Booking help for family of 3 with BAPP 241 and Barclays upgrade voucher

[Mac]

Hi everyone, looking for a bit of guidance please ahead of making a booking for next year for a family of 3 from LHR-LAX with a BAPP 241 and Barclays upgrade voucher.
Our return date isn’t yet within the 355 days but when I look at the outbound date with the Barclays voucher, it only shows two seats available in Business on BA0281. The BAPP voucher has availability across three different flights but again only two seats on BA0281.
My question is, if I take one of those seats on BA0281 with the Barclays upgrade voucher, will that reduce the availability on the BAPP to a single seat and make the booking impossible?
Thanks in advance for your help

[Rob]

Yes, basically. You need 3 seats to show.

I am assuming that, with the BAPP voucher, you are searching with ‘use my companion voucher’ ticked so that any additional seats opened for BAPP cardholders in Club are highlighted?

Your only option now, assuming you need these dates, is to book you + kid on your BAPP and put your wife in World Traveller Plus on the Barclays voucher. Keep an eye on the flight and move her to Business if/when a seat opens up down the line.

[Mac]

Thanks Rob, yes I’ve got the voucher ticked. The other two outbound flights have lots of availability with the BAPP voucher but annoyingly just the two seats on the one flight that has availability via the Barclays voucher.

I think we’ll probably end up flexing on the dates but if we took that approach and booked my wife in WT plus, would we just need to call up and pay the difference in Avios/taxes to upgrade her if a seat became available – i.e. it would eventually end up costing the same in Avios and taxes as if there were availability today?

One other quirk as we’re Scotland based, the BAPP has availability to book as a single ticket from ABZ-LHR-LAX at no extra cost but the Barclays one only has availability from LHR-LAX. Is this just a standard difference between the two vouchers that you can’t start in the regions with the Barclays one?

Thanks again for the help

[NorthernLass]

You can start in the regions with the Barclaycard voucher but you have to call BA to book it. High on the list of annoying things about that voucher! Also be aware you can only use it to book the highest avios/lowest cash option.

[Mac]

NorthernLass wrote:

You can start in the regions with the Barclaycard voucher but you have to call BA to book it. High on the list of annoying things about that voucher! Also be aware you can only use it to book the highest avios/lowest cash option.

Thanks very much – in which case, sounds like I’m best to just call BA and get it all booked with both vouchers rather than doing any of it online.

[SteveJ]

@Mac how many seats show when not selecting any voucher from ABZ-LAX? When booking from the region’s often more availability shows up rather than when looking at LHR-LAX

[Mac]

SteveJ wrote:

@Mac how many seats show when not selecting any voucher from ABZ-LAX? When booking from the region’s often more availability shows up rather than when looking at LHR-LAX

Still just the same two seats sadly, connecting onto BA0281

[zapato1060]

NorthernLass wrote:

High on the list of annoying things about that voucher!

I never used the old Lloyds one, did it have the same issues?

[NorthernLass]

I always had to call to use mine, I can’t recall whether it was possible to use them online at all. But they were charged at the old avios rate, of course.