively been fully used across two one way bookings (rather then if one booking was made at a time, each using ‘half’ an upgrade voucher?) If so is there anything I can do?

Thanks for your help.

[NorthernLass]

I think your options are to either keep trying until you get a cooperative agent, or maybe cancel your outbound booking and re-book on separate PNRs both ways. The seats should come back as you’ve booked well in advance, though I don’t know how fast the returns are being snapped up just now, which could be a problem!

*Or, call again and ask the (hopefully competent) agent to cancel the outbound and book the whole thing on one PNR with both vouchers.

Yikes! Hope my 10kth post is a helpful one 😯 😂

[JDB]

@APL03 – the agent is strictly correct – you should have used both vouchers when booking the outbound and then the return could easily be added using the vouchers. Now, as you have identified, you are attempting to apply a voucher to two ex-Japan bookings which doesn’t work. You either need to land on an agent who is both helpful and not too smart or cancel and rebook.

[APL03]

Thank you. That’s a bit of a nightmare! When I was doing the outbound I was on the phone booking the CW seats and on the laptop at the same time doing the PE seats as that seemed the only way to secure them both (the website still doesn’t let me add more than one upgrade voucher). The demand for the outbound flights was really high and I had to try a few days in a row to get them so cancelling is quite risky.

[APL03]

Just an update in case it helps anyone else in the same scenario…

When I called again I spoke to an amazing agent.

Instead of cancelling the outbound booking, he said he would split the booking comprising of two PE seats (that used one upgrade voucher) into two different PNR number bookings. He had to manually refund the avios and the single voucher, and he then debited the avios again and one voucher onto each booking.

This then allowed the upgraded returns to be added to each individual booking. Including doing the companion voucher returns, the whole process took an hour and half (the agent said it was his record for a single call!)

So the lesson that I’ve learned is if you are booking two seats at 360 days out and plan on booking the returns later and want to use two upgrade vouchers, you have to do it as two separate bookings and apply a voucher to each one at the time of booking the outbound.

[NorthernLass]

Great news, you must be so relieved.

There have been instances here of agents using 2 upgrade vouchers on one return booking, but clearly it’s a total lottery as to what the agent who answers the phone is capable of!

[APL03]

NorthernLass wrote:

Great news, you must be so relieved.

There have been instances here of agents using 2 upgrade vouchers on one return booking, but clearly it’s a total lottery as to what the agent who answers the phone is capable of!

Thanks yes, very relieved! I think booking two returns with two vouchers is fine. The problem I found is I didn’t know these specifics of how to book the outbound and inbound separately (for an in demand route) for two people using two upgrade vouchers.

Does anyone know if I can now ask for the 3 bookings to be linked so they know we are all travelling together?

[farif1567]

Just jumping on this thread as it’s so recent as I will be doing the midnight calling to book my return seats 355 days out (having booked out outbound already). Is the US exec line the best one to use to do this? Thanks in advance.