The ‘How to book the return leg with 2-4-1 companion voucher’ thread

[bellasmummy]

NorthernLass wrote:

This thread contains discussions of the best call centres to contact for this. It’s been rumoured in the last few days that the US one is going to stop processing these bookings.

Just thought I’d update for others, after ten minutes of trying and the calls dropping we managed to get through to the US blue number. The silver number said lines were closed.

Got through with 2 minutes to spare before lines closed, no mention by the agent of them stopping taking bookings. Spoke to a very nice man in Manchester who booked the three seats we needed, under two bookings, holding them all at the outset to ensure we all got on the same flight.

[NorthernLass]

It’s my understanding that the CS agents actually in the US who have mentioned ceasing to add the return journeys to 241 bookings, so this hopefully isn’t going to apply to the Manchester office. It sounds like you were just lucky to get through to them, they tend to be pretty good.

[Rachelism]

Good morning,

I’m trying to book two lots of flights with Avios using two 241 vouchers in separate names. There is no Avios availability for the date of my departure from London. Does anyone know if when they are likely to release more availability? How does it work? I’ve been checking on seatspy for a while and the outbound date appears popular

I’ve just managed to book one lot of premium economy for this, but the other half of our family is now stranded! We would also prefer a normal economy booking than premium

Gatwick to Mauritius
Outbound 8th August, ideally economy but would take premium if needed
Inbound 1st September, 6 avios available (I’ve just booked 2 avios seats)

[NorthernLass]

Hi @Rachelism, first of all, have you read the series of articles on here about avioa and the 241? You’re trying to book a popular destination at peak time with few alternatives so you’ve got a difficult job!

BA only guarantees to release 2 PE seats per flight, and it sounds like you managed to get those. However sometimes more are released, and in fact SeatSpy is showing 3 more for August 8th, so I would double check that on ba.com and grab them if you can, as there is no guarantee that more seats will be released.

With MRU being a popular family holiday spot with limited departures, economy seats are also going to get snapped up soon.

For the inbound you will have to be very quick at T-355 because a lot of people travel back to the UK in the first week of September so seats go very fast.

[Rachelism]

Yes, I’ve been looking for weeks for 8th august, and no availability

I grabbed 2 out of the 3 premium economy flights available for the 8th August, so technically there is only one left –
So now I’m trying to sort out one more parent+child in the family for the same dates

If I grabbed an alternative flights for other two people:
10 August to 1st September, and then availability did present itself for the 8th, can I then change the bookings via their phone? Sounds so risky! Lastly, is there a way to pay ticket cash, one ticket avios? As it’s a parent and child booking, I’ve got to do the booking in one lot.

If I judge by what they’ve just made available – 8 economy flights and maybe 4 premium economy flights is what they have made available on that route.

[NorthernLass]

How many people in total are you trying to book for? Obviously the bigger your party, the more risk you’re taking trying to get award seats.

You can’t have an avios ticket and a cash one on the same booking, though you can use avios to reduce the price of cash tickets (it’s not very good value though).

Did you look to see if the 241s opened up any extra CW seats before you used them?

You might have missed the boat for this year as you probably needed to book your seats as soon as they were released – do you have anywhere else you want to go?!

[R]

Can this be done if I book the return first (there’s currently availability but not for way out)?
Can I book 3 people on that inbound Avios ticket and claim back the appropriate number of Avios or do I need to make 2 separate bookings for the inbound?

[NorthernLass]

You need to have booked the outbound first otherwise BA won’t have any proof that you’re actually going to use the voucher to book the outbound, if this is what you’re asking!

But possibly what you mean is this:

Book inbound at full avios price

Book outbound when it appears (with 241) – but there’s no guarantee seats will appear, of course

Claim 50% avios back for the inbound

In theory, this is possible, however if you leave it too long to claim back the 50% avios, BA might start to get a bit funny about it.

[R]

NorthernLass wrote:

You need to have booked the outbound first otherwise BA won’t have any proof that you’re actually going to use the voucher to book the outbound, if this is what you’re asking!

But possibly what you mean is this:

Book inbound at full avios price

Book outbound when it appears (with 241) – but there’s no guarantee seats will appear, of course

Claim 50% avios back for the inbound

In theory, this is possible, however if you leave it too long to claim back the 50% avios, BA might start to get a bit funny about it.

