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

[JoanneS]

NorthernLass wrote:

@JoanneS, sounds like you got a really good agent there, a few people have posted up thread about agents refusing to take bookings and consequently losing the seats 😪

You would have been charged 2 x £15 telephone fee because you could have made the booking online. I always book online but if you think your seats are going to be snapped up very quickly you can gain an extra few minutes by calling.

It took quite a while on the phone, so I may have quicker online. But they answered so quickly and she was helpful so I went with it.

[BATraveller]

May be a bit of a niche scenario, apologies in advance, but wondering if anyone has any experience booking a Reward Flight during BA.com ‘planned maintenance’?

I was hoping to secure the return leg of a Reward Flight at midnight but the notice on BA.com mentions both online and contact centres being impacted so getting a little worried!

[afghafgh]

I tried to book some reward flights a month or so ago during ‘planned maintenance’. It all seemed to be working as usual. I failed to secure the seats but that didn’t have anything to do with the maintenance!!

[BATraveller]

afghafgh wrote:

I tried to book some reward flights a month or so ago during ‘planned maintenance’. It all seemed to be working as usual. I failed to secure the seats but that didn’t have anything to do with the maintenance!!

That is reassuring, got to love Reward Flight roulette! Thank you!

[tontoro]

Am I right to think that none of the phone lines are open at midnight on a Sunday night? So flights must be booked online?

[ed_fly]

I think US line is open 7 days per week. I think form how you’ve written ‘midnight on Sunday night’, that it could be Monday morning in Australia/japan.

[rho]

slonik wrote:

Just wanted to update with my recent experience. I booked outbound flight with Avios and reward voucher online; inbound was not available. At T-355, I booked inbound flight also online, with just Avios. I then messaged BA on Twitter, asking them to add refund the extra Avios for the inbound leg. They said they would, but it may take some time. A week later, I chased up on Twitter. A week later, still no Avios so I called up. Was on the phone for 50 mins all in – including waiting for them to answer, and then waiting for the agent to sort out my problem. Turned out the Twitter people had put down something incorrectly and that had complicated matters, but Avios have now been credited back so all is well.
So, reading feedback above, Twitter can be great if it works, but it doesn’t always.

As a datapoint, I messaged on twitter and it took exactly 2 weeks for my points to be refunded. I chased it twice on twitter and each time they said that my ticket was in the queue and it takes as long as it takes. Not the best option for anyone in a rush.

[Oviplokos1]

Can someone please confirm if return leg can be changed if the outbound has already been flown?
Apologies if this has been answered before!

[JDB]

Oviplokos1 wrote:

Can someone please confirm if return leg can be changed if the outbound has already been flown?
Apologies if this has been answered before!

The return time/date can be changed (for the usual fee) subject to availability, but not anything more major, such as changing gateway. You also can’t get a refund (or half a voucher back) once the outbound is flown.

[Oviplokos1]

Thank you JDB!
Can I just double check that I definitely cannot change one US departure airport to another on my inbound flight as that’s exactly what I may need to do?

[JDB]

Oviplokos1 wrote:

Thank you JDB!
Can I just double check that I definitely cannot change one US departure airport to another on my inbound flight as that’s exactly what I may need to do?

In theory, no but in practice, you might get lucky! The smaller the change, the more likely it will slip through. If you ask for too much…

[Oviplokos1]

JDB wrote:

Oviplokos1 wrote:

Thank you JDB!
Can I just double check that I definitely cannot change one US departure airport to another on my inbound flight as that’s exactly what I may need to do?

In theory, no but in practice, you might get lucky! The smaller the change, the more likely it will slip through. If you ask for too much…

JDB, thanks again!
All I need to do is to change one airport starting with A to another one starting with A, so hopefully it will be deemed a small enough change :0)

[Tristoph]

I booked the return leg with a companion voucher over the phone last Thursday, had a couple of questions if someone could help?

1) should the Avios be all sorted at the time on the phone, the agent got a little confused & she seems to have refunded me the original Avios for the outward, charged me the return Avios & around half the Avios of the outbound. It means I’ve got a return for 109k rather than the 151k she quoted. Is it likely they’ll do a true up & charge me the rest or is that finalised as far as they’re concerned.I haven’t actually got the ticket yet (I assume because of point two)

2) they said they couldn’t charge me the taxes & fees straight away (they got me to do a secure credit card submission on the phone) but that another department would do so within 48 hours. That was on Thursday evening & they’ve still not charged & tickets haven’t been issued (though is showing on the booking correctly), is that normal?

[NorthernLass]

It can take a week or so for BA to do the ticketing, so just keep an eye on it.

Where have you booked to fly to and which cabin/date?

[Tristoph]

Thanks NorthernLass. I’m flying from Mexico City to London via Madrid (Iberia), business at the end of November

[strickers]

@Tristoph Just to add to the comment of @NorthernLass, sometimes credit card details ‘drop off’ because of the delay. If it hasn’t been ticketed in a week then contact BA to make sure they still have the details.

