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Thought I would share this in case it helps anyone.
Yesterday I needed to book SJO-MAD,2 tickets in Business using Companion Voucher. Last few days I had been watching this flight and noticed that on the Iberia website at 1am they release economy tickets. The business ones only appear later around 7-8am.Same thing happened yesterday for the 5th April 2026 flight.
So at 8am I called BA, as BA website does not show flights that far out.The first agent said she couldn’t see the flights even though I gave her all the details including flight number and I could see it on IBeria. I decided to HUCA.
The next agent found the flights no problem but insisted the cost for 2 was 62,500+voucher+£454. On Iberia it was same but cash £214. She said there was nothing she can do and I decided to HUCA.
Third agent went through the same process
but when I raised the issue of the difference in cash between BA and Iberia she said she will reserve the seats and send it for manual ticketing and they will calculate the cash element manually and email me to call them back within 48hrs. She also gave me the booking reference.
3hrs later I got the email, called BA and was told the total fees where £214.It didn’t take long for the calls to be picked up and the 3rd call was complete by 8:40 but it is v clear that it all depends on the agent you get.
Today I will try and add on the flight MAD-LON let’s see how that works out.
This mirrors my experience when I called BA to book a reward ticket on Iberia (Buenos Aires to Madrid). Having checked the Iberia cost on another date, BA initially quoted a much higher amount.
I asked the BA agent to book the sets, then send the itinerary to the Ticketing department for review.
Having secured the seats, I then paid the correct (lower) Iberia price.Useful tips for sure – thanks! From my recent experience, IB bookings are a very manual process with BA, so you need to be ready with the right information and challenge the agents if needed.
Today I will try and add on the flight MAD-LON let’s see how that works out.
Good luck. We’ve just spend an hour and a half on the phone trying to do similar (adding the Madrid to London leg) and have been given the complete run around, which ended up with us not getting it booked.
We booked Tokyo to Madrid yesterday morning (already had Madrid to Tokyo booked), and were told it would be sent to ticketing. However, we haven’t received that back through yet. We arrive too late into Madrid to do the London leg the same day, so phoned this morning to add the Madrid to London leg for the following day, as these flights were only released at 1am.
After all that time on the phone, the agent came back and said the companion voucher couldn’t be applied to the Madrid to London section. His reasoning was that because we had Madrid to Tokyo and then Tokyo back to Madrid on the same booking, the Madrid to London flight would be counted as a second outbound flight which isn’t allowed. He was saying his team leader had said that.
He also gave us aa much higher taxes quote which is why we queried it in the first place. Especially since we haven’t had the details from ticketing yet about when we added the Tokyo to Madrid flight we booked yesterday morning.
I would HUACA. This is perfectly possible and has been done numerous times by other readers (plenty of data points in the very long thread!) It’s effectively an open jaw booking which starts in Madrid and ends in London. It sounds like the agent and team leader (if one was even consulted) were either badly trained or just couldn’t be bothered.
You could wait until the BA MAD-LHR is released then ask for that to be added, it might be easier for a BA agent to get their head around?
Yes, there’s a lot of luck firstly in who picks up the initial call and secondly in the ticketing agent that picks up your booking from the queue and thirdly of course whether the ticket gets reissued correctly or at all.
As above, there is no issue about adding a third MAD-LON leg to the booking it’s not a very clean way of doing it and is beyond the ken of many agents to book, let alone calculate the additional Avios cash. I think @PeteM reported being charged 13k Avios in economy (for two with a companion voucher) and I was charged an extra 22k for business and only an extra c. £70 (total for two) in TFCs for adding the long haul EZE-MAD as well as the London leg. I’m not sure any of these figures were correct, but near enough not to argue!
I would HUACA. This is perfectly possible and has been done numerous times by other readers (plenty of data points in the very long thread!) It’s effectively an open jaw booking which starts in Madrid and ends in London. It sounds like the agent and team leader (if one was even consulted) were either badly trained or just couldn’t be bothered.
You could wait until the BA MAD-LHR is released then ask for that to be added, it might be easier for a BA agent to get their head around?
Thanks Northern Lass. I did pop a post up with slightly more detail in the longer thread too.
