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This is today’s chat thread.
If you have specific questions about Avios, hotels or credit cards, please ask them in the appropriate forum and not here. This thread is a good place to post interesting deals you have spotted or your general thoughts on travel and all things miles and points. Thank you for contributing.
Will this work?
OH booking a BA holiday from Madrid to Chicago, flight + car, his flight pattern is MAD-LHR-ORD-LHR(-MAD), so tier point bonus on the flown flights and on the holiday price. Separate ticket LHR-MAD.
I go along for the ride to Madrid. Taking the same flight LHR-MAD and MAD-LHR. If I book my trip as a holiday including the hotel in Madrid for the weekend, I’d have to book in my name only because my return flight MAD-LHR is his first leg of his trip, so he can’t be on my holiday booking. So I should get that as a holiday booking, though there will be the 2 of us staying at the hotel, I should get all the holiday tier points. Anyone see if this fails? I can’t book it as a holiday for 2, as that would mean he is double booking on the MAD-LHR sector.
@Tracey, *technically* booking a BAH for 1 person, then having 2 stay at the hotel breaches the new conditions :
7. All passengers using the hotel and/or car hire must be named on the booking prior to travel, any subsequent additions to passenger mix made locally could result in the booking being deemed ineligible for tier points.
Discussed at length here
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/ba-holidays-tcs-post-april-2025/Nothing to stop you doing it and booking a room suitable for 2 then speaking directly to hotel, but be aware there may be a risk. I’m not aware of any actual experiences of people doing this under the new rules as yet.
Morning – seem to be doing well having been reading HfP for some years now. I had transferred Avios from BA to Finnair some months back to use them to book an AA domestic flight (as they charged fewer avios than booking the same flight via BA – something I knew from reading HfP). All seemed well – can see the booking on Finnair’s MMB, and could also see it on AA’s MMB (the latter using the AA PNR which is shown on the Finnair site). AA’s MMB let me book my seats and things seemed fine.
However – a few months on, I tried to look at the booking again on the AA site to provide my passport details for the API, but it says “Contact Reservation for help with this trip”. I contacted their reservations line last week to be told it is a technical error and should be fine within a few hours – still not working a week later. Flight is still a few months away, so should I be speaking to AA again?
Thankfully I’ve been able to provide the API via the Finnair site. However I am left wondering a few things – will I be able to check in online for this flight when check in opens (via Finnair or AA?)? If we need to change the seats (at check in), will we be able to? Should I be concerned about the inability to access the booking via AA’s site?
@Tracey, *technically* booking a BAH for 1 person, then having 2 stay at the hotel breaches the new conditions :
7. All passengers using the hotel and/or car hire must be named on the booking prior to travel, any subsequent additions to passenger mix made locally could result in the booking being deemed ineligible for tier points.
Discussed at length here
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/ba-holidays-tcs-post-april-2025/Nothing to stop you doing it and booking a room suitable for 2 then speaking directly to hotel, but be aware there may be a risk. I’m not aware of any actual experiences of people doing this under the new rules as yet.
So how do I do it correctly? Let’s assume that BA holidays give the best price, so I want a BA holiday with flights for me only, without upsetting BA. I would like the tier points for the flight at least, even if getting the tier points for the hotel is not possible
You don’t get separate TPs because it’s based on total spend. So if your husband was registered at your hotel and they snitched* on you to BAH, you could end up forfeiting all the TPs.
Best way to keep all the TPs now is to get a separate hotel room (which may not be cost effective if there are only two of you travelling) or have flight & car hire and don’t take your partner with you to collect the car. I’m interpreting “using” a hire car as driving it, as otherwise you couldn’t carry any passengers at all if they weren’t named on your holiday booking, which is just silly.
*For @JDB, by “snitch” I obviously mean “comply with their contractual obligations” 😂
I haven’t explained clearly enough. He is travelling to ORD alone and only has need for a car himself in ORD. No intention of a car in Madrid. I was going to book a flight and hotel as a BAH in Madrid.
@Tracey, we understood what you are trying to do. Nothing physically in the BAH system that will stop you – just making you aware that with the new T&C’s there is now a risk that *if* BAH find out you’ve had a second person staying in the room you could forfeit all the nTP’s. Of course it could all credit perfectly.