[NorthernLass]

Tristoph wrote:

Thanks NorthernLass. I’m flying from Mexico City to London via Madrid (Iberia), business at the end of November

Ah right, I haven’t got IB pricing to hand but you could do a further dummy booking to check what you should have been charged. They do have different off-peak dates to BA, which might explain the discrepancy.

[catsanddogs2025]

Hi everyone,

I’ve just read through this entire thread, and all the relevant articles on Companion Vouchers and Open Jaw bookings. I want to book a Reward flight with a companion voucher soon. I know I need to ring the US or Aus call centre and book the outbound flight, and then ring again separately to get the return leg added. I know it’s also advisable to try online at the same time!

However, I’ve never done this before, and the flights are for our honeymoon, so I want to get this right! Everything else is already booked so we can’t change destination or dates. My back up plan is just to pay cash and not use the companion voucher, although it would be annoying.

These are the questions I have, which I can’t find answers to:

1) Do I need to know the specific flight I want? I want to do an open jaw London-San Jose Costa Rica, and then Bogotá,Colombia-London. I need to get to San Jose on 27 December 2025 – I don’t mind what time I get there. There’s a direct London flight with BA (that only goes 3x a week) or an option to connect in Madrid and go via Iberia – again, I’m fine with either. If I did the connecting flight instead, I suppose it might be smart to start in Madrid to save on APD. The return flight has to be Iberia. Can I say ‘I want to get to San Jose on 27 December, any time’ date, or do I need to say ‘I want the flight at X time on the direct London-San Jose flight’?.

2) If I need to know the specific flight I want to catch, how do I look that up if I am ringing as soon as the outbound flights are released? As I won’t know what time the flights are? Or am I missing something obvious there.

3) It looks to me that I need to book both legs over the phone and tell them it’s going to be an open jaw, otherwise they won’t let me use the companion voucher right? As in trying to book either leg online won’t work for open jaw. However, I’ve also seen some posts saying ringing for open jaw returns with Iberia means being quoted £2000+ in fees… I don’t understand when this applies?

4) Lastly, dates. I want to fly out on 27 December 2025 – am I correct in thinking that means I need to book the outbound flight as 06 January 2025 turns into 07 January? Ie 00.00 on 07 Jan? But for the return flight, because that would be Iberia, I should ring up 360 days before instead?

Thank you so much for any help!!

[catsanddogs2025]

catsanddogs2025 wrote:

Hi everyone,

I’ve just read through this entire thread, and all the relevant articles on Companion Vouchers and Open Jaw bookings. I want to book a Reward flight with a companion voucher soon. I know I need to ring the US or Aus call centre and book the outbound flight, and then ring again separately to get the return leg added. I know it’s also advisable to try online at the same time!

However, I’ve never done this before, and the flights are for our honeymoon, so I want to get this right! Everything else is already booked so we can’t change destination or dates. My back up plan is just to pay cash and not use the companion voucher, although it would be annoying.

These are the questions I have, which I can’t find answers to:

1) Do I need to know the specific flight I want? I want to do an open jaw London-San Jose Costa Rica, and then Bogotá,Colombia-London. I need to get to San Jose on 27 December 2025 – I don’t mind what time I get there. There’s a direct London flight with BA (that only goes 3x a week) or an option to connect in Madrid and go via Iberia – again, I’m fine with either. If I did the connecting flight instead, I suppose it might be smart to start in Madrid to save on APD. The return flight has to be Iberia. Can I say ‘I want to get to San Jose on 27 December, any time’ date, or do I need to say ‘I want the flight at X time on the direct London-San Jose flight’?.

2) If I need to know the specific flight I want to catch, how do I look that up if I am ringing as soon as the outbound flights are released? As I won’t know what time the flights are? Or am I missing something obvious there.

3) It looks to me that I need to book both legs over the phone and tell them it’s going to be an open jaw, otherwise they won’t let me use the companion voucher right? As in trying to book either leg online won’t work for open jaw. However, I’ve also seen some posts saying ringing for open jaw returns with Iberia means being quoted £2000+ in fees… I don’t understand when this applies?

4) Lastly, dates. I want to fly out on 27 December 2025 – am I correct in thinking that means I need to book the outbound flight as 06 January 2025 turns into 07 January? Ie 00.00 on 07 Jan? But for the return flight, because that would be Iberia, I should ring up 360 days before instead?

Thank you so much for any help!!

Apologies, on the very bottom point – I mean 06 January 2024!

[ffwd]

@catanddogs2025
Iberia show their avios seats before you can book them with BA so you can check those on the Iberia site the day before you want to book Just do the Madrid to San Jose.Then later book London-Madrid on a separate ticket.
This works out cheaper.

