Booking 2 tickets with upgrade voucher on 2 accounts

[dmm27]

Apologies if this is already answered elsewhere but I can’t obviously find the answers to all of it.

Myself & wife have an upgrade voucher in each of our accounts, and enough avios to cover each individual booking.

So my understanding is that we need to do 2 separate bookings for a return and use our own vouchers to upgrade our own flights. They will therefore be on 2 PNRs.

Is there any benefit to ringing BA to do this in order to get the bookings linked? I am thinking this might mean getting seats together is easier when it comes on OLCI (Blue status so no early seat selection)

If we do ring, will we get charged as we didn’t do it online?

I presume the other advantage of ringing is that the agent can hold both seats, and avoid the other seat disappearing if we otherwise book online.

TIA

[NorthernLass]

This has been asked so many times, including yesterday!

Basically, if you have 2 separate bookings, BA is not going to link them, so there’s no point in asking.

There have been scattered reports of BA phone agents being able to make one booking using 2 vouchers, but it seems to depend very much on how knowledgeable and amenable the agent is. You can but try with this, so it depends how much time you’re prepared to put into it if you need to HUACA. As you can’t do this online, there shouldn’t be a fee.

If they have to make 2 bookings, you will have to pay the fee, but as you say, they may have a better chance of holding the seats. However, you can get round this by having both you and your OH make simultaneous bookings, which you can cancel for free in the event that one of the seats is taken before you both check out.

[dmm27]

Thanks for the prompt reply. Just raised I will need to call them anyway to get the domestic flights linked (long haul so should be free)

[Sudz74]

Am I missing the point completely but couldn’t you book the two outbounds with one upgrade voucher and two inbounds on the other? What drawback have I not thought of?

I may well have misunderstood how the vouchers work (as I used my first two vouchers for one person (on two separate occasions) travelling one way when offspring (separately) had next day travel related “emergences” and only CE was available. Bit of a waste really but don’t think the 7,000 option was there then and we were flush with 241s for our own travel. Those were the days. *sigh*

[NorthernLass]

The journey has to start in the UK, so you can’t book the return leg online and it’s hit and miss as to whether BA agents consider the inbound a continuation of the trip and agree to apply a 2nd voucher. This is why it can be easier to make 2 return bookings.