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There’s also a recent thread about using the BA and Barclays vouchers for the same trip which might be helpful if you’re also considering that.
Does the method of booking the outbound online at T-355 with a BARCLAYS voucher (NOT A CV) then booking the return online, also at t-355, then calling the next day to get the bookings combined and Avios refunded work the same as with a CV? Is it possible?
Ok complete newbie to booking 241 voucher. Family of 4 travelling to Orlando next July. Looks to be decent availability for the rewards flights.
I can only book the outgoing at the moment but just want to clarify that with only having the 1 voucher I’ll need to book 1 adult 1 kid on the companion voucher and 1 adult 1 kid through a regular booking and this will be 2 separate bookings.
Should I be looking to secure the outgoing reward flight just now or just wait until the return opens? I’ll be able to book the return in around a week. When I’m looking at the calendar one of the potential days doesn’t have 8 available for example next to it but when I select it, it still shows being able to use 241 and avios.
Regular prices seem quite high at the moment so tempted to sort out reward flights and sit on the regular price flights to see if they come down in price.
Apologies if this is really basic stuff. I’ve read through but there’s loads of info.
You should be able to put all four of you on one booking, it’s when you want to use 2 vouchers in different names (or 1 CV and 1 Barclays) that they have to be separate. You’ll pay 3 lots of avios and 4 lots of fees.
It depends on your appetite for risk re when you should book. Economy availability does look astonishingly good just now, but I think there’s some sort of IT glitch in play just now (being discussed in other threads), which could be rectified at any time.
@danimal, people have reported doing this with the Barclays voucher, but you need to get an agent who knows what they’re doing, or be prepared to HUACA.Am I right in thinking you cannot apply a voucher to an existing booking and have to cancel and hoping for the best to rebook?
Correct, you can’t apply a voucher retrospectively. If there are still reward seats available you can make a new booking and cancel the old one, which would incur the same fee as changing the existing booking (were that possible).
Does the method of booking the outbound online at T-355 with a BARCLAYS voucher (NOT A CV) then booking the return online, also at t-355, then calling the next day to get the bookings combined and Avios refunded work the same as with a CV? Is it possible?
This is possible with BUV.
In the HfP article How do British Airways American Express 2-4-1 Companion Vouchers work?, Rob wrote “ You need to book AND fly the outbound leg before the expiry date of the voucher. You can fly back at any point.”
How far has anyone successfully stretched this scenario? I scraped in days before my voucher expiry & on 15th May this year booked DOH-LHR one way (I’ll be in Qatar anyway) for 16 March 2026 for 2 pax. The maths show that for a return leg LHR-DOH nothing after 5th May 2026 would have been available to book as at my date of booking. Now, rather than wasting the 2-4-1 Avios discount I’m plotting the possibility of flying out to Doha again but haven’t really got the time until autumn 2026 onwards. What do people think about BA actually going along with that? T-355 would be somewhere around mid-November this year (6 months after the outbound booking & with a gap in travel of 8 months.
Oh, and just in case, could I fly LHR-somewhere else or is that like “reverse open jaw” or closed jaw or maybe just slack jaw? 😂I used an expiring 241 from during Covid to fly outbound to GIB in April 2023 and inbound from AGP in Feb 2024, booked several months apart. No issues with booking or flying either leg. I think as long as you book the inbound before you fly the outbound, and stay within the OJ rules, you shouldn’t have any problems.
I’ve got a similar plan for next year – I’ve used “half” a 241 for NAS-LHR-MAN in April ’26 (using the Barclays voucher for the outbound) and am planning to fly the “return” sector in Jan or Feb ’27.
Brilliant @NorthernLass! That’s very good news for me, thank you. I’d prefer not to book before flying the outbound but needs must….
Thanks @northernlass @gary – correct. I booked an outbound Barclays flight to Singapore, then booked a full price return from HK. Called the call centre and was refunded 50% of the return Avios! The system works!
@danimal Are you sure you received 50% of the Avios you paid, as a refund, or was it the difference between the two classes as you were using the upgrade voucher?
@greygoose – we are both right. It was 50,000 as the cost of the PE flight was 50,000 which is happily 50% of the Avios paid but as you say this is actually the difference between the cost of PE and CW.
Thanks for clarifying @danimal and providing the data point. Great result!!
😡 The stress of trying to get separate bookings linked and then half your Avios refunded is still very real. We spoke to “You First” back in May who advised us that we could make two separate online bookings to secure the seats, using the Companion Voucher on the first booking, and then call the Help Centre to get the bookings linked and have half the Avios on the 2nd booking refunded. We did this and I’ve just been through 3 different agents on 3 occasions to be told every time that it is not possible to link separate bookings. I was persistent on the last call and the agent eventually went off and secured approval to process as an exception.
My advice is to do yourself a favour. When you’re trying to use a companion voucher on a return flight and you don’t want to risk missing out on the Rewards Seats on one of your legs, don’t book both legs on separate bookings. Make the first booking using the Companion Voucher (you can do this online) and then ring Club Service Line to book the return seats on the same Booking Reference. This process has been the consistent advice from all the agents I’ve spoken to. It’ll save you having to ping multiple agents multiple times to simply get half your Avios refunded. Of course, UK call centres are not open at Midnight UTC when seats are released, so you’ll have to call the US Call Centre number to add the 2nd leg to your original booking. But that’s preferable IMO over having to make multiple calls to find someone who is willing to process a Avios refund as an exception.
