Cabin upgrade voucher

[Ryan]

NorthernLass wrote:

@Ryan, which browser did you use for your MAN-LHR-SYD booking?

@NorthernLass Safari on my iPad

[Familyflyer10]

Anyone know if there is a way of not booking RFS for long haul with a Barclays upgrade voucher?

Flights for a dummy booking are now coming up as:

LHR – SFO (off peak return, club world)
95,000 avios + £450

previously the quote was:

LHR – SFO (off peak return, club world)
65,000 avios + £844.38

I know this is because of the introduction of reward flight saver on long haul flights but my question is is there a way to still pay the original quote of more money for taxes and less avios? It’s 3 of us travelling on 3 seperate vouchers so I’d need to come up with 90k more avios which I don’t have. Any advice appreciated

[Ryan]

@NorthernLass Not sure if it helps but it took me a few attempts to get mine to work. Even though I was using the ‘Book and Upgrade’ tab on the book with Avios page, it kept thinking I was trying to use a companion voucher as it had defaulted to that on the ‘Book with Avios’ tab (which I hadn’t touched). In the end I made sure to select no vouchers on the ‘Book with Avios’ tab before filling out the ‘Book and Upgrade’ one.

[smblcklck]

@Familyflyer10 there isn’t as far as anyone knows. It’s unfortunate that on this route it hasn’t worked in your favour.

Running the maths on it quickly, you now need 30k more Avios PP but will save ~£395 PP (£1185 total saved)

If its this route or nothing,your only recourse is to buy 90k Avios for £1455. This will work out at about 90 quid pp more expensive than before the changes. Up to you to decide if its worth it!

[pelicanicecoffeeolaf]

smblcklck wrote:

@Familyflyer10 there isn’t as far as anyone knows. It’s unfortunate that on this route it hasn’t worked in your favour.

Running the maths on it quickly, you now need 30k more Avios PP but will save ~£395 PP (£1185 total saved)

If its this route or nothing,your only recourse is to buy 90k Avios for £1455. This will work out at about 90 quid pp more expensive than before the changes. Up to you to decide if its worth it!

It is a very frustrating change, and of course while I have no idea myself, I feel like BA has shafted Barlcays too. I have 2 Barclays vouchers now, but as far as I’m concerned they have both just become significantly less attractive. I’m one of those people who is a bit more “cash rich, Avios poor”, so this is incredibly annoying for me. I can budget money to put towards reward flights, but if I suddenly need significantly more Avios I’m screwed!

[Familyflyer10]

Thanks for your replies. Not the end of the world just slightly frustrating. To be honest I won’t earn the final voucher for a few months so I’m considering an avios subscription as it’ll be a fair amount cheaper than buying the avios in one go and I don’t need the avios for a while. In general it sounds like avios subscription could be an appealing option for those of us who are a bit cash rich and avios poor with the new Long haul RFS policy…

[pelicanicecoffeeolaf]

Familyflyer10 wrote:

Thanks for your replies. Not the end of the world just slightly frustrating. To be honest I won’t earn the final voucher for a few months so I’m considering an avios subscription as it’ll be a fair amount cheaper than buying the avios in one go and I don’t need the avios for a while. In general it sounds like avios subscription could be an appealing option for those of us who are a bit cash rich and avios poor with the new Long haul RFS policy…

Perhaps, I was actually just reading this old article: https://www.headforpoints.com/2020/04/13/what-is-the-cheapest-way-to-buy-avios-points-3/

The idea of buying and transferring hotel points sounds intriguing.

[DazW]

Can anyone advise, really simple question. Can I use two Barclays upgrade vouchers on the same trip for 2 return tickets in CW? I cannot seem to get it to play on the site, it shows the two vouchers but will only let me select one. Any help is appreciated.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

pelicanicecoffeeolaf wrote:

Perhaps, I was actually just reading this old article: https://www.headforpoints.com/2020/04/13/what-is-the-cheapest-way-to-buy-avios-points-3/

The idea of buying and transferring hotel points sounds intriguing.

Do the maths very carefully.

Generally moving points from hotels to airlines and vice versa means you lose a lot of value. Just ask those that moved their VS points to Hilton.

[Anna]

@Ryan, I don’t understand what you did as the “book and upgrade” option usually means booking a cash ticket and upgrading it with avios. This option does not let you use either of the vouchers.
Anyway, even trying on an iPad using Safari I just can’t get it to price up anything starting outside LON!

[pelicanicecoffeeolaf]

DazW wrote:

Can anyone advise, really simple question. Can I use two Barclays upgrade vouchers on the same trip for 2 return tickets in CW? I cannot seem to get it to play on the site, it shows the two vouchers but will only let me select one. Any help is appreciated.

I believe you would have to make two separate bookings, one per person/voucher.

