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

[akhilstyle]

BB8 wrote:

Can anyone advise on this please?

Next Saturday I have to do the 1am thing to book a return on a 2 4 1 and Barclaycard upgrade voucher.
If I don’t get answered by 1am (8pm EST), does anyone have any suggestions of which office can then be called?
From what I can see the Eastern offices seem to be closed on a Saturday.
I’m hoping I can still nab seats on this route if I miss a 1am call, it’s a popular route but not SIN/SYD/MLE popular.
It is over Easter but for once living in the North means our kids break up a week earlier than those in the south.

I called (I think it was the Japanese line) and got connected to an Indian call centre at 1am who were good. This was before the times changed to BST (so I am assuming the would still be open).

Also – for using you 2 4 1 and barclays upgrade voucher did you have to do 2 separate bookings? I did this for the outbound. Then when booking the inbound – the agent did the 2 for 1 booking first and got me 2 of the CW seats. Then went to do the other booking for the barclays upgrade voucher but by that time the CW seats had gone. Seemed as though she couldn’t reserve the 3 seats in one go as they were for 2 different bookings?

[lovetravel0527]

@akhilstyle can you remember the number you called for the Japanese line please? I tried the US line last night at 12:48 and didn’t get through on the phone and didn’t even see the CW seats on the website (I refreshed from 1 until 1:30). I tried calling the Japanese line last week and the initial was completely in Japanese so couldn’t understand enough to get through to an operator.

[BB8]

akhilstyle wrote:

BB8 wrote:

Can anyone advise on this please?

Next Saturday I have to do the 1am thing to book a return on a 2 4 1 and Barclaycard upgrade voucher.
If I don’t get answered by 1am (8pm EST), does anyone have any suggestions of which office can then be called?
From what I can see the Eastern offices seem to be closed on a Saturday.
I’m hoping I can still nab seats on this route if I miss a 1am call, it’s a popular route but not SIN/SYD/MLE popular.
It is over Easter but for once living in the North means our kids break up a week earlier than those in the south.

I called (I think it was the Japanese line) and got connected to an Indian call centre at 1am who were good. This was before the times changed to BST (so I am assuming the would still be open).

Also – for using you 2 4 1 and barclays upgrade voucher did you have to do 2 separate bookings? I did this for the outbound. Then when booking the inbound – the agent did the 2 for 1 booking first and got me 2 of the CW seats. Then went to do the other booking for the barclays upgrade voucher but by that time the CW seats had gone. Seemed as though she couldn’t reserve the 3 seats in one go as they were for 2 different bookings?

Thanks for this.

I looked at Japan but it’s Mon-Fri (I’ll be calling on a Sat)
India not open until 8am their time however, I will try Japan if I miss 1am and see what happens.

Yes, two separate bookings, I know I might miss the third seat but I remain hopeful, I have a back up plan/route too.

[akhilstyle]

lovetravel0527 wrote:

@akhilstyle can you remember the number you called for the Japanese line please? I tried the US line last night at 12:48 and didn’t get through on the phone and didn’t even see the CW seats on the website (I refreshed from 1 until 1:30). I tried calling the Japanese line last week and the initial was completely in Japanese so couldn’t understand enough to get through to an operator.

Hi,

I called +64099669777 – actually, checking, it’s the new Zealand number – went through to an Indian call centre. But again, I think they are Monday-Friday?

[akhilstyle]

BB8 wrote:

akhilstyle wrote:

BB8 wrote:

Can anyone advise on this please?

Next Saturday I have to do the 1am thing to book a return on a 2 4 1 and Barclaycard upgrade voucher.
If I don’t get answered by 1am (8pm EST), does anyone have any suggestions of which office can then be called?
From what I can see the Eastern offices seem to be closed on a Saturday.
I’m hoping I can still nab seats on this route if I miss a 1am call, it’s a popular route but not SIN/SYD/MLE popular.
It is over Easter but for once living in the North means our kids break up a week earlier than those in the south.

