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Hello!
Fairly new to the world of voucher bookings / upgrades but hoping to book a return trip for a family of three shortly from Edinburgh to Japan using a combination of an Amex companion voucher and a Barclaycard upgrade voucher.
Having done a few dry runs I don’t seem to be able to book the upgrade flight from Edinburgh, only from Heathrow. From what I’ve read this appears to be a known issue which can be rectified by booking with an agent. However, that slightly complicates the situation when frantically trying to reserve flights as soon as they are released!
So I guess my question(s) are:
1. Is this right?!
2. Can I book the Heathrow / Japan flight online and then add the regional connection to the booking later (for free with the same upgrade applied to the regional connection)?Many thanks!
I’m going to dodge both questions and point out that Tokyo is one of the most competitive redemptions out there. Depending on the time of year you want to go, securing three premium seats you will almost certainly want to be booking with an agent anyway… and be doing that at midnight (GMT) as the flights are released 355 days before your chosen travel date. Plenty of info on here about doing that.
And these will have to be two separate bookings as well – one using the 2-4-1 and one for the Barclays.
Due to BT IT, if you want to use the Barclays voucher for CW you have to call to add a regional connection. You can do this after booking the long haul leg – it might be necessary anyway as the EDI leg might not be released on the same day as HND.
I agree you’ve picked a tough one trying to get 3 seats to HND in CW, but I can also see there is some availability near to T-355 next June so you may be in luck, especially if you’re travelling before the school summer holidays.
If you have time to trawl through the very long “Booking the return at T-355” thread, there are lots of helpful tips there for booking both your outbound and inbound flights.
Thanks all! I’ve read through a good chunk of the T-355 thread and I intend to try phoning. However, this isn’t without issue so if I have problems connecting it would be good to be able to at least try and process online if there’s availability. But sounds like I can do this and add the regional connection later on the Barclaycard flight.
The other key question is whether your vouchers are in the same BA Club account?
If they are, an agent should be able to hold all three seats at midnight and then do your two bookings for you. If they’re in different accounts then you have more of an issue trying to do grab three seats at the same time.
However if they’re in different accounts then you could have two people logged in, one on each account, and try to grab 3 seats in the two separate bookings – but the risk of getting some but not all seats and needing to wind back a booking (at a small cost) is pretty high.
if you have a big avios stockpile then you can try to book the seats online or by phone LHR-Tokyo. Then call up during the day, cancel for free within 24hrs and rebook using the vouchers/connections you want. There is a tiny risk they wouldn’t drop back or someone would nab them but seems unlikely. This is how I do my “messy ” bookings with multiple vouchers etc
Otherwise honestly I don’t see how you’ll get 3 seats using two different types of voucher, even by phone at midnight this will need two bookings and the remaining seats will have gone within seconds
@travelmonkey – that is interesting – I thought the agent would still need to create 2 x PNR even for the same person? and in the time that would take the other seats would be gone
You would have 2 PNRs but as mentioned knowledgeable agent can hold all the seats you want while they make the bookings. But for adding regional connections the easiest thing is to just ask for them to be added soon after making the long haul booking.
@travelmonkey – that is interesting – I thought the agent would still need to create 2 x PNR even for the same person? and in the time that would take the other seats would be gone
I’m sure the agent will need two PNRs… I thought I’d read of people getting an agent to secure all three seats and then make the two bookings from there. If that isn’t the case then these bookings must be really really hard to book!
They can, as long as you get one who’s willing and able.
Technically an agent can almost certainly book 3 seats on one PNR, put 3 names then split the booking and deal with vouchers / payment after this. Whether they’re inclined (or indeed allowed) to do this is another matter.
Technically an agent can almost certainly book 3 seats on one PNR, put 3 names then split the booking and deal with vouchers / payment after this. Whether they’re inclined (or indeed allowed) to do this is another matter.
Vouchers have to be selected at the start of the booking process and aren’t added at the end of the process (and can’t be added after) so this wouldn’t work.
They can, as long as you get one who’s willing and able.
As seems to be the way with almost any T-355 call. Hit and miss if you get through, hit and miss whether the agent is willing to hold on till midnight and then still luck of the draw whether they manage to grab the seats or not… and that’s before you factor in the complexity of a booking like this one. Still, if you grab the reward seats you want the value to be had can be huge!
Will give it my best shot – the frustrating thing is you could have success with the first lot and then still be left disappointed trying to book a return. Just feels like a really flawed system. Thanks again for the advice!
Thankfully there’s less demand for the return as generally it’s only people who have the outbound trying to grab them.
Also worth noting that Qatar is 80,000 Avios + £60ish per person flying home (and serve multiple Japanese airports) Unfortunately you’re unlikely to get 3 business class seats at that price, but if you can split up then there are alternatives for getting home if you manage to get the outbound.
I’ve done this with a Barclays voucher. I managed to grab the LHR-HND online for next April just trying online then rang up a few days later and added a domestic connection. They had to send it off to ticketing to reissue but all was fine. Only for 2 of us 1 way however.
Thank you.
Having read through the T-355 thread it sounds like most people are recommending the US or Australian numbers – and potentially even Japan. As luck would have it, I think I’ll need to phone late Saturday / early Sunday which, as far as I can see rules out Australia and Japan as they are closed at weekends. Plus US closes at the same time flights are released (1am BST) so people saying that can mean disconnections. Any advice around that? BA website states UK call centre is open to 23.59 GMT (presumably 0059 BST). Is that an option if someone will hang on to complete a booking? Presumably not given it’s not mentioned on the megathread?!
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