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Hi everyone!
I’m trying to figure out how to get the best out of the new style voucher
We are 4 travelling so maximising the use of the voucher it‘s essential.I was surprise to see I could price online an itinerary like this:
Return flight: Mexico City-Beijin (with stop over in London even for months) 120000 in economy +£600 (got for 2 people)
I was surprise because it look like two trip to me.My question is would I be able to fly instead: Mex-Beijing (London stop over ) and then Beijing -Quito (again with London stopover)
I know the rule for the open jaw regarding the land distance between arrival/departing city being less than either of the 2 flights, but what about the final leg arriving somewhere else?
I hope it makes sense, I’ve being searching a lot the forum but I haven’t found any clear answer!
You can do this, I have found similar routes when playing around with the new style voucher. My only reservation is that unless you could book it all in one go (which would require your outbound booking to still be available when the inbound seats appear), you’d be at the mercy of BA to agree to book the return or refund the 50% avios. I know people have done “nested” trips with avios previously but I don’t know how obvious those appear on the system to BA. You’re essentially using 1 companion voucher for two long haul trips, so amazing value and technically within the Ts and Cs, but individual BA agents can be funny about what they decide is allowed or not!
I have looked at (e.g.) MIA-MRU return and GCM-DXB, and a few others. It gets a bit complicated for me as I’d need to book MAN connections separately but if these were taken the day before or after the long haul sectors, the risks of delays and cancellations would be mitigated significantly.
I think on reflection I’d prefer to book such an itinerary all in one go to avoid any awkwardness but of course that would limit me to which destinations were available on all the dates, and also would rule out an open jaw.
Let us know how you get on with this!
You used to be able to book Singapore Airlines trips like this and get a “free” or $100 short-haul biz flight. They recently restricted stopovers to combat it. But I’m not sure BA will bother, likely to be a very small number of people who could co ordinate their travel to take advantage!
Is it theoretically possible to do TYO-NBO (stopover Lon)then NBO-Lon? I think u will also lose some flexibility with the ticket once the first leg is flown
Possibly, however the TYO seats may have gone by the time the NBO ones are available.
I say “possibly” because the IT doesn’t seem to like some of what I think of as “boomerang” routes. For example, it doesn’t seem to be possible to book MIA-(stopover in London)-GCM, it doesn’t seem to like this. However it does seem possible to book BDA-(Lon)-GCM. Don’t ask me why as they are pretty similar routes! You need to do a dummy booking to see what’s possible and what isn’t.
I live in hope that Singapore becomes relatively easy again and we can use two Barclays vouchers to get four of us to Singapore first and then do a SIN-SFO (with stopovers in LHR) return with two Amex 241s.
Being based in Edinburgh we’d need to book the connecting flights separately and overnight at Heathrow before the outbound flights but would still be incredible value.
Thanks to all your answer, in the coming days I will try and report back if I manage it!
Does BA let you make the London stopover as many days as you like?
For all of the above, you need to call, but it will depend on the agent, so HUACA a few times. I enquired about HKG-RIO-HKG with London stopover last year, so things might have changed since then. In the end I didn’t book as my partner couldn’t take more holidays, so I don’t know if it is actually bookable. Surcharges came to about £1800 at the time for both (due to long stopover) with a 24h stopover it came about to £300. This was before the introduction of RFS, so things have inevitably changed!
And yes I believe you can have as long of a London stopover as you want, but within ticket validity (a year).
@meta, apologies if I’ve read your post wrongly but you can book these itineraries online with the 241 if the system “likes” the route as per my examples above. I’ve been able to get right through to the payment page when experimenting with the new-style voucher, anyway. As we know, agents differ vastly in what they deem to be permitted so I’d rather make such a booking in one go online as and when I have the flexibility to take all the flights!
I wasn’t able to complete online, it threw an error when I tried to pay. But maybe it’s possible and it just didn’t ‘like’ me on the day.
For all of the above, you need to call, but it will depend on the agent, so HUACA a few times. I enquired about HKG-RIO-HKG with London stopover last year, so things might have changed since then. In the end I didn’t book as my partner couldn’t take more holidays, so I don’t know if it is actually bookable. Surcharges came to about £1800 at the time for both (due to long stopover) with a 24h stopover it came about to £300. This was before the introduction of RFS, so things have inevitably changed!
And yes I believe you can have as long of a London stopover as you want, but within ticket validity (a year).
yes I could plan 6 months London stopover when I tried the dummy booking online
@meta, apologies if I’ve read your post wrongly but you can book these itineraries online with the 241 if the system “likes” the route as per my examples above. I’ve been able to get right through to the payment page when experimenting with the new-style voucher, anyway. As we know, agents differ vastly in what they deem to be permitted so I’d rather make such a booking in one go online as and when I have the flexibility to take all the flights!
The problem is that the system seems really unreliable. Yesterday I could price the full itinerary as above, arriving at the payment page, but when I tried today the system is telling me there isn’t any availability (I checked and every single segment is available). Frustraiting
Yes, that’s the thing it can even threw an error when you click to pay.
It took me a while to come back to this post, but I can confirm that I maaged to book a flight with the companion voucher from Mexico City to Beijing stopping in London for 6 months.
I booked everything online
Next I need to discover if I can mix Iberia on the outbound and Ba on the inbound
It took me a while to come back to this post, but I can confirm that I maaged to book a flight with the companion voucher from Mexico City to Beijing stopping in London for 6 months.
I booked everything online
Next I need to discover if I can mix Iberia on the outbound and Ba on the inbound
Thank you for update. This is brill. Was the total damage MEX-LHR-PEK as you detailed in first post?
