Help – Barclays upgrade voucher open jaw / return booking

[PaulAllen]

Hello all,

Hoping someone might kindly be able to help me. I have a slightly unique situation where I need absolute flexibility on the return leg of my travel whilst making use of the Barclays cabin upgrade voucher.

I’m trying to understand the following:

1) Whether it’s possible to book an outbound leg from the UK with the upgrade voucher, not book the return, fly the outbound, and then add the return after the outbound has been flown (i.e. giving the ability to use the remainder of the voucher on a separate inbound flight to the UK)

2) Whether it’s possible to book the outbound leg and return leg on two separate PNR’s with the voucher (i.e. providing the complete ability to extend the return leg indefinitely and independently of the outbound), similarly to how you can book with the Amex 241 voucher

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[NorthernLass]

Is it just for you? If you were using the voucher for 2 of you on the outbound leg, this would be easy peasy, but it’s going to take more creativity if it’s just you and you want to use the voucher both ways.

Have you looked at the Barclays voucher threads where people have posted about adding the inbound later? I can’t remember whether this results in 1 or 2 PNRs.

[YC]

They wouldn’t let me add an inbound after booking the outbound and use a second voucher to upgrade both seats. Not sure if that is by the rules or I just needed to HUACA

[PaulAllen]

Sorry I should have clarified – yes it is just for myself! I have looked at the threads and seen it’s possible (depending on the agent) to book an open jaw, but no clarification on whether it’s one PNR or two. Assume it’s two, but keen to see if anyone has actual experience of it first!

[NorthernLass]

You won’t be able to book the inbound after you’ve flown the outbound, and BA will also probably refuse to add a return leg if it was available to book at the time you booked the outbound.

You might get away with booking the outbound with the voucher, then booking the inbound separately and then calling BA and asking them to apply the second half of the voucher to upgrade you to the next cabin. They may or may not agree to this, though, so call within the 24 hour free cancellation period.

[JDB]

@PaulAllen – I may be wrong, but reading your two posts, I think there may be confusion between the terms ‘open jaw’ and an ‘open’ ticket and it appears to be the latter that you want, but you can’t have an open ticket with an upgrade voucher or 241. A single ‘open jaw’ – eg LHR-HKG//SIN-LHR is allowed with either voucher.

Your option 1) isn’t possible. Once you have flown the outbound, and in the absence of any other booking linked to the upgrade voucher it is ‘used’. The same would apply to a 241. BA doesn’t deal in ½ vouchers as Virgin does. In order to achieve what you want, you would need to book the return flight before flying the outbound and you can then change the return flight, subject of course to the availability of seats and the ticket validity. If you leave it too late to book the return, you run the risk of hitting ticket validity issues with most BA agents.

Your option 2) also isn’t possible because the second PNR requires you to make a booking starting outside the UK which isn’t allowed with the upgrade voucher. The agent needs to be able to add the voucher to a booking originating in the UK.