Ironically I thought it would be easier adding an Iberia flight rather than BA flight seeing as our other flights are on Iberia. Also thought there was less chance of the avios/taxes changing (in case adding a BA flight on the end made it not a RFS any more).
My husband was literally on hold for an hour whilst the agent went away to calculate what was supposedly owed. He said the system had worked it out, but if that is the case, how come the system wasn’t able to figure out the Tokyo to Madrid flight we booked yesterday morning? Nothing really made sense at all to be honest!
@Ladyshopper – personally, if at all possible, I would stick to an Iberia connection. A BA connection is no easier to add and actually may cause your booking to self destruct, send taxes haywire and IB won’t really help if you do or are at risk of missing a BA connection which they will for their own flights.
@Ladyshopper – personally, if at all possible, I would stick to an Iberia connection. A BA connection is no easier to add and actually may cause your booking to self destruct, send taxes haywire and IB won’t really help if you do or are at risk of missing a BA connection which they will for their own flights.
Thanks, that’s our plan and what you’ve said makes total sense.
The avios he wanted to add for that leg were correct (15000, which is the cost with the companion voucher for 2 of us in business as it’s peak time). it’s the taxes that were way off, almost double what we’d roughly worked them out to be. Then when queried, he decided he couldn’t add it to the booking as part of the companion voucher at all, even though the system had presumably initially told him that he could given he’d quoted the correct number of avios.
Thought I would share this in case it helps anyone.
Yesterday I needed to book SJO-MAD,2 tickets in Business using Companion Voucher.…
Today I will try and add on the flight MAD-LON let’s see how that works out.
@JaneDoe how did you get on booking the MAD->LON?As per my previous post above we were told we couldn’t add the MAD->LHR flight to the Companion Voucher because it would be 2 outbound flights from MAD.
Yesterday we changed the date of the NRT->MAD return flight to be 2 days later and because of all the feedback from you lovely people above my husband asked the agent if there would be a problem adding the flight to LHR the next day and she said “no, we do this all the time, just ring tomorrow”.
So this morning he rings to book the LHR flight, specifically explaining that we’re flying from NRT to LHR but have to split it over 2 days due to flight times, and after being on hold while they calculate the fees the agent came back and said “when you booked yesterday were you told that the LHR flight can’t be added to the Companion Voucher because MAD->NRT and NRT->MAD is in one zone but then MAD->LHR is another zone?”
He explained that he had been told the opposite – that it was possible and was done all the time – and the agent said that yesterday’s agent mustn’t have realised that we were starting from MAD because it can’t be done. It could be added to the booking but we’d need to pay full Avios rather than apply the Companion Voucher.
My husband is reluctant to call again to be told the same because you can’t argue with the agents and the agent had referred to notes on the system that had been made previously, and will have added more to the notes today. I’m a 3rd party nominee on his account and I’m happy to phone to give it a go – would I be able to make the amendment to the booking as a 3rd party nominee but more importantly, is it even worth trying?
Yes you can make the amendment but you’ll need to get an agent who is willing and able, which is a whole other kettle of fish as you’ve found!
How fast are these seats going? I’m just thinking it might even be worth changing again to a date where both legs have already been released so you can ask to book it all in one go. Have your original seats gone back into the inventory? Did your husband explain that it is effectively an open jaw booking within the rules?
*I’m assuming you can book it as a through ticket online, I don’t have experience with IB long haul. And if it is, then it proves that the agents who say it isn’t are talking rubbish!
Yes you can make the amendment but you’ll need to get an agent who is willing and able, which is a whole other kettle of fish as you’ve found!
How fast are these seats going? I’m just thinking it might even be worth changing again to a date where both legs have already been released so you can ask to book it all in one go. Have your original seats gone back into the inventory? Did your husband explain that it is effectively an open jaw booking within the rules?
*I’m assuming you can book it as a through ticket online, I don’t have experience with IB long haul. And if it is, then it proves that the agents who say it isn’t are talking rubbish!
I believe you can book it as a through ticket. The problem is that the Tokyo to Madrid leg gets in to Madrid too late for the last Iberia flight to London, so it would have to be a flight the next day. That’s why we’ve had to call at 1am when the Tokyo to Madrid flights are released and can’t add on the next leg at the same time.
