Heathrow to Cape Town predicament

[tommorgan754]

I guess my overarching question is, does it make sense for me to cancel flights, get a refund, re book Business (assuming its the new suites) with a companion voucher + avios and cash?

Morning All

I have a bit of a predicament with flights to Cape Town from Heathrow in October for my Honeymoon.

I initially booked these flights last year (BA0059). Booked economy and managed to upgrade to premium economy when an offer came up a few months back. To date I have spent 2600 all in.

In hindsight, I jumped into the booking a bit. Due to flight time and occasion, I am now looking to travel Business class if possible. To upgrade, BA are currently quoting me another 7k, this was circa 3k a few weeks back.. (First question, why on earth has this changed?). I am only looking to fly one way, as I am flying on to Dubai with Emirates after. I have raised a request to see what a cancellation would cost me, however what is the policy generally?

Second question, I was 99% sure that this flight had the old horrid business configuration but It looks as if this may have been upgraded to the new 777 Suites. Is there any way I can check this for definite? (Are there any better London – Cape Town routes out there)?

I have a companion voucher and circa 75k Avios. However, when I look to apply this to a new booking on same flight, it doesn’t let me. Is that a bug more than anything? should I be able to do this over phone on a new booking? In reality I dont think I will get a chance to utilise this companion voucher next year.

Hope this makes sense…

[George K]

I can’t help you with the economics of upgrading to business (besides to say that South Africa is one of the most premium-heavy in-demand route so deals are quite hard to find even at the best of times) but I can tell you a bit about the aircraft on that route.

While it’s been over a year that refurbished 777 have been on the route to Cape Town, there is never a guarantee that you will get Club Suite. That applies to virtually any route, in any network (and indeed with any airline). You can check what sort of aircraft have flown this route historically via FlightAware and see which ones are refurbished and which ones are not, to get just a sense of averages.

Having done this route I can tell you that I was booked on Club Suites for both legs of the trip, however I only got a notification that my inbound changed from Club Suites to the old config two days before the return flight. It all ended well in my case as I ended up getting FLUBed (where you fly in First but with Business service), but had I stayed in Business, I would have been flying in the old seats.

So to sum up: You never know what you’ll get, till you’re in the plane…

[SamG]

Taking a “special offer” likely made your ticket not refundable (if it ever was in the first place) so likely to get very little back

You may get a better price by asking to change the flight to business outbound and add on an economy leg back as one way business class tickets are very expensive . Then just don’t take the return flight. You could check this yourself by pricing it up as a new booking. for most BA tickets you can change them to something else by paying the change fee + fare difference.

The price probably went up as the flight has got busier

To use the voucher you need Avios availability which can be tough on Cape Town, you can check this yourself by logging in

[NorthernLass]

There’s no standard J award availability in October, so upgrading with avios isn’t currently an option. A new-style voucher might open up more but as pointed out, it’s unlikely that you’d get a full refund on your current booking. Incidentally, what exactly is the itinerary? You talk in terms of the CPT flight being one-way, but this would be a very expensive way of travelling. Do you have the inbound on the same booking at a later date?

Bear in mind as well that 75k avios doesn’t go far – you’d need to add quite a bit of cash to that to get 2 of you to CPT which might eat in to any saving you made by booking award seats.

[tommorgan754]

Thanks all, some food for thought. Appreciate the patience.

It’s one way because we are flying to Dubai with Emirates for a small break and then onwards to London with emirates.

As I said, I jumped quite quickly into these flights without really looking at things.

Does anyone have experience with KLM or Air France business to CPT? (Via Amsterdam / Paris).

Many thanks

Tom