Yes, that was exactly what I meant. Thanks for translating my thoughts 🙂

[LittleNick]

Hi All,

Slightly off-topic but wondered if it is a possibility to do an open-jaw at the origin side and then claim back 50% avios for the inbound back to LHR with a companion voucher. So for example, DUB-LHR-DXB booked as one way with a companion voucher but then book the return also as a one way so DXB-LHR and then claim back 50% on the return?

Would be two different classes on travel on the LHR-DXB route, F out, Business return?

Thanks,

Nick

[Pinocent]

Pinocent wrote:

Question (Hope it makes sense)

I want to change my return trip for my 2-4-1 companion voucher booking – Checking BA’s availability, on a normal redemption the availability doesn’t show up. When I attach my new companion voucher (I have a second sitting in my account), the availability shows up because of the extra seats for voucher holders.

When I rang BA to change the booking, they couldn’t see the extra seats available and refused to change the booking.

Should the BA agent be able to see the extra seats when amending a 2-4-1 booking?

An update on this. 5 times I called the call centre and every time they couldn’t see the availability.

I messaged BA on twitter and they saw the availability and changed it for free.

An absolutely bizarre situation, as this should’ve cost £35 per person I thought.

[Rachelism]

NorthernLass wrote:

How many people in total are you trying to book for? Obviously the bigger your party, the more risk you’re taking trying to get award seats.

You can’t have an avios ticket and a cash one on the same booking, though you can use avios to reduce the price of cash tickets (it’s not very good value though).

Did you look to see if the 241s opened up any extra CW seats before you used them?

You might have missed the boat for this year as you probably needed to book your seats as soon as they were released – do you have anywhere else you want to go?!

we’re trying to book 2 adults and two children. Situation has slightly evolved

I’m now trying to change two bookings as per below:
3 Premium economy seats available for the date I’m after (8th August)

booking 1: 1 adult + 1 child, Premium economy using 241 (correct date)
booking 2: 1 adult + 1 child, economy using 241 but wrong date (10th August)
Return for both of these is a date we want – 1st September (Economy)

No extra availability as we’re only in Premium Economy/Economy

I need to modify both bookings so I can maximise the two 241. And kids too little to travel on their own

It would appear, I need to cancel both bookings (risking losing them as Avios bookings), and redo them as:
booking 1: 1 adult + 2 child, Premium economy using 241, plus child 2 is fully avios
booking 2: 1 adult, cash only since there is only 3 avios ticket on the outbound. or split booking 2 into two separate bookings, so that I can use the 241 as a solo booking?

I’m using the 24 hour cancellation window to do this, so time is of the essence

I’ve read many a guide from this fabulous website, and don’t have more bright ideas!

[Rachelism]

In my booking 2, option D:

booking 2: 1 adult, cash only since there is only 3 avios ticket on the outbound. or split booking 2 into two separate bookings, so that I can use the 241 as a solo booking?

Resolve ourselves to go on separate flights and set up a seatspy availability for the avios booking for the correct date?

[NorthernLass]

@Rachelism, sorry if I’ve misunderstood what you’ve actually booked but hoping this might help:

At this point it’s highly likely that the seats would return to the inventory if you cancelled (though there’s still a slight risk, which you’d have to be prepared to take). You’d need to be ready to rebook as soon as you see that they’ve reappeared.

ba.com is showing 1 PE seat left on August 8th so I’m assuming your plan is to try and grab that along with 2 seats which will hopefully reapper when you cancel?

Travelling on different dates – So if you have 2 x 241 vouchers, in 2 names, and enough avios availability (and enough avios), you can use 1 voucher to book for 1 adult and 2 kids (paying 2 x avios price plus 3 x surcharges), and the other one as a 50% off for the 2nd adult.

I know people on here have done this but if buying one cash ticket is an option, I would personally opt to all travel together, especially if the children are very young, it’s a long flight! Could you book a BA holiday for the 2nd adult, adding a car or hotel for a few days of your stay? This might work out better value and give you longer to pay.

With a destination like MRU, at peak school holiday season, you might be taking too much of a risk in counting on extra availability becoming available.