The Tokyo to Madrid tickets are going fast (Easter holiday time, and I guess cherry blossom season). My husband has been tracking them on the Iberia app since we booked the outbound. We’ve already extended the holiday by two days as we booked the inbound on a peak day (premium economy), then 2 days later managed to swap them for business on an off-peak day which was fewer avios than premium economy on peak! We also had to pay the change fee for that even though the original inbound flight had been sent off to the back office to calculate the avios and taxes that required paying and they hadn’t come back to us yet (can sort of understand the change fee, but slightly bitter given we hadn’t actually paid or been ticketed for them!).
Even if we could extend my husband’s annual leave, which is doubtful, I don’t think we’d be successful if we waited the extra 24 hours to try and book it all as one journey, as I think the Tokyo to Madrid leg would have gone.
There are so many data points to say adding on the Madrid to London leg is possible. But two agents have now been adamant it isn’t. Like I said, I’m happy to phone up and try and give it a go, my main concern is that if I get through and the agent reads the notes from the previous two agents I’ll just get a blanket no.
I’m familiar with doing this with BA for the years when we needed to book at T-355, never had a problem but since the pandemic especially you can never predict what an agent is going to say!
I was really getting at re-booking one of the earlier dates if the seats had re-appeared but of course that brings its own extra hassle.
I suppose your options are keep trying or book the flight separately with the extra book that entails of reclaiming BAH’s and making sure you have sufficient connection time.
There are so many data points to say adding on the Madrid to London leg is possible. But two agents have now been adamant it isn’t. Like I said, I’m happy to phone up and try and give it a go, my main concern is that if I get through and the agent reads the notes from the previous two agents I’ll just get a blanket no.
I am one of the data points. I just did it in February! I had the outbound MAD-SCL booked online with a 241. Phoned BAEC at T-360 to add the inbound SCL-MAD and phoned the next day to add MAD-LHR because SCL-MAD is overnight. SCL-MAD was not ticketed, as the agent made a note that the leg MAD-LHR would be added the next day. I had no problem adding MAD-LHR, no change was due. However, we are flying the leg MAD-LHR in the economy, and I am not sure if the fees have been calculated correctly…
It can be done. Try again.
@Ladyshopper – I’m not sure how you got on with BA in the end but there does appear to have been a change in policy or at least in application of terms and what you experienced is seemingly correct.
I called last week to add a return EZE-MAD-LHR (to my existing MAD-EZE) and was quoted the additional cost in Avios and money. The agent under calculated the Avios (which I corrected) and quoted the additional cash which seemed quite low, but within a possible range. The agent advised that I would receive the new e-ticket within ten minutes.
After two days I called to check and was told to wait another couple of days. I called again on Sunday and got a superb agent who noted that Iberia had entered a ticketing time limit of 9am tomorrow and said he would expedite the booking in the ticketing queue, keep an eye on the booking and call me no later than today if it hadn’t been issued. He duly called this morning to advise that both the Avios and cash quote I had been given were wrong, so that while BA wasn’t bound to honour the price, they would listen to the original call, decide how to proceed and call me later today.
A senior fares/ticketing agent did call this evening to confirm that the Avios quote was wrong and they would need to collect the difference and also that the cash quote was significantly wrong but would be honoured.
However, they said the routing MAD-EZE-MAD-LHR was invalid with a CV, so couldn’t be ticketed! An extraordinarily generous solution, at no cost to me was proposed and gladly accepted. The timely communication, acknowledgement of fault and resolution was exemplary.
In summary BA’s position is that it’s now only possible to have a destination open jaw but not an origin open jaw. I didn’t argue the matter as BA was offering a way round this, but I fear the agent was correct per term 15.10. He wasn’t a rogue agent, but someone senior who had been involved in discussions on this topic internally and with Iberia.
However, they said the routing MAD-EZE-MAD-LHR was invalid with a CV, so couldn’t be ticketed! An extraordinarily generous solution, at no cost to me was proposed and gladly accepted. The timely communication, acknowledgement of fault and resolution was exemplary.
In summary BA’s position is that it’s now only possible to have a destination open jaw but not an origin open jaw. I didn’t argue the matter as BA was offering a way round this, but I fear the agent was correct per term 15.10. He wasn’t a rogue agent, but someone senior who had been involved in discussions on this topic internally and with Iberia.
