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

[as02]

linzl wrote:

I have searched but can’t find the answer, so any help greatly appreciated.
Next Aug we are doing man-lhr-Mia. I’ve booked the outbound with 2×241 vouchers and need to book the return in a week or so.

As the return from lhr-man is the day after the mia-lhr section I can’t book the day the flights are released. On checking over the last couple of weeks these flight don’t seem to go that quickly, but it is school holidays.

If I ring up and get them to book mia-lhr, can I ring again the next day and get the lhr-man added on? Currently it’s all the same amount of avoid if you go from lhr or man, so don’t want to pay any extra.

We are fairly flexible on dates so might just wait until the next day when all the flights are available if it loads of hassle.

Thank You

Yes, that should be fine. Although I have not done it yet, I am in process of doing something similar. Booked MAD-LIM and LIM-MAD on their respective T-360 days (since Iberia). Will be booking MAD-LHR next week on BA. I confirmed with the agents multiple times and they said it should be fine. You can call next week and ask them to combine it with the same booking and they will apply the companion voucher on it too.

[e14]

as02 wrote:

linzl wrote:

I have searched but can’t find the answer, so any help greatly appreciated.
Next Aug we are doing man-lhr-Mia. I’ve booked the outbound with 2×241 vouchers and need to book the return in a week or so.

As the return from lhr-man is the day after the mia-lhr section I can’t book the day the flights are released. On checking over the last couple of weeks these flight don’t seem to go that quickly, but it is school holidays.

If I ring up and get them to book mia-lhr, can I ring again the next day and get the lhr-man added on? Currently it’s all the same amount of avoid if you go from lhr or man, so don’t want to pay any extra.

We are fairly flexible on dates so might just wait until the next day when all the flights are available if it loads of hassle.

Thank You

Yes, that should be fine. Although I have not done it yet, I am in process of doing something similar. Booked MAD-LIM and LIM-MAD on their respective T-360 days (since Iberia). Will be booking MAD-LHR next week on BA. I confirmed with the agents multiple times and they said it should be fine. You can call next week and ask them to combine it with the same booking and they will apply the companion voucher on it too.

I would book the MAD-LHR on IB and try and get the fully flat 330 or 350 … just saying

[linzl]

Thank You both, just doing economy for these flights (I know the horror) as need to pay for Japan flights with the next voucher and “only” have 500k Avios. Need to get the kids to start earning Avios somehow ha ha
I might still look at doing mad-man back though, thank you

[Kwab]

Just booked two seats in Club for HND-LHR for next August. Skype wouldn’t access any of the US numbers. So, I called the Australian number that someone posted a couple of pages back. The agent said there was no availability but I explained that in 5 minutes there would be. So, he took the names of the passengers and then secured the seats at 0100 BST exactly. I then paid the taxes and he asked me to check my email that the booking had gone through. At that moment, the phone cut off as my Skype credit had run out! Everything was fine with the booking. It seems the Avios gods were smiling on me!

[Grandad81]

Thanks to Northernlass for directing me to this thread. Having read up, I intend to call the US number using Skype at 0045 on a Saturday morning in a couple of weeks to add a return once I have booked outbound online at 0100.

My question is, I know this is the process for the 2-4-1, but as I’m booking using 2-4-1 on my account for me and my wife, and using wife’s account to book using the Barclaycard upgrade voucher for my mum (wife and I in a household account) should I be able to do both via the same method? Ie call up with my wife with me, explain what we want to do, and hopefully be able to do both at same time (subject to a willing agent)? Or is this fine for an Amex 2-4-1 companion voucher but another process for Barclaycard voucher?

[NorthernLass]

Set yourself up as an authorised user on your wife’s account then you can do the whole thing in one go – ask the agent to put 3 seats on hold when you get through. Having your mum in “friends and family” or “travel companions” will help as well.

I kept saying this, but be aware that not all US agents will book the return for you (a few examples in this thread, I think), so you may be better calling Australia or Japan, or whatever readers are finding works these days.

[RK228]

NorthernLass wrote:

Set yourself up as an authorised user on your wife’s account then you can do the whole thing in one go – ask the agent to put 3 seats on hold when you get through. Having your mum in “friends and family” or “travel companions” will help as well.

In late July, I was adding the club-world return flights from HKG using one Amex 241 voucher (for son and me) and one Barclaycard upgrade voucher (for my wife) and, even with both vouchers in my own account, the agent said he could not hold all three seats at one time. I asked that he start with the 241 booking and, fortunately, after completing that, no one had snapped up any of the other club-world seats, so I did get all of my seats in the end, but the process was more stressful than I’d hoped.

The agent had initially suggested having someone else in the house phone up so that the other seat could be held while completing the 241 booking, which I might do next time, but everyone else in the house was already asleep.

Have others been able to hold seats across multiple voucher bookings? My agent seemed pretty knowledgable and was otherwise pretty helpful, so didn’t really push back when he said it wasn’t possible.

