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I am trying to claim a reward flight from London to Sydney with avios and a BA premium companion voucher for some time in December 2023 but so far have struggled. The flights are released at midnight GMT but seem impossible to get on the website, one night I did manage to get all the way through to credit card processing but the money never left my account and no confirmation email came through. I have started trying to call the US call centre but cant get through before midnight, if I do make it through the phone rep wont wait circa ten mins on the call with me until the flights are released.
Does anyone have any tips for getting these flights? Somebody out there must be getting them, but I don’t understand how. Is it sheer luck?
I apricate these are probably the hardest reward flights to get but I feel as if I am missing something.Can anybody recommend an alternate route I could take?
Thank you!
It sounds as though you are being pipped to the post by someone else grabbing the seats first. If you make a successful booking you get a reference number when your payment goes through, before the confirmation email arrives.
Have a look at some of the threads on here about calling BA just before midnight to start the booking process – it’s likely that this is what other people are doing so the seats are being held by a phone agent as soon as they are loaded onto the system.It sounds as though you are being pipped to the post by someone else grabbing the seats first. If you make a successful booking you get a reference number when your payment goes through, before the confirmation email arrives.
Have a look at some of the threads on here about calling BA just before midnight to start the booking process – it’s likely that this is what other people are doing so the seats are being held by a phone agent as soon as they are loaded onto the system.Thanks for coming back to me, I’ve been trying to call BA but so far no luck. I wonder if I should call the main call centre number or the club number?
The one time I did get through the call centre operator wasn’t open to waiting on the line with me for 15 mins but I read on forums that call operators do wait… seems to be luck of the draw. I will continue trying….
15 minutes is a bit OTT so you probably should be aiming for 5-10 mins so you’ve got time to give them the dates you want before they’re released but no need for small talk.
Call the number for your tier of BAEC, if you’re lucky you’ll get a U.K. based agent (bizarrely BA have U.K. agents answering overseas calls during the night despite the U.K. numbers being closed). At certain times of year the US based agents clock off at midnight GMT so are unsurprisingly unwilling to embark on a lengthy booking after their finish time.
If you’re very fast you could snag outbound online but need all the passengers saved in your account & a valid Amex stored so you can process transaction in under 1 minute.
15 minutes is a bit OTT so you probably should be aiming for 5-10 mins so you’ve got time to give them the dates you want before they’re released but no need for small talk.
Call the number for your tier of BAEC, if you’re lucky you’ll get a U.K. based agent (bizarrely BA have U.K. agents answering overseas calls during the night despite the U.K. numbers being closed). At certain times of year the US based agents clock off at midnight GMT so are unsurprisingly unwilling to embark on a lengthy booking after their finish time.
If you’re very fast you could snag outbound online but need all the passengers saved in your account & a valid Amex stored so you can process transaction in under 1 minute.
I thought it was OTT as well but literally cant get through if you call 5-10 mins before midnight GMT, I was surprised but I guess there must be thousands of people trying the same thing.
Documenting my progress so far:
Called tonight at 23:40 GMT, got through within 3 minutes but it seemed as if the call handler didn’t want to wait 15mins which is fair enough.
Called again at 23:49PM GMT but was in the queue for for 24 minutes and thus missed the deadline. Also tried online, searched for the flights by the second, was through to the search results by 00:00:30 (30 seconds past midnight as per https://time.is) but the flights were gone, presumably in the basket for the call centre operator.Tomorrow will try 23:45/23:47 GMT with hopes to perhaps stall the phone operator? Not sure.
Good luck – I’m watching flights to the Caribbean for next Christmas and they are also snapped up fast. I need to book ours in 4 days time so will be calling up and trying to hold an operator on the call to grab them.
Good luck and please do update on your progress. I am planning to try for mid Jan departing flights on the same route. I’d love to know the new RFS miles amount if you know/find out.
I am also keen for advice on the best way to book for three (two adults one child) in CW using companion (I have one old type and one new type) and upgrade vouchers. I have searched the forums here but not found anything so apologies if it’s here somewhere.
Good luck with your tickets.When my boss is keen to capture these elusive tickets, he usually works from the office until midnight and buys them from there.
Apparently being on the JISC network with a 200Gbits connectivity with direct peerings to AWS and the like really gives the edge when time is of the essence.
Apparently being on the JISC network with a 200Gbits connectivity with direct peerings to AWS and the like really gives the edge when time is of the essence.
Do you speak English 😀?
When my boss is keen to capture these elusive tickets, he usually works from the office until midnight and buys them from there.
