How can I keep my 241 voucher alive?

[Russell]

Does anyone know if I’d be able to cancel the below flight for a refund, and keep our 241 voucher alive?
– We have return club world flights LHR-DXB in January, booked using avios and a 241 voucher. Taxes paid were approx £1,000
– We are looking to cancel our booking for a cash refund of the taxes, plus a return of the avios and the 241 voucher
– Our 241 voucher previously expired in Oct2021, but we kept it alive by attaching it to a Future travel voucher valid until 2023
– Its quite important for us to get the cash element back, as it’s needed for current expenditure

Is it possible to cancel the booking for a Future travel voucher, for a value of say £10 + the 241 voucher valid til 2023, and get a cash refund and return of avios?

Speaking to BA on the phone, they said its no to the above option, but i wondered if I tried calling again and got a different rep, would I get a different answer?

[Rhys]

Doubt it. Your only options are:
– the usual Avios refund (minus £35 cancellation fee) which would refund your cash and Avios but means your 2-4-1 would expire
– get a future travel voucher that would wrap up the cash, avios and 2-4-1 for future use.

It’s unlikely you can mix and match, to be honest.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[andy]

As far as I know your options are either:
– Cancel free of charge for FTV which will include all Avios + 241 + cash
– Cancel the Avios booking for 35£ (per person I think) and get your cash and Avios back
If going for the latter, presumably the 241 would be lost as it has expired if it is not part of a FTV

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Russell]

Thanks both – kind of confirmed what i expected, but did wonder if anyone had tried and got lucky with the same situation.

Also, great to use the new forum for the first time, so thumbs up from me!

[tiriavpo]

No you cannot do that. A FTV is just everything you have paid held in credit by BA for a future trip.

What you might be able to do, is FTV your current booking and use the FTV to rebook something cheap like a domestic flight or Paris etc, which would be a lot less in avios and cash. You would need to check first that you would get the balance back as cash and not have it held by BA in a further FTV.

You could also ask whether the 241 voucher has been extended – all vouchers expiring before Dec 21 were supposed to be extended by 6 months so check whether that has been applied, or would be applied if you elected to have it returned. If so, you could cancel completely and get everything back (minus £35pp cancellation fees) and then book a new cheap trip with the 241, and low taxes, then immediately put it into an FTV to keep it alive until Sep 23.

[masaccio]

Don’t you get the cash and Avios difference back if booking a lower value fare with a FTV? So just book a flight to Europe and cancel that again at a later date to get a second FTV.

[andy]

masaccio wrote:

Don’t you get the cash and Avios difference back if booking a lower value fare with a FTV? So just book a flight to Europe and cancel that again at a later date to get a second FTV.

I think there is a threshold, just like cash ticket, at which point they refund. I doubt you’d get Avios+cash back from a long haul booking for a short haul RFS. But maybe work calling and asking OP

[rashomon]

Hi all – my 241 expires Jul 22 – ideally I’d like to use the 241 but the flights I want to BKK are not scheduled as I write this … so I’m playing a waiting game for now and checking/hoping they will announce flights for summer 2022 in the next few weeks.

BUT as I don’t want to miss out on the 241 – I will at some point have to bite the bullet and buy a cheap(ish) flight to extend it via FTV.

Q: Does anyone know how long BA will offer the FTV option?

[tiriavpo]

At the moment, the book with confidence policy applies to journeys planned to be completed by 31 August 22.

Details in BA help pages: https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/incident/coronavirus/flexible-booking

[rashomon]

Thanks – a follow up on this.

If I use my 241 for a cheap(ish) European flight to extend and then later decide to transfer that over to a long haul flight to BKK then is the process to do this still via the call centre? Or has it moved to an online process now?

I am worried that if I have to ring BA and be put through a lengthy over the phone process then I may miss out on the avios seats I wanted when they get released.

Any experience / thoughts on this?

[tiriavpo]

Yes, unfortunately, reward bookings (with avios) are turned into ‘offline’ FTVs, they can be FTV’d online but you have to call to re-book. Or you can call and FTV it and rebook all in the same call – if you can get through.

Simple cash bookings that you choose to ‘FTV’ are actually turned into e-vouchers which are great as you can use them online.

[HertsCanuck]

I was going to post a new question thread on this after reading Rob’s excellent article from August, but I see there is lots of activity on this exact topic.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/08/06/how-to-extend-british-airways-amex-2-4-1-companion-voucher/

I have LHR-ORD-LHR booked for 2 using a companion voucher departing 26-12-2021, returning 08-01-2022. The companion voucher expires (I *think*!) 20-01-2022. So it was good timing when I booked it. However, there are some health issues here in the UK with a family member and we need to postpone the trip. So to enable me to travel in, say Feb 2022, and not lose the companion voucher, I just need to cancel the trip but request a FTV instead of a cash/AVIOS refund? And then if I want, when I am ready to book, I can use the FTV *AND* I could also change the flight to be LHR-YYZ-LHR instead of LHR-ORD-LHR? Assuming reward availability of course.
Do I still need to call to use the FTV?
Thanks for your help.