[DazW]

pelicanicecoffeeolaf wrote:

DazW wrote:

Can anyone advise, really simple question. Can I use two Barclays upgrade vouchers on the same trip for 2 return tickets in CW? I cannot seem to get it to play on the site, it shows the two vouchers but will only let me select one. Any help is appreciated.

I believe you would have to make two separate bookings, one per person/voucher.

Thank you for answering, it saves me smashing my ipad 🙂

[tiriavpo]

pelicanicecoffeeolaf wrote:

DazW wrote:

Can anyone advise, really simple question. Can I use two Barclays upgrade vouchers on the same trip for 2 return tickets in CW? I cannot seem to get it to play on the site, it shows the two vouchers but will only let me select one. Any help is appreciated.

I believe you would have to make two separate bookings, one per person/voucher.

If DanW can see 2 vouchers in their account they must both belong to them – rather than one each.

You can use 2 vouchers on the same booking (if they are both yours) as per the Ts&Cs, but I am guessing you would have to call – see point 18 here: https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/collecting-avios/personalbanking/cabin-upgrade-terms

They are not the same as the old Lloyds vouchers as they can only be used for trips starting in UK – so if you have one voucher each I think you would have to make 2 separate bookings – which is doable but I guess each booking could potentiall be treated differently (offloads etc). ie you can’t use one voucher outbound for 2 and the other one inbound for 2.

[Familyflyer10]

Does anyone know if you need to keep the Barclaycard account open to redeem these? I’d quite like to close my account now I’ve earned the voucher but not sure if this will be an issue when redeeming like it can be with the Amex 241…

[Alex G]

No requirement to pay for the flight with your Barclaycard, so you are free to close the account.

However, a MC that gives 1 Avios / £ is still useful where Amex is not accepted, and combined with the free Curve card gives you a way to earn Avios on foreign currency transactions without paying high surcharges.

I’m keeping mine.

[Jan M]

Alex G wrote:

No requirement to pay for the flight with your Barclaycard, so you are free to close the account.

However, a MC that gives 1 Avios / £ is still useful where Amex is not accepted, and combined with the free Curve card gives you a way to earn Avios on foreign currency transactions without paying high surcharges.

I’m keeping mine.

Me too, for now. There isn’t a better free card on the market. But I will cancel when Virgin launches a sign up bonus. If I remember correctly, you still only have to be without a Barclaycard for 6 months to earn a sign up bonus…

[Anna]

Is it not 2 years if it’s the BC avios card you last held? 6 months for any other BC?

[Olly]

Anna wrote:

Is it not 2 years if it’s the BC avios card you last held? 6 months for any other BC?

No it’s 6 months. I reopened a BC Avios plus at the start of this month having shut my initial one in June. So just earned my 2nd voucher

[TicknBash]

Anyone experiencing / noticed odd pricing using Barclays voucher for peak vs off peak ?

Excluding taxes, I’ve found the following on HKG route using Barclays voucher.

LHR-HKG off peak – 50k Avios / 100k return
LHR-HKG peak – 75.5k Avios / 155k return

If using 241, peak and off peak are 100k off peak and 110k peak.

If the 241 pricing were to apply, logically Barclays peak should be priced at 55k as the off peak comparison seems to be correct.

I know the RFS has ‘stuffed’ many of us lately, but this seems more like a math problem or is this BA’s way of a sneaky back door ‘stuffed’?

Any thoughts ?

[Anna]

@Olly – you got another voucher but the 2 year rule is for the SUB.

[slethaby]

Hi, I now have my upgrade voucher, can I cancel my Barclay card now as I no longer want to pay for it?

[Froggee]

Yes

[NorthernLass]

I’ve now used 2 vouchers to book long haul flights from LHR, as the system doesn’t domestic connections. After weeks of not being able to get through to BA and then having a chat agent refusing to do this, I finally got through to the Silver line this morning after 30 minutes on hold. Unfortunately the agent was of the traditional BA awkward-as variety and refused to add the MAN-LHR leg without charging the full avios and taxes as she insisted that such bookings can’t be amended free of charge as per her interpretation of the Ts and Cs of the voucher. It’s incredibly frustrating to still be getting this kind of nonsense from BA but it has helped me decide that the vouchers are completely useless in my case and any future spend I was going to put through BC will now go to my VS MC. Now I just need to decide whether to book separate MAN-LHR flights myself or scrap these trips altogether!

[Aston100]

Olly wrote:

Anna wrote:

Is it not 2 years if it’s the BC avios card you last held? 6 months for any other BC?

No it’s 6 months. I reopened a BC Avios plus at the start of this month having shut my initial one in June. So just earned my 2nd voucher

Just in case you somehow see this thread (lack of notifications is frustrating):
Did you get a SUB too?

[NorthernLass]

That was my point – you would get another upgrade voucher but I think the rules around the SUBs are stricter.