If this is now yet another unpublished change to the Amex241 (and I’m trying to find the original announcement details), then this further devalues the whole Amex proposition given the lack of information around tier point earning.
I’ve got to talk to GGL over the weekend so will bring this up to see if they can enlighten me as to the date of the restriction change.
Historically I’ve had no issues booking MAD-SJO/ SJO-MAD-LHR or even such diverse routings as BOG-MAD-LHR / LHR-SIN / SIN-LHR / LHR-MEX
From what @JDB wrote, I inferred that it’s a clause which has always existed but not been enforced (like others in respect of the 241). I suppose we may also be seeing an end to other goodwill gestures like adding returns and refunding 50% avios down the line.
I can see why such a restriction is now seemingly in place.
Perhaps too many people booking a separate LHR-MAD and not leaving enough time to make the self connect onto the long haul flight and causing issues for both IB and BA?
Whilst many here are aware of the risks of self connecting many who don’t read HFP or Flyer Talk aren’t.
There are still fairly regular posts asking “I have 75 minutes between arriving and departing flights will I make it and oh by the way I have to collect my bags …”
And we know that many company policies are based on lowest common denominator as it’s easier for the staff to process and remember and even to code the booking system to prevent this.
If the airlines set a MCT, it’s their responsibility if the passenger misses a connection on a single PNR.
Why would self-connecting pax cause issues for BA/IB? They can legitimately wash their hands of them in the event of a missed onward flight.
@e14 – it’s not any change to the 241 terms – the term that blocks the routing I reported is BAC redemption term 15.10.
That term does however, specifically affect 241 or BUV as these can’t be used for two one ways which would get you round the problem on an ordinary reward booking. The indication is that origin (single) open jaws within the same zone would generally be allowed.
It will be a slight pain when booking for 2027 but for us anyway the Amex proposition remains strong and any TP offer will be a very marginal bonus. It might well come with a fee increase though or start after the £15k. It seems unlikely to be ‘free’ icing on the cake.
15.10. For return journeys, outbound and return flights must be booked at the same time. Travel to one destination from a point of origin and returning from another city to the same point of origin (or vice versa) is permitted.
Doesn’t the ‘or vice versa’ mean that you can return from the same (destination) city to a different point of origin (notwithstanding the oxymoron there)?
If not what does the vice versa represent?
Doesn’t the ‘or vice versa’ mean that you can return from the same (destination) city to a different point of origin (notwithstanding the oxymoron there)?
If not what does the vice versa represent?
I’m not sure the ‘vice versa’ really makes sense in that sentence, but if your interpretation were correct, BA will fall back on the zonal issue, at least in respect of Iberia redemptions, but possibly including their own services. That part is more concerning as it could affect destination open jaws as well.
So does that mean I cannot book MAD-NRT (Iberia) outbound and HND-LHR (BA) using the Amex 2-4-1 voucher? This year we did MAD-EZE-MAD-LHR using the 241 and it the return was particulary stress free not having to worry about the connection.
If the airlines set a MCT, it’s their responsibility if the passenger misses a connection on a single PNR.
Why would self-connecting pax cause issues for BA/IB? They can legitimately wash their hands of them in the event of a missed onward flight.
The reality is that airlines don’t wash their hands of self connection failures in the same way as most good airlines will provide accommodation for disrupted journeys even without 261 or other legal obligation requiring it.
However, even though BA/IB are left with trying to sort out missed connections, I don’t think that’s the reason for this apparent policy change.
These bookings create more calls (three if booking each flight at T-360) additional complexity which means more call centre agent time, more error risk and more pressure on fares/ticketing teams (with added Iberia time pressures) and it all runs counter to getting passengers to do more online and requiring reward bookings outbound/return to be made at the same time.
If the airlines set a MCT, it’s their responsibility if the passenger misses a connection on a single PNR.
Why would self-connecting pax cause issues for BA/IB? They can legitimately wash their hands of them in the event of a missed onward flight.
If you are on separate bookings MCT simply does not apply.
Airlines will deal with issues they cause but self connecting isn’t something they caused yet people will complain about it which takes up staff time to the detriment of others.
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