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

[dalendan]

Just wanted to share my experience booking the return leg of our Orlando to Gatwick trip in Business Class with our companion voucher.

I first downloaded the Rebtel app and signed up for the free one week trial of their Global Unlimited plan, so my calls to British Airways didn’t actually cost a penny, though I must now remember to cancel this. The call quality was great and there did not appear to be any lag on the call.

I called the BA Australia number (+61 1300 767 177) at 12:50am and got through to someone in about three minutes. I explained I was looking to book our return leg using the companion voucher, and before I even finished, the agent reassured me they were familiar with the process and knew exactly what to do. I gave them the booking reference for our outbound flight, but then we hit a snag as the agent said their system had just gone down and they couldn’t access any existing bookings.

The agent advised me to either book online (which wasn’t possible since I didn’t have enough Avios without the voucher) or to call back in about 30 minutes and try again. By this point, it was already 1:25am.

I called back straight away at 1:25am, but could already see online that the Business Class seats were no longer showing as available. Still, I stayed on the line and spoke to a lovely agent who again explained the system was still down. I explained how important it was for me to get the return booked and asked if there was anything at all she could do. She kept me on the line for about 10 minutes, then came back to say the system was back up and she could now proceed. She confirmed there were still two Business Class seats available on our preferred date and time, held them for me, and manually deducted the Avios. She let me know the back office would take care of the payment and I should get the amended booking confirmation 48 hours. As of now, the flight shows in my BA app, though the taxes haven’t yet been charged.

Overall, it was a pretty stressful evening. If the system hadn’t gone down, I think I would have had everything sorted by around 1:15am, but instead it was closer to 1:50am by the time I ended the call.

Not sure if it made a difference, but although I called the Australian number, I believe the call was routed to the India call centre. In any case, both agents I spoke with knew exactly how to handle the return booking & companion voucher and were genuinely helpful.