What is the seemingly unknown at the moment is if/how the hotels will account to BAH for who is in the room.Whether that’s a risk you are personally prepared to take is your decision.
How do I book it in an honest manner ie I can’t book for 2 as a BA holiday because he will have no return flight.
@Tracey Both of you just add a hotel room to each booking at the same hotel.
When is the best time to book a business class cash flight (ie, how far out)?
I am trying to book a flight from Canada to Africa (outbound to South Africa, inbound from east Africa).Same question for hotels?
(Cash)Trip will be Dec 2025-Jan 2026.
How do I book it in an honest manner ie I can’t book for 2 as a BA holiday because he will have no return flight.
No, you can’t book flights for 1 person and hotel for 2 people. You would have to just book it all in your name for 1 person (selecting room type that accommodates 2), then contact the hotel directly nearer the time to ask if they would have any issue if you had your OH stay with you ( offering to pay any additional room charge or meals locally and directly of course).
If you’re not happy with the risk I can’t see any way round it. You’d need to just book your own flights with reduced overall nTP’s and book hotel separately as normal.
Or as @Ritchie suggests, you book your BAH with a room and your OH adds room at same hotel to their BAH – then you’ve both honestly booked and paid for a room (and any meals) under your own booking. Which room you both actually stay in is your concern!
@Tracey, you said it didn’t matter if you don’t get TPs for the hotel, so you could always book your flight plus one night in the hotel as a BAH (or a night at an airport hotel, or anything else which might suit you), then make a separate booking for the hotel for the entire stay and have your husband check in for that to avoid having to give long explanations to the hotel receptionist, who will think you are bonkers unless they understand about FF schemes and TPs! That way you’ll be adhering the to terms of the BAH and will only be paying for 1 extra hotel night.
@Tracey How long in Madrid? If it’s just one night then you book the holiday and get them to book a room separately for two people. Then check into both rooms, obviously depends on how expensive the hotel is but this would eliminate all risk.
When is the best time to book a business class cash flight (ie, how far out)?
I am trying to book a flight from Canada to Africa (outbound to South Africa, inbound from east Africa).Same question for hotels?
(Cash)Trip will be Dec 2025-Jan 2026.
There’s no such thing as a best time. All pricing is algorithm driven and depends on dozens of factors many of which you can have no idea about. Hotels can have weddings and conferences, local events that drive demand. Airline pricing changes daily up and down.
Use Google flights and it’ll give you an indication of the cheapest time and the price relative to “typical” but it’s not perfect my any means.
I tracked a Delta flight from Seattle to Salt Lake last year and the price changed wildly pretty much every 48 hours over a 3 month period.
Can a BA Holiday that performs for tier points as you/he would want, start in Madrid?
The double TP offer stipulated starting in the UK, but some of those terms have been dropped. Probably best to double check though!
Any point in doing 2 holidays for him? As now if it can start in Madrid, then an extra one from UK to Madrid with you – with some holiday element not necessarily a hotel in Madrid at that tome. Wondering if ypu could do all other nights exceptbthe last one on the holiday from London, then last one on his mad-ord holiday – unless he’s using hotel or car in ORD so that the BAH box is already ticked for him.
I suspect most splits of hotel nights in MAD across 2 holidays wouldn’t have too much effect on the hotel element cost within each holoday. Possibiy a slightly higher cost if just 1 night on 1 hol but other splits I bet it wouldnt make much diff.
No rule requiring you to book all nights within the holidat 1 will do mow under new rules.
Does mean he grabs all the tier points and extra avios on both, though.
The issue is that you arw spending multiple days in same hotel while he goes to ORD so you’d need to be legitimately occupying the room.
For 1 night I don’t think anyone would care if the booking was in his name. If in yours less certain : unfair but true.
I can’t remember do Spain hotels still want id for all occupants? Most countries don’t.
Can a BA Holiday that performs for tier points as you/he would want, start in Madrid?
Yes it can. I’ve started BA hols in the likes of DUB, AMS and ARN for example.
I booked those knowing full well they wouldn’t qualify for the now defunct double TP offer.
They also didn’t qualify for the bonus avios based on spend either but that wasn’t much in the scheme of things.
I think they might do, but IME if one person produces all the passports then they don’t need to see all the guests in person. I don’t think one guest having already stayed one night previously is going to cause an issue. I think the main thing is that the lead booker is present.
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