You then can add the Return once those seats are released.
If you do it online as a separate ticket you can call up to get 50% of the Avios refunded (as has been said many times on this thread).

As for dates, just look at what is the last date you can book BA flights today, then work forward to when you want to fly.

[catsanddogs2025]

ffwd wrote:

@catanddogs2025
Iberia show their avios seats before you can book them with BA so you can check those on the Iberia site the day before you want to book Just do the Madrid to San Jose.Then later book London-Madrid on a separate ticket.
This works out cheaper.

You then can add the Return once those seats are released.
If you do it online as a separate ticket you can call up to get 50% of the Avios refunded (as has been said many times on this thread).

As for dates, just look at what is the last date you can book BA flights today, then work forward to when you want to fly.

Hello, thanks so much! Great tip on Iberia. I’ll choose that over BA then for the price and the fact I can nab it earlier.

We will look at booking the Madrid leg separately, the only reason I’m nervous is I recently went to Lisbon and it took two hours to get through passport control so without a connecting ticket we are looking at a super long layover, as we can’t risk missing the San Jose flight!

Re the return flight and Avios refund; yes, I’ve read that, but the Head for Points open jaw bookings article has the following line: ‘To book an open jaw Avios redemption you need to call British Airways’. Hence why I thought it had to be done on the phone.

Thanks!

[JDB]

@catsanddogs2025 – yes, you need to allow plenty of time or in an ideal world go to Madrid the night before to allow for the vagaries of winter travel. Madrid is an easy but potentially long transit as it’s a huge airport and you will arrive and depart from the T4S satellite where on two tickets you will need to go though entry and exit immigration there and get a train to the main T4 building where you will collect your bags/check them in again, before passing through security to get the train back to T4S.

The APD savings account plus lower IB taxes should comfortably fund an enjoyable night in Madrid. Otherwise, think of allowing five hours or so. If all goes very smoothly/quickly and you have time to kill, the T4S Velásquez lounge is a good space.

On the return, you can book your ticket though to London on one ticket without negative cost consequences so the transfer inside T4S is a doddle.

[catsanddogs2025]

JDB wrote:

@catsanddogs2025 – yes, you need to allow plenty of time or in an ideal world go to Madrid the night before to allow for the vagaries of winter travel. Madrid is an easy but potentially long transit as it’s a huge airport and you will arrive and depart from the T4S satellite where on two tickets you will need to go though entry and exit immigration there and get a train to the main T4 building where you will collect your bags/check them in again, before passing through security to get the train back to T4S.

The APD savings account plus lower IB taxes should comfortably fund an enjoyable night in Madrid. Otherwise, think of allowing five hours or so. If all goes very smoothly/quickly and you have time to kill, the T4S Velásquez lounge is a good space.

On the return, you can book your ticket though to London on one ticket without negative cost consequences so the transfer inside T4S is a doddle.

Thank you so much for this detail – this is very helpful!

[Tristoph]

So following up on my post above.. I called BA & they said the reason they hadn’t charged is because the agent calculated the taxes & fees incorrectly & therefore they need to charge me more..

When I did a dummy booking a few weeks ago the taxes & fees for the round trip were £1,900 for two flying BA first class out, Iberia business back (the Iberia part was roughly £750).

When I called to book the return the agent said the Iberia part was £1,144, so now a total £2,300 & that back office would process it. I tried to understand why it was different but the agent just said that’s the cost so take it or leave it.

The agent yesterday then said the Iberia journey is £1,477 (so ~£2,650 total). I queried why it had increased & they said the original agent miscalculated, eventually the agent said they’d honour the original. However BA have now called to say they won’t.

Couple of questions
1) the total taxes & fees seem really high vs. other bookings I’ve made, I understand first is more expensive but now the Iberia part is more expensive than first class. Do these seem reasonable?

2) any ideas why the taxes & fees are so much more than when I tried to do a dummy booking online? I don’t want to cancel & rebook as I don’t want to lose the first class seats

3) am I flogging a dead horse by trying to get them to honour the original agent’s quote? They’ve said a manager will call today. They messed up the avios so I’ve saved around 60k points vs what it should’ve been so I don’t know whether to just pay the increased amount (or pay & then complain afterwards)

[JDB]

@Tristoph – unfortunately BA RFS and/or non-RFS First and Iberia do not mix well! Also, surcharges fluctuate constantly and significantly, so until payment is taken the deal isn’t struck and you really can’t rely on a ‘dummy’ booking or adding two one ways together. Even when the taxes quoted are overtly wrong, BA staff don’t like to back down so they just assume whatever the system spews out is correct.

I would ask BA to provide the breakdown to see if it makes sense. When they requote, the figures will be different again…

Unless there’s an actual error (ie a charge that shouldn’t be there rather than just an elevated sum) a complaint is unlikely to achieve anything.