I called (I think it was the Japanese line) and got connected to an Indian call centre at 1am who were good. This was before the times changed to BST (so I am assuming the would still be open).

Also – for using you 2 4 1 and barclays upgrade voucher did you have to do 2 separate bookings? I did this for the outbound. Then when booking the inbound – the agent did the 2 for 1 booking first and got me 2 of the CW seats. Then went to do the other booking for the barclays upgrade voucher but by that time the CW seats had gone. Seemed as though she couldn’t reserve the 3 seats in one go as they were for 2 different bookings?

Thanks for this.

I looked at Japan but it’s Mon-Fri (I’ll be calling on a Sat)
India not open until 8am their time however, I will try Japan if I miss 1am and see what happens.

Yes, two separate bookings, I know I might miss the third seat but I remain hopeful, I have a back up plan/route too.

Is it true they can only reserve the flights for one booking at a time?

For example if you make booking 1 as 2 x CW tickets for the route using an amex 2 4 1
Then booking 2 for 1 x CW ticket using a Barclays upgrade voucher

We are a family of 3.

The most recently flight I booked, I didn’t want to take the same risk so just used 1 x Amex 2 4 1 between 3 of us, on one booking, even though I had a couple of Barclays upgrade vouchers.

[BB8]

YFP wrote:

Wow. This is an extreme sport. There’s no way anyone could have clicked faster than i clicked on the website, got to payment screen under 30 seconds, but seats had gone. We try again tomorrow.

I dialled the US number at 12.40am.
Cut off at 1am.
I did get through to an Indian call centre who couldn’t help me with Avios bookings.
Flights were available at 8am this morning (MCO) so I called the UK number and got the returns added.
If this was MLE/SIN/CPT/SYD then I would’ve had no chance at 8am.

I guess it’s fine if you have the Avios to book the return separately and get that added to your 241/upgrade later but I didn’t have that luxury.
I might start an Avios poor thread to go alongside the Avios rich thread now that I have a balance of 259 Avios 😀

Anyway, I’m happy with x3 CW for a 2 weeks trip to Orlando over Easter holidays (for us in the North).

[FH2]

Hello. I have seen the threads on this forum about it no longer being possible to call call centres outside of the UK in order to book reward flights using the Amex companion voucher as they will only assist local customers. This is super annoying as we are a family of 4 with 2 companion vouchers and we were hoping to book 4x CW return seats LHR-SIN in July 2024. We have 254,500 avios which I don’t think is enough for us to use the method of booking the outbound online using the voucher and then having to book the return for the full amount of avios getting half refunded. Does anyone here have any advice on what we can do or are we hoping for the impossible? Thanks.

[Reney]

BB8 wrote:

YFP wrote:

Wow. This is an extreme sport. There’s no way anyone could have clicked faster than i clicked on the website, got to payment screen under 30 seconds, but seats had gone. We try again tomorrow.

I dialled the US number at 12.40am.
Cut off at 1am.
I did get through to an Indian call centre who couldn’t help me with Avios bookings.
Flights were available at 8am this morning (MCO) so I called the UK number and got the returns added.
If this was MLE/SIN/CPT/SYD then I would’ve had no chance at 8am.

I guess it’s fine if you have the Avios to book the return separately and get that added to your 241/upgrade later but I didn’t have that luxury.
I might start an Avios poor thread to go alongside the Avios rich thread now that I have a balance of 259 Avios 😀

Anyway, I’m happy with x3 CW for a 2 weeks trip to Orlando over Easter holidays (for us in the North).

Hi, when you say cut off at 1am, were you still on hold? I was told if you are connected with an agent, your cut off is 1.15.

[FH2]

FH2 wrote:

Hello. I have seen the threads on this forum about it no longer being possible to call call centres outside of the UK in order to book reward flights using the Amex companion voucher as they will only assist local customers. This is super annoying as we are a family of 4 with 2 companion vouchers and we were hoping to book 4x CW return seats LHR-SIN in July 2024. We have 254,500 avios which I don’t think is enough for us to use the method of booking the outbound online using the voucher and then having to book the return for the full amount of avios getting half refunded. Does anyone here have any advice on what we can do or are we hoping for the impossible? Thanks.