Your mistake was asking them to link the bookings. It’s been highlighted numerous times here; this is not what BA does in this situation (though you seem to have managed to finally persuaded an agent to do this – is your booking now all on one PNR?)
You need to tell BA, either on the phone or via chat or X that you’ve made a booking with your companion voucher, then made the return booking at full price when that leg was released, and ask them to refund 50% of the avios you paid for the return leg. You’ll retain 2 separate bookings but the process should be very straight forward, compared to what you’ve put yourself through. This is how we do it here!
Got to agree with Northern Lass. Don’t mention linking or merging! Making two separate online bookings and just calling to ask for the Avios refund on the second one has saved me a shed load of tax on two CV bookings, one to Brazil and one mixed class, in the last year alone.
Agree, with @northernlass – 3 of us had each made our own outbound bookings, called separately and explained what we wanted to do with the inbound, all agents understood and processed without question. It was made clear to me at the end that the bookings were not merged but they were “linked” in order to apply the Avios refund/voucher.
I think pressing the correct sequence of buttons helps too – 1,1,1,2,1
I’ve just completed my first reward bookings thanks to all the fantastic advice on the site.
A few data points-
-2x companion voucher(family of 4, one voucher in each parent’s name) bookings EDI to KUL booked online at t-355 at 1am on 2 devices!
-Returns HKG to LHR booked online this morning t-355 at 9am (a day earlier than planned but they were available at this much more sociable hour!). Paid full avios and £35 per person total surcharges.
-Online chat to link the PNRs in case of rerouting etc (hopefully…) completed eventually. I then requested to apply the companion vouchers to the return and refund of half avios but agent said this could only be done when booking despite asking him to check.
-“X” chat to request refund was successful after confirming that I was a nominee on my wife’s account.
-Tomorrow I’ll phone to add the LHR-EDI connection when it becomes available.Not the simplest first redemption but it made reading all 71 pages of this thread worthwhile, thank you all!
Can I please check my understanding on using my CV? My recent trip MAD-LIM-MAD-LHR was booked as two singles as they were released and were not using a CV so this is the first time for me doing this
I want to book on Iberia (via BA):
Outbound MAD-MEX
Inbound MEX-MAD-LHR
using my BAPP CV 241 as a solo traveller for next March/April. Both legs are available to book now but there’s not much J availability left so I want to crack on with it.From my reading, if both legs were able to buy at the time of purchase then BA CS can get reluctant to refund of the 50% Avios when you ring up if you buy as two singles and not a return. But a recent change also means that now you can’t book outbound from MAD and inbound back to LHR online so you need to call?
So is the only way to book this as a return using the CV calling up? And will I be charged the £35 fee for doing this?
Thanks in advance
Hi @tootsci. It’s never been possible to book this online so there shouldn’t be an extra fee (phone fee is £15pp). However there was some issue with open jaws which might be what you’re thinking of, though I can’t recall the details now. It’s in this thread somewhere!
And yes, if possible, you’d need to book this on one PNR if both legs are currently available.
Well done and welcome to the club! If the process were easy, then everyone would do it… 😉
I’ve just completed my first reward bookings thanks to all the fantastic advice on the site.
A few data points-
-2x companion voucher(family of 4, one voucher in each parent’s name) bookings EDI to KUL booked online at t-355 at 1am on 2 devices!
-Returns HKG to LHR booked online this morning t-355 at 9am (a day earlier than planned but they were available at this much more sociable hour!). Paid full avios and £35 per person total surcharges.
-Online chat to link the PNRs in case of rerouting etc (hopefully…) completed eventually. I then requested to apply the companion vouchers to the return and refund of half avios but agent said this could only be done when booking despite asking him to check.
-“X” chat to request refund was successful after confirming that I was a nominee on my wife’s account.
-Tomorrow I’ll phone to add the LHR-EDI connection when it becomes available.Not the simplest first redemption but it made reading all 71 pages of this thread worthwhile, thank you all!
Hi @tootsci. It’s never been possible to book this online so there shouldn’t be an extra fee (phone fee is £15pp). However there was some issue with open jaws which might be what you’re thinking of, though I can’t recall the details now. It’s in this thread somewhere!
And yes, if possible, you’d need to book this on one PNR if both legs are currently available.
Thanks @NorthernLass, I’ll pin down the dates tonight and then get on the phone to BA tomorrow (have done the classic ‘get home from one trip and book the next one straight away’!)
It’s the only way to deal with the end of holiday blues! Let us know how you get on.
Remember BA CAN “see” IB availability even if it’s too soon to appear on BA.com, in case they try to fob you off!
@tootsci – it sounds like we’re all the same – booking another holiday as soon as we return from one!
I have telephoned a couple of times recently to use CV from MAD to South America and back to LHR. Each time they have asked me why I’m calling and not booking online. As soon as I have said I will be flying back to a different airport, they have confirmed there will be no charge – and there hasn’t been. Last time we got cut off mid call (during a terrific South of France thunderstorm). They held the tickets and called me back to complete the booking.
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