[jokerjokerj]

Just to add a data point on this. We had an avios booking to USA with a 2-4-1 voucher that we turned into a FTV. A couple of weeks ago I used the FTV to book flights to Spain instead – and got a refund of the excess avios and £ rather than a new FTV with the remainder.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[krisz]

What I can share is that I have had an FTV which had 241, GUF, avios and cash attached. After I cancelled I only received the FTV email which was expected. However after a few weeks later I received an email for an e-voucher with the amount of the cash element of the FTV. I was never brave enough to use that e-ticket as I was worried I might loose the FTV. I now rebooked the FTV with that cash for a different flight so no idea what would have happened if I spent the money on different flights.
If you only want to keep the 241 from the FTV you might try to book a “ghost” flight to let say Paris where you would use the 241 and some avios and some cash. They should refund you the excess avios and cash. After that you might want to apply for a new FTV for the Paris flight… This could theoretically works to save the FTV, get back some avios but not sure about the cash. Would it be just an e-voucher or full refund?

[Russell]

Firstly, thanks to everyone for their input and help above, and i’m pleased to offer an update with what i was able to achieve (all on the phone with BA):

– I Cancelled my LHR-DXB flights in return for a future travel voucher, including a preserved 241 voucher
– I used that future travel voucher with 241 attached to book a low cost INV-LHR booking in June’22, costing 9500, avios + £70
– The difference between the 2 bookings, 90500 avious, and £1001.71 in cash is being refunded back to me as avios and cash
– I was advised to book a flight before the book with confidence rules end/change in July
– I was warned i may not be able to change the destinations of my Inverness flights, and could lose my 241 if BA rules change
– As far as i’m aware I have until shortly before my Inverness flights in June to decide what “real” flight i want to take, and will be able to cancel those inverness flights for another new FTV valid until 2023?

All in all, I think this is a bit a result, as i’ve got the significant cash refund i was after, as well preserved my 241 (hopefully!). Even if I can’t change my flights, or we decide not to go anywere, 9500 avios, £70 and a 241 is a much smaller risk to take.

[masaccio]

Glad it worked out. Calling BA to book on a voucher can mean you miss the very best redemptions but I’ve not suffered too badly. I’ve rebooked FTVs for the Caribbean pretty easily even in school holidays as there is a lot of choice

[rashomon]

Hi Masaccio – Can I ask where abouts did you book for and for what class? I’m looking to use 241 to get my family of 4 (with 2 school kids) somewhere in summer 2022 – ideally in Club World

[masaccio]

We rebooked for Antigua last summer. For St Lucia next May we only got WTP as CW was fully booked by the time I got through to BAEC. August hols have the best availability as you have the whole month. In the past I’ve also managed to do open jaw and book an inter-Caribbean flight to ge5 between two islands, spending a week in each.

[ChrisC]

HertsCanuck wrote:

I have LHR-ORD-LHR booked for 2 using a companion voucher departing 26-12-2021, returning 08-01-2022. The companion voucher expires (I *think*!) 20-01-2022. So it was good timing when I booked it. However, there are some health issues here in the UK with a family member and we need to postpone the trip. So to enable me to travel in, say Feb 2022, and not lose the companion voucher, I just need to cancel the trip but request a FTV instead of a cash/AVIOS refund? And then if I want, when I am ready to book, I can use the FTV *AND* I could also change the flight to be LHR-YYZ-LHR instead of LHR-ORD-LHR? Assuming reward availability of course.
Do I still need to call to use the FTV?
Thanks for your help.

When you get an FTV it is basically a credit note that wraps up whatever you have paid for the original booking so cash, avios, 2-4-1s, green shield stamps, first born child. It does not wrap up your existing destination or cabin class.

So you can use that FTV for whatever route you want assuming as you say there is availability.

[DavetheRave]

Hey all,
I have booked last month a soon to be expiring 241 into a RFS for travel over New Year so that I had the option if things went south I could still cancel and have a FTV with the extended validity to book something in 2022. However this morning I see the option to cancel online (and get a FTV) has been greyed out and the o ly option is to call or to rebook.
Has anyone else seen this?
Has BA pulled the work around to extend the 241?
TIA

[DavetheRave]

Replying to myself.
Discovered that the main BWC pages lets you request a FTV without going via MMB.