– Sorry – we actually have 424,598 avios. But I still do not think that is enough?

[BB8]

Reney wrote:

BB8 wrote:

YFP wrote:

Wow. This is an extreme sport. There’s no way anyone could have clicked faster than i clicked on the website, got to payment screen under 30 seconds, but seats had gone. We try again tomorrow.

I dialled the US number at 12.40am.
Cut off at 1am.
I did get through to an Indian call centre who couldn’t help me with Avios bookings.
Flights were available at 8am this morning (MCO) so I called the UK number and got the returns added.
If this was MLE/SIN/CPT/SYD then I would’ve had no chance at 8am.

I guess it’s fine if you have the Avios to book the return separately and get that added to your 241/upgrade later but I didn’t have that luxury.
I might start an Avios poor thread to go alongside the Avios rich thread now that I have a balance of 259 Avios 😀

Anyway, I’m happy with x3 CW for a 2 weeks trip to Orlando over Easter holidays (for us in the North).

Hi, when you say cut off at 1am, were you still on hold? I was told if you are connected with an agent, your cut off is 1.15.

Yes, still on hold, not connected to anyone.

[animatt]

First time trying to make use of Avios + Companion Voucher on a popular route. Looking to go on honeymoon to Japan in April 2024, LHR<->HND. Aware that will probably need to split the booking due to the popularity of the route and length of time between our outbound and inbound (about 3 weeks). It seems like some call agents allow the 2-4-1 separate booking merge and others cause difficulties. As a result it seems like there is a chance at 11.55pm GMT on the night the return flight booking window opens up that I get someone who will not allow it then and there meaning I’ll need enough Avios to book a single business class return for 2 people. Can anybody provide guidance on whether that is a correct assumption and how many avios I would need in total for this. Currently, I have 250k avios.

Thanks!

[Anna]

@animatt, you have picked a really bad time to try & get avios seats (Easter holidays plus cherry blossom season, are you teachers?!!) You would be best reading all the articles and threads on this – including this one – to hone your strategy as it’s not quite as you seem to think from your post.

[animatt]

Anna wrote:

@animatt, you have picked a really bad time to try & get avios seats (Easter holidays plus cherry blossom season, are you teachers?!!) You would be best reading all the articles and threads on this – including this one – to hone your strategy as it’s not quite as you seem to think from your post.

Would it be possible to help explain what I’m not understanding about how it works? Sounds like I haven’t got it quite right but your reply just tells me I’m misunderstanding, any correction would be much appreciated. RE dates – yep popular time indeed.

[salbags]

Any insight on above would be appreciated for me to

I crawled out of bed and hit the button last night managed to CW London Tokyo 2for1 voucher
36000 points plus £1580

Now I’m wondering how many points I will need for return leg. It would make sense to say
72000 plus cash again as no voucher?!!!
Confused think I will have to call them as I can find this out anywhere unless someone on here knows

Realise I need to call if I can book the return to pair the bookings with voucher
Thanks

[Reney]

animatt wrote:

First time trying to make use of Avios + Companion Voucher on a popular route. Looking to go on honeymoon to Japan in April 2024, LHR<->HND. Aware that will probably need to split the booking due to the popularity of the route and length of time between our outbound and inbound (about 3 weeks). It seems like some call agents allow the 2-4-1 separate booking merge and others cause difficulties. As a result it seems like there is a chance at 11.55pm GMT on the night the return flight booking window opens up that I get someone who will not allow it then and there meaning I’ll need enough Avios to book a single business class return for 2 people. Can anybody provide guidance on whether that is a correct assumption and how many avios I would need in total for this. Currently, I have 250k avios.

Thanks!