[Grandad81]

Thanks again for the advice, but I think I am stuck with having to try US rather than Japan or Australia from what I’ve read in this thread as I have to call on a Saturday at 0100 when I understood they are both closed so only US or trying at 0600 with UK change line.

[Grandad81]

I may have to get my wife to call at the same time if they won’t hold 3 at once, albeit she doesn’t really understand the magic of Avios so will have to write her a script otherwise she’ll get too stressed and end up booking a return from somewhere else!

[ed_fly]

Japan and Australia are mon-fri opening. Mon-Fri Japan should always be at the bottom of the list to try, as it only opens at 1am. Should try either aus or US line first quite a few minutes before 1am, if agents are refusing to help then try Japan at 1am and hope no-one is booking the flights online. Also worth noting there are reports of people being declined by Aus line as well as US line. There is luck involved in booking over the phone at 1am.

[AFKAE]

I think the logic with dialling the US number is, if the person answering has a Warrington accent then you are good to go and you will get the service you want. If the person answering has an American accent much less likely and HUACA before losing too much time.

[mol27]

Agreed – agents not able to take all the tickets you might want in one go – they need to process the bookings one by one. Eg I wanted to use a 241, upgrade voucher plus two full price avios for our family of five and I had to plan which booking to prioritise, while I grabbed the rest (or tried to) online.

[Gary]

Agents used to be able to hold seats for two separate BAEC accounts in quick succession (within a few seconds). They would then process the 2 vouchers and take payment once all held. Shame it stopped a few years ago.

Perhaps agents been deskilled, or function “enhanced” away with the various IT upgrades or just disinclined to assist.

[NorthernLass]

mol27 wrote:

Agreed – agents not able to take all the tickets you might want in one go – they need to process the bookings one by one. Eg I wanted to use a 241, upgrade voucher plus two full price avios for our family of five and I had to plan which booking to prioritise, while I grabbed the rest (or tried to) online.

That should only have been 2 bookings, though; 4 people on the 241 and 1 on the Barclays.

I didn’t know they can’t/won’t do this any more as I rarely make phone bookings, but a lot of agents seem unaware of what they can actually do these days!

[laurenp]

Planning on booking using our companion voucher soon and have come across a slight issue we might have with booking the return leg. Planning on booking the return leg SIN -> LHR -> ABZ. The issue is that the LHR -> ABZ flight is the day after the SIN -> LHR flight and so whilst T-355 availability shows for the SIN -> LHR part, it’s showing no availability for the LHR -> ABZ part or if I search SIN -> ABZ. Obviously don’t want to risk it and wait until the next day but is there anyway we can add on the LHR -> ABZ part at a later date (there should be no issues with availability)? And will there be any issues using the companion voucher since the outbound is from ABZ but we’ll be returning to LHR?

[NorthernLass]

Very common issue – book the long haul flight when it’s released, then call BA the following day (or very soon after) when the regional flight becomes available and ask them to add it on. There shouldn’t be a charge for this.

[HampshireHog]

Is it possible to book the return leg of a Barclays voucher online and ask for the 50% back on the phone next day?

[bm_999]

stupid question, but we tried booking cancun using the 241 and it was working out too expensive. Really just buying a normal ticket would have been better of with BA.
Think it was like

using 241 – Pay £600-700 and use 40,000 avios and the 241 for 2 tickets.

Normal way -i think it was working out to be something like £550pp full cash

Does all this depend on destination

[NorthernLass]

As I keep saying, the most helpful thing you can do is to get yourself up to speed with all your queries by reading the suggested articles and threads.

You haven’t said which cabin you were trying to book, but this will significantly affect the value you get from your avios. Again, reading up on all this stuff is essential for getting your head round it – also try Rob’s “avios redemption university” articles on here.

@Hampshirehog – I’m sure people have tried this, it’s probably in one of the Barclays avios threads as opposed to the 241 one!

[Gary]

@Hampshirehog Yes you can as long as you select the max avios/min cash on your inbound as well.

Depending on what cabin you are travelling in, you would get the difference between business & premium or premium & economy in Avios returned, which is not necessarily 50%.

[NorthernLass]

I knew someone had done it …

[HampshireHog]

Brilliant, thanks I wondered whether the separate pnr for a single to UK would have been a deal breaker

[craig]

Hi,

Sorry to ask the question but does any one know if this planned route would be ok within the open jaw rules?

I plan to fly out from Madrid to Argentina (with Iberia), then back from Brazil to the UK (with BA).
So it would be
Madrid > Buenos Aires – with Iberia
Rio de Janeiro > Manchester (via LHR) – with BA

It saves quite a lot in tax, and at least 50k avios.

Thank you

[NorthernLass]

That’s fine, a few people have booked similar itineraries – buried in the last few dozen pages of this thread!

Bear in mind you might still get stung for BA’s surcharges on the return, I can’t recall now what the situation is with Brazil departures. You might need to keep 2 separate bookings.

[craig]

Thank you. I will try to look into the surcharges, I was unaware of that, so thanks again.