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My fiancee and I are looking to book our honeymoon in Orlando for next Easter. We can travel just outside of school holidays so hopefully can do it off peak.
We’ve managed to save 121,000 Avios and we’d like to travel Premium Economy.
Is it better to 1) book Economy with cash and then upgrade to Premium Economy with Avios, 2) book directly with Avios or 3) use Avios as part payment?
I’m also aware that the outbound date will be available two weeks before our return date. Do I need to book the outbound the minute it becomes available or do I have to wait until both dates are on sale?
Sorry for all the questions, I haven’t booked a long-haul flight myself before and I don’t want to mess it up!!
I know this isn’t directly answering your questions, but if I were you, I’d hold on to those avios for now. If you haven’t already, get the BAPP card and with your 241 voucher and the avios you already have, you should be able to get a Club World return for around 120k avios
I’ve put a partial answer in the cat thread as I hadn’t seen this. You’re better sticking to one or the other.
I know this isn’t directly answering your questions, but if I were you, I’d hold on to those avios for now. If you haven’t already, get the BAPP card and with your 241 voucher and the avios you already have, you should be able to get a Club World return for around 120k avios
Only if you can put 10k spend through it reasonably promptly, mind. (pay for the wedding on it…)
If you can do this though, not only will you get a massively better flying experience, it will also open up a lot more reward seat availability provided you start your flight from a regional connection like Manchester.
I was going to suggest BillHop as an option to easily get a voucher. You’d pay £300 for it in transaction fees, but that may be worth it for a 241. Looking at their website it looks like they’ve tried to ‘pivot’ into some other market.
Have a look at BA holidays you can upgrade with points to PE but has to be done on phone when booking holiday. Obviously I’ve no idea if you need a hotel but it’s another option, same system you can only upgrade if seats are available. Even if you only add a hotel for a night or car hire that turns it into a package holiday. 121k points would actually get you upgrade from PE to club class return if you can afford extra cost of seat and taxes etc. Think it cost me 90k points and extra £350 ish in taxes/fees last time I did it.
Not sure if OP has been back and seen these responses – there were quite a few replies on the chat thread yesterday as well.
It would help to know the exact travel dates as seats to MCO for March 2024 are getting snapped up as soon as they are released – the school Easter holidays seem to run from mid-March to mid-April due to the early Easter weekend.Not sure if OP has been back and seen these responses – there were quite a few replies on the chat thread yesterday as well.
It would help to know the exact travel dates as seats to MCO for March 2024 are getting snapped up as soon as they are released – the school Easter holidays seem to run from mid-March to mid-April due to the early Easter weekend.Thank you everyone, just catching up now! We’re looking to travel March 28th – April 14th and have got a bit further with the plan. The main reason for wanting to fly Premium Economy is for the legroom, that’s all we’re really fussed about. So I’ve decided it’s probably best to try and book the Reward Flight Saver tickets in Economy each way (using all 120k avios) and then pay a little extra to reserve exit row seats. That way we save some money (which we can put towards the honeymoon itself) and we still get the legroom that a 6ft 5 chap needs!
I’ve done a ‘pretend’ booking where I pay with cash and was able to select seats before booking. But with the Avios booking there doesn’t seem to be the option to book seats during the process. Is this only possible via the Manage My Booking afterwards? And if so, how soon can I do that? I don’t want the exit row seats to get snapped up. I’m already planning on being online at midnight to get the flights so hope I can book the seats at the same time.
Thanks again for all the replies (and in the other thread too – I didn’t think the new topic had posted originally so thought perhaps I’d be better off posting in the chat thread instead. Turns out that was a mistake to do both – sorry!!)
Not sure what the saving is, but remember that those 120000 Avios are generally valued at £1200, and worth, at absolute worst, £800 in as-good-as-cash via converting them to Nectar. Check the fares with fees and taxes as well to see if you are saving at least this amount vs cash tickets on RFS (don’t forget you can compare vs ALL airlines cash tickets via all workable airports, not just BA flights). If you’re not saving at least £800 vs the best cash fare then don’t use Avios for your economy flights as you’d be better off converting to Nectar, saving £800 on groceries and using that money towards a cash flight (on which you’d also earn some more miles).
General rule: Don’t feel you have to blow your valuable Avios on a redemption just because it’s your honeymoon. You will have many wonderful trips together as a married couple where Avios might work even better, and this is just the first one…
Went and had a look at BA fares to Orlando. Your dates aren’t released yet of course, but given that economy fares around £400 each seem plentiful on all but peak dates through all of early 2023, you’d be far better off using cash here, as you’re proposing to use £1200 worth of Avios and pay £400 cash on top of that in order to purchase tickets you could get for £800-900. That’s a really poor return on your Avios.
If you must use your Avios for this trip, simply converting 120k of Avios to £800 worth of Nectar points and using them for saving money on groceries, then buying cash tickets with the money saved, will leave you £400 better off (or with £400 more to spend on your honeymoon!). You also then don’t need to worry at all about availability, or booking as soon as flights are released etc.
That’s a simple suggestion and you’re already £400 up – folks far more knowledgeable than me will be along with even better ones soon.
As a general point to above, the comparison of near fully flex Avios tickets to cheapest economy tickets is a little unfair. I guess in these circumstances if you’re cancelling a honeymoon you may have bigger concerns.
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