-
Dear hive mind, has anyone recently had experience of booking reward flights via this method? The last time I did it was pre-covid and surprisingly (to me) niggle-free.
This time, at the end of the call, the agent said ‘I have booked the tickets and your booking reference number is XYZABB, but I will have to send it off to be priced. Please call back in 48hrs.’ Suffice it to say I duly waited and called back, only to be told that it was 7 days rather than 48hrs before the pricing would be revealed to me.
Is this typical for BA to take 7 days to do what I could do in 15mins on aa.com (where carrier charges are listed alongside points cost for redemptions)??
Thanks in advance for any insight that might keep me entertained whilst i continue to drum my fingers.
I did a booking on 12 November. Two hours after the initial phone call, I had an email asking me to call them again as they had the price. However it did then take the agent more than an hour to complete the booking and take payment!
Thanks, that would be more like my previous experience.
This time … 7 days, no email. Ring BA today, 48mins 36secs hold time after twice being given the ‘our call centres are too busy, goodbye’ message. Turns out the booking reference generated is good until 4th December i.e. tomorrow and the booking has yet to make it to the pricing team. Huzzah!
Agent was lovely. Re-submitted it, said that all that remains is to cross one’s fingers it gets picked up prior to expiry, and to call back to morrow to check the success/damage.
.It depends whether they like your route – I got caught out because they did not like the internal flights in malaysia being added in – ended up having to make a complaint and as always struggled to speak to someone intelligent.
My current booking (for May next year) is SIN to NRT and HND-HEL-LHR
Does anyone know if I can amend it to add JAL domestic flights?
Was thinking about trying to add Tokyo – Kyushu – Hokkaido – Tokyo?
So, BA sent me a ‘please contact us regarding your booking’ email at 12:27 today and, after much holding and back and forth their side, 2 hours later the outcome presented a choice:
a) process the booking for £80.30 and 238,500 avios (MNL-SYD-CHC(Qantas), CHC-NAN-SIN (Fijian), all in J)
or
b) the tickets expire and go back into the pool.Not much of a choice.
Given that the original plan of the above itinerary linking to a SIN-LHR flight on the multi-partner do-dah couldn’t be executed by the agent, I have ended up paying 358,500 avios as opposed to 200,000.
BA IT be damned!
Why couldn’t they include SIN-LHR on the same booking?
I don’t thing they have priced it properly.
I calculate the first 4 flights as 12177 miles, so 90000 Avios
Adding SIN-LHR takes it to 18942 miles, so 100000 Avios
I think you should contact them again and ask them to explain how they have priced it up.
Get them to tell you the mileage for each segment (check it yourself first so you can see whether they are right or not).
Agree your mileage estimate and 100k, doubled for business in this case, could apply if the multi-partner award chart was in play. However …
BA appear to have priced them individually, SIN-LHR at the customary 120k and the prior legs as a separate booking at 238.5k for the four.
Lord knows what methodology they used for the second booking, but neither of are of the multi-partner chart variety.
Initially, I was told over the phone that combining further redemptions with the SIN-LHR to one multi-partner redemption was possible.
Then, later, it may be possible but the LHR-SIN leg would have to be cancelled with the risk that the seat ‘might be released back to the cash pool’ and unavailable to me to re-book.
Lastly, I was told that it wasn’t possible and my 4-way redemption would be cancelled at end of day if I didn’t book it there and then. Hobson’s choice!159k of avios is a worthwhile prize to try again. I wonder if anyone has experienced similar?
The first agent has pulled your pants down by not doing it correctly.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
