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I’m possibly being too keen here but I have a companion voucher which I’m looking to book. Family of 4 and it’s my 1st time using the voucher.
The price for booking the 4 of us for July 2026 seems very expensive in comparison to other years I’ve been. Am I simply being too keen and booking too early when flights haven’t long been released?
Would it be worthwhile me booking 1 adult and 1 kid only using the voucher to secure the redemption seats and then monitoring prices for the other adult and kid?
I can see it says selling classes Q and O, which apparently is economy lowest. Do the prices change within these classes or is that as cheap as it’ll go?
Really not sure of best tactics here.
Are you looking at booking 2 reward seats and 2 for cash? It depends where and when you’re going to a certain extent. Cash prices can be very high on first release and may come down at some point, but there are no guarantees.
Do you not have enough avios to book 4 reward seats (obviously you only need enough for 3 tickets if you’re using a companion voucher?) This would probably be the most cost effective way of booking for travel in school holidays, which it sounds like you’re aiming for. You have more flexibility with a reward booking as well.
Otherwise look at pricing up a BA Holiday for 2 of you as this can be better value than just paying for cash flights.
Are you looking at booking 2 reward seats and 2 for cash? It depends where and when you’re going to a certain extent. Cash prices can be very high on first release and may come down at some point, but there are no guarantees.
Do you not have enough avios to book 4 reward seats (obviously you only need enough for 3 tickets if you’re using a companion voucher?) This would probably be the most cost effective way of booking for travel in school holidays, which it sounds like you’re aiming for. You have more flexibility with a reward booking as well.
Otherwise look at pricing up a BA Holiday for 2 of you as this can be better value than just paying for cash flights.
Looking at travelling to MCO start of July 2026.
Don’t have enough Avios. When booking 2 people with the companion voucher it’s £300 plus all my avios but when adding on another 2 the price jumps up to around £2300 for 4 people thats using my 241, avios and cash. My return flight isn’t available yet, will be tomorrow but running scenarios for traveling different days in same month it’s coming out at that price. Still a lot cheaper than 4 at the normal fare under the current prices.I have just realised that the world cup is on between June and July next year so I’m now wondering if the high prices are possibly down to this.
Hence why I was thinking perhaps I should secure the 241 flights first then keep my eye on prices dropping?
How many Avios can you 3X boost @ 0.92p?
This is the pricing for a dummy booking 4 persons 1 voucher
Journey summary
Outbound10:40
1 Jul
LGW
15:05
1 Jul
MCO
Inbound
17:05
8 Jul
MCO
06:35
9 Jul
LGW
Total Price
(Including all taxes, fees, and carrier charges)180000 Avios + £ 556.92
More pricing options
More pricing options
You can select when paying
138000 Avios + £ 1,156.92
97500 Avios + £ 1,756.92
69000 Avios + £ 1,956.92
51000 Avios + £ 2,236.92
34200 Avios + £ 2,436.92So you are paying 1.5p + per Avios for the shortfall
However NORSE are 489 RTN + extras pp so you could maybe save the voucher for a Euro break in CE if you are too far short
Avios pricing is fixed to peak and off-peak pricing, so any scheduled events won’t change that (though they may make seats more in demand so you probably need to decide what you’re going to do sooner rather than later).
BA gives you a series of avios plus cash options to choose from. If you haven’t got enough avios for the highest avios option, it will show you what you can “afford”, with the cash amount for that option. This is why it looks high, and you’ll need to calculate whether it’s better value than just booking cash tickets for 2 of you.
As @Erico says, you may be better off booking with another airline for this trip and saving your avios until you have enough for 4 of you.
What cabin are you looking at? Economy doesn’t get great returns with the voucher. For cash flights I wouldn’t book now as tend to be very pricey.
Would need to be economy due to only having 1 voucher and there being 4 of us.
Would it be best to book 2 seats with voucher just now and then wait to buy another 2 seats cash? All prices in june/July look very high at the moment.
If it’s the voucher from the free card it may only be valid in economy. For somewhere like MCO in the school holidays you’d still get pretty good value from a Y redemption.
If you book 2 seats, you could always cancel these for £35 pp if your plans change. As I said earlier, wait a few weeks then look at BAH pricing for the other 2, as you may get a decent deal on flight plus car, or even flight plus one or two hotel nights.
I have the premium BA card and only around 85000 household avios.
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