How to use return companion ticket

[jintycat]

Hi. I am booked CW to Singapore in October with the outbound of my companion ticket (travelling on from there to other destnations on Oz & NZ) but it was much cheaper to use extra avios to come back from Sydney (final destination) on qatar to doha business classs as it only cost me £121 one way and then £61 economy to Edinburgh. I could have used the return on CW from Doha with BA but the timings did not work and had to go via london as opposed to direct from doha.. Therefore I now have the return portion of my companion ticket and trying to decide what to do with it and wondered if anyone had any ideas as??

[NorthernLass]

As long as you stick to the Ts and Cs (e.g. date of travel, open jaw rules, you’ve theoretically got quite a lot of flexibility with it. The issue with your choice of destination might be that BA isn’t flying east nearly as much as it used to so you’d need to find a departure point which fits the open jaw rules which restricts you to a certain geographic area. Remember that to use the return portion you’ll need to either make the booking by phone, or book the flights online then claim 50% of the avios back. If it’s the new-style voucher, someone posted recently that you have to use the same avios/cash combination on both legs, which you may need to bear in mind.

[NorthernLass]

Having said all that, a really great use of it would be to combine it with a trip booked with the Barclaycard upgrade voucher if you have one, e.g. use the upgrade to get 2 of you to MLE, then use the return portion of the companion voucher to get home.

Also, just checking you have used the companion voucher for 2 people, not the 50% avios discount option?!

[jintycat]

thanks, yes I used the voucher for 2 of us. I also have 2 barclaycard vouchers…so i think what you are saying is maybe for example in March 2024 I could fly with my barclaycard updagrade voucher to the far east and then use my ba companion return portion to come back to Uk (so long as the return flight for 2024 was booked before I flew out in October…if so I like that idea…Do I have up to a year to use the return portion?

[NorthernLass]

As I understand it, your inbound leg has to be taken (not just booked) within 12 months of the outbound.
Yes, use the upgrade voucher for the outbound (which need to depart from the UK), then use the return portion of the 241 for the inbound. You would have separate PNRs but that’s usually not an issue. This would work with any destination which complies with the open jaw rules.

[JDB]

@jintycat just one additional point – you have already said you know that you must book the return well before you fly the outbound but if it applies, the validity of the voucher could come into play.

The return can be after the expiry of the voucher with the proviso (in the terms) that the flights are booked at the same time, but I don’t know what happens if you decide to make a change after flying the outbound to another flight outside the voucher validity; it’s the sort of thing that could be picked up when re-ticketing if not when you make the change. Just in case it’s relevant as you are booking far away.