Apparently being on the JISC network with a 200Gbits connectivity with direct peerings to AWS and the like really gives the edge when time is of the essence.
I have a 500Mbps fibre to the premise connection with 1ms ping to the BA.com website and my PC is connected via Ethernet directly to the router, can’t get much faster for a consumer really. What happens is the phone agents are able to add the flight to the basket and remove it from sale on the website. It seems people trying to use the website have literally no chance.
Good luck and please do update on your progress. I am planning to try for mid Jan departing flights on the same route. I’d love to know the new RFS miles amount if you know/find out.
I am also keen for advice on the best way to book for three (two adults one child) in CW using companion (I have one old type and one new type) and upgrade vouchers. I have searched the forums here but not found anything so apologies if it’s here somewhere.
Good luck with your tickets.Called tonight at 23:46 GMT, hold for 14 minutes means I missed the flights, no luck. Tomorrow will be calling at 23:40 GMT and stalling with the phone agent because it’s the only option. Have stayed up till midnight 5 nights in a row and starting to feel it!
Tried the website but the search took a long time to complete and errored out which was weird. Got the search going by 00:01 GMT but they were already gone.
We move forward onto the next.
I was able to get these flights. Get the ba app and before the flight goes on sale, follow a purchase through and make sure you save all relevant details (your details, your partners details, credit card details). Once you have all that saved, you should be able at midnight to get to the payment page in like 15 seconds. Keep going back and forth 5 minutes before midnight on the app reward flight finder looking for the new date. What I did was search for the previous date but you can select the latter date on the landing page when it’s available. Be well versed on the app so you are quick. You will be faster than a call centre.
The app always directs me to BA.com if I try to book a reward flight.
I’ve given up on trying to get that route, but have booked on Qatar to Melbourne in Dec ‘23 for two for 180,000. Not too dissimilar to the amount needed to Sydney for the companion voucher, and should get QSuite too.
Now just hoping they release two more or a very good sale so I can get the rest of the family along too!
I’ve given up on trying to get that route, but have booked on Qatar to Melbourne in Dec ‘23 for two for 180,000. Not too dissimilar to the amount needed to Sydney for the companion voucher, and should get QSuite too.
Now just hoping they release two more or a very good sale so I can get the rest of the family along too!
Did you do that online or via the phone? I need to get my head round Qatar bookings using Avios!
Did you do that online or via the phone? I need to get my head round Qatar bookings using Avios!
Online via the Qatar website. Could also do it via BA, but I want to play around with the booking later and figure it was better to go direct. Found the functionality better too.
I was able to get these flights. Get the ba app and before the flight goes on sale, follow a purchase through and make sure you save all relevant details (your details, your partners details, credit card details). Once you have all that saved, you should be able at midnight to get to the payment page in like 15 seconds. Keep going back and forth 5 minutes before midnight on the app reward flight finder looking for the new date. What I did was search for the previous date but you can select the latter date on the landing page when it’s available. Be well versed on the app so you are quick. You will be faster than a call centre.
This is an interesting idea which I have not heard mentioned elsewhere. I just tried the app but it just opens a browser and loads BA.com, did your device not do that?
I have all my details saved already and have tried searching for the previous date on BA.com but the flights never loaded, interesting that you could get through.I’ve given up on trying to get that route, but have booked on Qatar to Melbourne in Dec ‘23 for two for 180,000. Not too dissimilar to the amount needed to Sydney for the companion voucher, and should get QSuite too.
Now just hoping they release two more or a very good sale so I can get the rest of the family along too!
Congrats! This unfortunately wont work for me because I wish to redeem a companion voucher but thanks for adding your experience all the same.
Good luck and please do update on your progress. I am planning to try for mid Jan departing flights on the same route. I’d love to know the new RFS miles amount if you know/find out.
I am also keen for advice on the best way to book for three (two adults one child) in CW using companion (I have one old type and one new type) and upgrade vouchers. I have searched the forums here but not found anything so apologies if it’s here somewhere.
Good luck with your tickets.Success! Managed to miraculously nab the flights via BA.com tonight.
Hit search at dead on midnight and flew through the menus. Its an absolute must to have your passenger and payment card information pre-saved to BA.com your account. It also helps to add BA.com to your credit cards trusted sites, (In AMEX this is called SafeKey but each credit card provider has their own name for it) so you don’t need to complete any extended validation like receiving a code via SMS. I think we got through on the website by complete luck, it feels impossible to bag them this way but obviously not.