Hmmmm I never thought of doing this, or even dreamt it possible. To be frank it’s the sort of thing that makes my tiny brain explode. However, just for fun I just priced up Jo’berg to Rio return and it’s coming up £1000 and 190k avios (for one person). Temping but still have to get flights to and from the starting/returning point which complicates things. Interesting though.
Hmmmm I never thought of doing this, or even dreamt it possible. To be frank it’s the sort of thing that makes my tiny brain explode. However, just for fun I just priced up Jo’berg to Rio return and it’s coming up £1000 and 190k avios (for one person). Temping but still have to get flights to and from the starting/returning point which complicates things. Interesting though.
Your brain is not alone Amy. I’ve been extremely chuffed with all my CW travels so far with both 241’s and BC upgrades. I’m tempted to tell my brain I never read this and just carry on being chuffed.
I’m restricted to EU at the moment anyway, although I do have Japan booked for new year but may not be able to do that.
I have a good amount of time to try to make my brain deal with the possibilities before I try to perform this level of magic.I haven’t actually done one of these yet but I’m leaning towards starting and finishing in major hubs, e.g. MIA and DOH. It’s fairly easy then to connect to other destinations at the start and finish and you effectively get 2 trips out of one voucher.
I’d need to get to and from London airports as well, but this would be worth it for the extra value derived from the 241.I’m most intrigued to know when BA would add on the return by phone if asked, or refund the 50% avios if inbound & outbound were booked separately! Otherwise you are stuck with whatever availability there is at the point you book the whole trip.
Does anyone know whether a GUF2/1 voucher would apply to all flights in an itinerary like this, or is there a maximum of (say) 2 flights that it can be applied to?
Amy,Annie my brain’s overheated as well lol
Maybe someone could explain it to me as a child.
It is something like this… hypothetically speaking, cities and dates for illustrative purposes, no idea if these routes exist-
1. Book Mexico City to Oman. Return on Bapp241. With 6 months stopover in London.
2. Get one way flight to Mexico , as many days or weeks in advance as you wish of the above 241 first leg.
3. End your Mexico hols by taking the 241 to London.
4. Wait 6 months in London then fly to Oman…enjoy Oman holiday.
5. End Oman holiday and fly to London.
6. Stay in London another 6 months. Then continue the last leg of the 241 to Mexico.
7. Enjoy Mexico holiday, again! Then return to London on pre purchased one way Mex to Lon flight
Correct? In addition to the 241 I’ll need two one ways,a Lon to Mex to kickstart the whole thing and a Mex to Lon to get me home?
What am I missing? Why is this better value than just using two 241s, one for Mex and one for Oman, separately?
The extra variant is doing the 241 open jaw. Eg Mexico (London) Oman ….and return Oman (London) Rio.
But you still need a one way Lon to Mexico and another one way, Rio to London.
Brain is now smoking.
I can’t be bothered getting my head fully around your itinerary, @Ash, but this is an example of what I would do:
1. Use Barclays upgrade voucher for LHR-GCM
241 route:
2. GCM – LHR (then LHR to MAN on separate booking)
3 months later 3. LHR – DXB
2/3 weeks after that 4. DXB – LHR
3 months later 5. LHR – GCM
2/3 weeks after that (separate GCM-MCO flight), use Virgin voucher for 6. MCO-MAN
So the actual 241 booking is GCM-LHR-DXB-LHR-GCM, getting 2 long haul trips out of one companion voucher.
2 long haul trips – gxm and Dubai …using
1 X 241
1 x BC voucher
1 x Virgin voucher (or a really 0.5)My question is could the same result be achieved by two 241 vouchers?
The value is if you value one 241 more than the combined Virgin and BC vouchers? Or your portfolio is short on Avios and you have some Virgin miles to use up.
Is that a fair reading?
My itinerary leaves any other 241s to be used on other trips. I have plenty of avios and plenty of Virgin miles, they have different uses for me, mainly for direct flights to MAN which BA doesn’t offer. Using 2 x 241s would require more avios.
My itinerary (using max avios options): 265,000 avios and 34k Virgin miles (using the Virgin voucher as an upgrade for 2).
Using 2 x 241, by my reckoning total avios cost would be 340k (apologies if I’ve got the maths wrong though!)
Amy,Annie my brain’s overheated as well lol
Maybe someone could explain it to me as a child.
It is something like this… hypothetically speaking, cities and dates for illustrative purposes, no idea if these routes exist-
1. Book Mexico City to Oman. Return on Bapp241. With 6 months stopover in London.
2. Get one way flight to Mexico , as many days or weeks in advance as you wish of the above 241 first leg.
3. End your Mexico hols by taking the 241 to London.
4. Wait 6 months in London then fly to Oman…enjoy Oman holiday.
5. End Oman holiday and fly to London.
6. Stay in London another 6 months. Then continue the last leg of the 241 to Mexico.
7. Enjoy Mexico holiday, again! Then return to London on pre purchased one way Mex to Lon flight
Correct? In addition to the 241 I’ll need two one ways,a Lon to Mex to kickstart the whole thing and a Mex to Lon to get me home?
What am I missing? Why is this better value than just using two 241s, one for Mex and one for Oman, separately?
The extra variant is doing the 241 open jaw. Eg Mexico (London) Oman ….and return Oman (London) Rio.
But you still need a one way Lon to Mexico and another one way, Rio to London.
Brain is now smoking.
It effectively allows you to make three return trips for the price of two. Obviously the cost of the ‘second’ trip (the positioning flights to the place you start your 241 redemption and back from your destination) might be disproportionate in comparison to the 241 redemption.
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