If you don’t want to see if more availabilities pop up later in the year, and want direct flight then yes you should consider booking when the flights open 355 days ahead, so you will need to book outbound and inbound separately.

We are in summer time so it is 1am UK time not 12am. Booking outbound the agents will be ok about it. Inbound the option is to 1. call and get the inbound added 2 booking full avios and call back later to get half back – pls read this thread on making sure you choose the same avios and cash option.

How much you need depends on the avios and cash combo. If you have seat spy you can see the options. I think there is quite a lot of avilabilities in Jan and Feb next year so play around and see the peak and non peak options.

[Anna]

SeatSpy doesn’t show the correct cash options – the best way to see these is to do a dummy booking – to a comparable destination if there are no seats available to Japan in the relevant cabin. This will give a fairly good idea of cash/points options.

@salbags, that sounds an awful lot of cash to be paying one-way! Was that your preferred option? If you book the return online then yes, you need to select the same payment option or it’s likely that BA will refuse to subsequently refund your 50% avios.

[salbags]

Panicked trying to book quickly and hit the wrong combo option 🤦‍♀️

[Funkstain]

Hopefully an easy question: I’ve booked 4xCW, with 2x 241, LGW-SJO outbound for late March next year. BA don’t fly to SJO after end March, so I’m looking at open jaw options: CAN and MEX look good for different reasons.

The question: The MEX-LON return is to LHR, not LGW. I want to try it because LOTS of availability (even first) and by next year there’s a good chance we’ll get club suite. Is returning to a different LON airport OK with BA 241 rules?

[No Longer Entitled]

salbags wrote:

Panicked trying to book quickly and hit the wrong combo option 🤦‍♀️

You are now locked into this combination on your return. If you want to change you have 24hrs to cancel the booking without penalty.

I did this about a month back on a set of return tickets from CPT and each time (I did it three times) the seats immediately returned to inventory and the Avios credited. It’s a risk, but you would be unlucky to have someone looking for the same seats when only you know when they would be released.

There is of course the chance that they don’t come back. Depends how risk averse you are.

[highnal]

Thought I’d share my experience last night as I (hopefully) managed to bag 2 of the holy grail CW seats outbound to Male for the Easter holidays next year.

Called the Australian number (+61 130 767 177) at 12:50am UK time, took 2 minutes to navigate through a couple of automated menus. I selected the Avios booking option number 1 to begin with. Eventually connected with the Indian call centre. Took another few minutes to get through the security checks and then explained I wanted to book two seats for Apr 6th 2024 that were being released at the T355 mark (i.e. today). She initially wasn’t sure I had the right day and even checked the cash bookings to see if the previous day 5th had been released already. Even so, she said she would keep refreshing her page to see if seats became available on my chosen day. I was doing the same on my laptop and sure enough, at 1am the 4 guaranteed CW seats appeared on my screen, I told her immediately and she confirmed she could see the availability too and secured them for me. Success!

We then encountered a blip… once I’d confirmed the 75k Avios £860 taxes payment option, she tried to process payment but her machine was unable to confirm the amount in GBP, only USD. Some minutes on hold later, I was transferred to someone else who tried the same and failed. Was told the payment would need to be taken manually by the ticketing office. I was given the booking reference, told the seats were confirmed and had nothing to worry about. Payment will be taken and tickets issued with 48 hours.

And now I wait anxiously…

[JDB]

Funkstain wrote:

Hopefully an easy question: I’ve booked 4xCW, with 2x 241, LGW-SJO outbound for late March next year. BA don’t fly to SJO after end March, so I’m looking at open jaw options: CAN and MEX look good for different reasons.

The question: The MEX-LON return is to LHR, not LGW. I want to try it because LOTS of availability (even first) and by next year there’s a good chance we’ll get club suite. Is returning to a different LON airport OK with BA 241 rules?

Yes, it’s no problem doing the open jaw and return to a different London airport. Going via MEX seems the more attractive option and well worth a stopover.