[bellasmummy]

I booked over the phone Monday night and the man I spoke to said it would take between 24 & 48 hours for ticketing but that we would be able to see the flights on our account straight away.

The flights were showing straight away but the payment hasn’t been taken nor has email confirmation been received, so I assume that means it’s not yet ticketed?

Just wondered about other’s experiences recently, how long did it take to get confirmation through? Not sure if I’ll need to chase it up but don’t want to phone if this is normal.

Thanks

[MHARRI50]

MHARRI50 wrote:

Thinking about an open jaw flight using 2-4-1 voucher and wondered what would be the best method.

Plan is outbound LHR – Dalaman booked online at T-355 Days online.

Return Istanbul- LHR.

Would I be able to book this online at T-355 and then call up and get the avios credited back for the 2-4-1.

Or would I need to call up to get booking with the return of the 2-4-1

Or would I have to wait for the return at T-355 days (and hope that outbound reward seats are still available) and call BA

BUMP. can anyone confirm ?

[FH2]

bellasmummy wrote:

I booked over the phone Monday night and the man I spoke to said it would take between 24 & 48 hours for ticketing but that we would be able to see the flights on our account straight away.

The flights were showing straight away but the payment hasn’t been taken nor has email confirmation been received, so I assume that means it’s not yet ticketed?

Just wondered about other’s experiences recently, how long did it take to get confirmation through? Not sure if I’ll need to chase it up but don’t want to phone if this is normal.

Thanks

The same thing happened to me. I had to call 3 times as apparently the agent who did my booking had messed up (not sure how). I was assured that my seats were booked but it took 2 weeks to be ticketed in the end. I am not sure what the issue was – something to do with having to deal manually with the Avios. If you have been ticketed, you will be able to see that in the BA App, as there will be a ticketing reference starting with 121. This seems to only show in the app and not in MMB on the website.

[bellasmummy]

FH2 wrote:

bellasmummy wrote:

I booked over the phone Monday night and the man I spoke to said it would take between 24 & 48 hours for ticketing but that we would be able to see the flights on our account straight away.

The flights were showing straight away but the payment hasn’t been taken nor has email confirmation been received, so I assume that means it’s not yet ticketed?

Just wondered about other’s experiences recently, how long did it take to get confirmation through? Not sure if I’ll need to chase it up but don’t want to phone if this is normal.

Thanks

The same thing happened to me. I had to call 3 times as apparently the agent who did my booking had messed up (not sure how). I was assured that my seats were booked but it took 2 weeks to be ticketed in the end. I am not sure what the issue was – something to do with having to deal manually with the Avios. If you have been ticketed, you will be able to see that in the BA App, as there will be a ticketing reference starting with 121. This seems to only show in the app and not in MMB on the website.

Thanks. One of the bookings email confirmation has now come through, the payment for that one is now pending. I’ll keep an eye on the other booking, that contains the voucher, as that one isn’t done yet.

The one flight that I’ve confirmation on still doesn’t have a ticket number showing on the booking so I’ll watch that too.

Seems it must be a manual process to amend the bookings so I’ll be patient for a while longer.

[Rachelism]

NorthernLass wrote:

@Rachelism, sorry if I’ve misunderstood what you’ve actually booked but hoping this might help:

At this point it’s highly likely that the seats would return to the inventory if you cancelled (though there’s still a slight risk, which you’d have to be prepared to take). You’d need to be ready to rebook as soon as you see that they’ve reappeared.

ba.com is showing 1 PE seat left on August 8th so I’m assuming your plan is to try and grab that along with 2 seats which will hopefully reapper when you cancel?

Travelling on different dates – So if you have 2 x 241 vouchers, in 2 names, and enough avios availability (and enough avios), you can use 1 voucher to book for 1 adult and 2 kids (paying 2 x avios price plus 3 x surcharges), and the other one as a 50% off for the 2nd adult.

I know people on here have done this but if buying one cash ticket is an option, I would personally opt to all travel together, especially if the children are very young, it’s a long flight! Could you book a BA holiday for the 2nd adult, adding a car or hotel for a few days of your stay? This might work out better value and give you longer to pay.

With a destination like MRU, at peak school holiday season, you might be taking too much of a risk in counting on extra availability becoming available.