[Funkstain]

Thank you! Yes, I’ve wanted to go for a while, and Cancun during spring break doesn’t appeal all that much. Add in club suite and a slightly longer flight, with wide open availability every day, it’s the way to go

[aq.1988]

QQ, the answer is probably no, but I’ll ask anyway.

Can I use the voucher to fly solo outbound (I.e. 50% avios), but use it on the inbound with a companion?

[BB8]

highnal wrote:

Thought I’d share my experience last night as I (hopefully) managed to bag 2 of the holy grail CW seats outbound to Male for the Easter holidays next year.

Called the Australian number (+61 130 767 177) at 12:50am UK time, took 2 minutes to navigate through a couple of automated menus. I selected the Avios booking option number 1 to begin with. Eventually connected with the Indian call centre. Took another few minutes to get through the security checks and then explained I wanted to book two seats for Apr 6th 2024 that were being released at the T355 mark (i.e. today). She initially wasn’t sure I had the right day and even checked the cash bookings to see if the previous day 5th had been released already. Even so, she said she would keep refreshing her page to see if seats became available on my chosen day. I was doing the same on my laptop and sure enough, at 1am the 4 guaranteed CW seats appeared on my screen, I told her immediately and she confirmed she could see the availability too and secured them for me. Success!

We then encountered a blip… once I’d confirmed the 75k Avios £860 taxes payment option, she tried to process payment but her machine was unable to confirm the amount in GBP, only USD. Some minutes on hold later, I was transferred to someone else who tried the same and failed. Was told the payment would need to be taken manually by the ticketing office. I was given the booking reference, told the seats were confirmed and had nothing to worry about. Payment will be taken and tickets issued with 48 hours.

And now I wait anxiously…

Something similar happened to me in Feb 22 when I was booking that route for Feb 23.
I did call the UK number back the next day to make sure it was confirmed and they went ahead and sorted the payment for me in GBP.
I didn’t want to risk waiting up to 48 hours.

[ecugkq30]

BB8 wrote:

highnal wrote:

Thought I’d share my experience last night as I (hopefully) managed to bag 2 of the holy grail CW seats outbound to Male for the Easter holidays next year.

Called the Australian number (+61 130 767 177) at 12:50am UK time, took 2 minutes to navigate through a couple of automated menus. I selected the Avios booking option number 1 to begin with. Eventually connected with the Indian call centre. Took another few minutes to get through the security checks and then explained I wanted to book two seats for Apr 6th 2024 that were being released at the T355 mark (i.e. today). She initially wasn’t sure I had the right day and even checked the cash bookings to see if the previous day 5th had been released already. Even so, she said she would keep refreshing her page to see if seats became available on my chosen day. I was doing the same on my laptop and sure enough, at 1am the 4 guaranteed CW seats appeared on my screen, I told her immediately and she confirmed she could see the availability too and secured them for me. Success!

We then encountered a blip… once I’d confirmed the 75k Avios £860 taxes payment option, she tried to process payment but her machine was unable to confirm the amount in GBP, only USD. Some minutes on hold later, I was transferred to someone else who tried the same and failed. Was told the payment would need to be taken manually by the ticketing office. I was given the booking reference, told the seats were confirmed and had nothing to worry about. Payment will be taken and tickets issued with 48 hours.

And now I wait anxiously…

Something similar happened to me in Feb 22 when I was booking that route for Feb 23.
I did call the UK number back the next day to make sure it was confirmed and they went ahead and sorted the payment for me in GBP.
I didn’t want to risk waiting up to 48 hours.

It happened to me. I didnt have the right credit card to hand at the time and thought I was going to have to forfeit the 2 club seats to cape town I had just managed to get. Fortunately the agent was very helpful and said she would call me back when she was next on shift to take payment. Thinking about it I have had a number of redemptions where the taxes and fees aren’t taken until much nearer when I fly so I suspect as long as its all settled a few days before you fly as long as you have a booking ref the tickets are yours even if taxes and fees are still due.