Thank you very much for your reply. Good to know about how to book for 3 people. Absolute stroke of luck today as signed up for a seatspy alert, and hey presto, additional seat came up today, which we had needed to fit all of us in under Avios. Much better than the £2000 I got quoted for this itinerary in Premium economy!

Thanks for your other suggestions. I found that with Mauritius it was very popular, but perhaps not quite as selling like hot potatoes like other destinations that people booked up, so there is a tiny bit of movement (I like to watch seatspy!). But given these the days I had my heart set out on, I’m very happy and fortunate. We have family out there, so for us we have set days/time period we go every year!

Thanks again

[applepie]

Possibly newbie question here.

Booked LHR-LAX club for 4 people using two Amex 241 vouchers online. 200k Avios and standard fees taken.

Subsequently booked the returns on the 1am phone call (strongly recommend aus number, not US). 5 days later, both tickets issued with 121 numbers. Operator confirmed a further 100k Avios each per booking. However, fees have been taken from card(unusually, different amounts on each booking, one was too low) but both tickets say no further Avios debited. Exec club confirms this and there is still 200k spare Avios in the account.

Before I start planning to use these Avios, they’re going to be taken one day aren’t they?

[bellasmummy]

applepie wrote:

Possibly newbie question here.

Booked LHR-LAX club for 4 people using two Amex 241 vouchers online. 200k Avios and standard fees taken.

Subsequently booked the returns on the 1am phone call (strongly recommend aus number, not US). 5 days later, both tickets issued with 121 numbers. Operator confirmed a further 100k Avios each per booking. However, fees have been taken from card(unusually, different amounts on each booking, one was too low) but both tickets say no further Avios debited. Exec club confirms this and there is still 200k spare Avios in the account.

Before I start planning to use these Avios, they’re going to be taken one day aren’t they?

Had one of my confirmations through today, it also said no further avios debited but they have been, actually they were taken straight away. Rather than just a normal redemption there are a few adjustments adding up to the correct amount, it was done in a very strange way.

[applepie]

bellasmummy wrote:

applepie wrote:

Possibly newbie question here.

Booked LHR-LAX club for 4 people using two Amex 241 vouchers online. 200k Avios and standard fees taken.

Subsequently booked the returns on the 1am phone call (strongly recommend aus number, not US). 5 days later, both tickets issued with 121 numbers. Operator confirmed a further 100k Avios each per booking. However, fees have been taken from card(unusually, different amounts on each booking, one was too low) but both tickets say no further Avios debited. Exec club confirms this and there is still 200k spare Avios in the account.

Before I start planning to use these Avios, they’re going to be taken one day aren’t they?

Had one of my confirmations through today, it also said no further avios debited but they have been, actually they were taken straight away. Rather than just a normal redemption there are a few adjustments adding up to the correct amount, it was done in a very strange way.

That oddness happened on the original outbound booking which I assumed was because I’m using a household account but it was about 7 transactions that came to 200k points. But that appeared the moment I booked and I’m now a week out from the tickets being reissued and the fees taken on Friday off my Amex

[suziwozi]

Can i please confirm I understand this correctly: if i book the outbound journey at T-355, will the “other half” of my companion voucher remain available to redeem then the return flight becomes available? So if i book one way only to start with, will i not use the option to use the voucher for the return?
I am about to book Tokyo in a few days and worried about it already!

[NorthernLass]

It won’t remain available to book online – there is loads of information in this thread about how you get around that obstacle, plus Rob’s excellent series of articles on using avios and the 241 will tell you how you need to proceed!

[R]

NorthernLass wrote:

But possibly what you mean is this:

Book inbound at full avios price

Book outbound when it appears (with 241) – but there’s no guarantee seats will appear, of course

Claim 50% avios back for the inbound

In theory, this is possible, however if you leave it too long to claim back the 50% avios, BA might start to get a bit funny about it.

So did this (although procrastinated a week whilst deciding outbound date).
Got told that claiming back 50% is only allowed in the rules if the return is T-355 (aka not bookable when outbound is booked), otherwise needs to be booked on the phone.
This doesn’t quite make sense because an open jaw is never bookable online with the 2-4-1.

Is this worth a HUCA, or just take the 85k Avios hit?