Other things that I think helped after my week of trying: Have your laptop connected directly to your router via ethernet cable, WiFi off. Use Google Chrome with no browser extensions that can effect webpages, I had an adblocker switched on one night which made the page load badly. I also used https://time.is to monitor the exact time. All of this might sound like superstition but they certainly helped me.Call centre hasn’t worked for me on any of the occasions I tried it, I’ve been looking since Sunday so were into night 6 of staying up till midnight. Tonight I called at 23:46 GMT but was stuck in the queue until 23:59. From reading around online it sounds like the call centre is the best way, but just not for me in this round of searching.
Don’t give up. We were close to going for Economy if they came up, so glad we held out and kept trying.
I don’t know about booking the return leg as we only plan to go one way but I hear you need to call again at a later date to sort those….That’s brilliant, so glad your persistence paid off!
Good luck and please do update on your progress. I am planning to try for mid Jan departing flights on the same route. I’d love to know the new RFS miles amount if you know/find out.
I am also keen for advice on the best way to book for three (two adults one child) in CW using companion (I have one old type and one new type) and upgrade vouchers. I have searched the forums here but not found anything so apologies if it’s here somewhere.
Good luck with your tickets.This is going to be a very tall order as you’ll need to make 2 separate bookings using the 241 and the upgrade voucher, not knowing if one or both bookings will be successful. I don’t know if a sympathetic phone agent would be able to hold 3 seats for you, but it’s very worth a try. As for the pricing, just start making a booking on BA.com for a random date with availability and stop before you actually give your payment details! You will be shown all the options. The new-style 241 should show any “extra availability”, you might need to try a few different dates at these don’t show on sites like SeatSpy.
Congratulations stopblock22. Brilliant that it worked online too.
Good luck and please do update on your progress. I am planning to try for mid Jan departing flights on the same route. I’d love to know the new RFS miles amount if you know/find out.
I am also keen for advice on the best way to book for three (two adults one child) in CW using companion (I have one old type and one new type) and upgrade vouchers. I have searched the forums here but not found anything so apologies if it’s here somewhere.
Good luck with your tickets.This is going to be a very tall order as you’ll need to make 2 separate bookings using the 241 and the upgrade voucher, not knowing if one or both bookings will be successful. I don’t know if a sympathetic phone agent would be able to hold 3 seats for you, but it’s very worth a try. As for the pricing, just start making a booking on BA.com for a random date with availability and stop before you actually give your payment details! You will be shown all the options. The new-style 241 should show any “extra availability”, you might need to try a few different dates at these don’t show on sites like SeatSpy.
Thank you Anna for your advice. I was hoping BA’s call centre could hold three seats and then deal with allocation of vouchers etc, but the need for separate bookings might scupper that plan.
To see Avios costs I have tried several searches, but I have never found any business class availability to enable me to see the options. Ill keep trying!Good luck and please do update on your progress. I am planning to try for mid Jan departing flights on the same route. I’d love to know the new RFS miles amount if you know/find out.
I am also keen for advice on the best way to book for three (two adults one child) in CW using companion (I have one old type and one new type) and upgrade vouchers. I have searched the forums here but not found anything so apologies if it’s here somewhere.
Good luck with your tickets.Success! Managed to miraculously nab the flights via BA.com tonight.
Hit search at dead on midnight and flew through the menus. Its an absolute must to have your passenger and payment card information pre-saved to BA.com your account. It also helps to add BA.com to your credit cards trusted sites, (In AMEX this is called SafeKey but each credit card provider has their own name for it) so you don’t need to complete any extended validation like receiving a code via SMS. I think we got through on the website by complete luck, it feels impossible to bag them this way but obviously not.
Other things that I think helped after my week of trying: Have your laptop connected directly to your router via ethernet cable, WiFi off. Use Google Chrome with no browser extensions that can effect webpages, I had an adblocker switched on one night which made the page load badly. I also used https://time.is to monitor the exact time. All of this might sound like superstition but they certainly helped me.Call centre hasn’t worked for me on any of the occasions I tried it, I’ve been looking since Sunday so were into night 6 of staying up till midnight. Tonight I called at 23:46 GMT but was stuck in the queue until 23:59. From reading around online it sounds like the call centre is the best way, but just not for me in this round of searching.
Don’t give up. We were close to going for Economy if they came up, so glad we held out and kept trying.
I don’t know about booking the return leg as we only plan to go one way but I hear you need to call again at a later date to sort those….Well done, I have had more luck as you have online than through the call centre since covid, got Singapore recently. For the return if you have sufficient Avios to book without the companion voucher you can book singles back online. Then ring in the following day and have the call centre apply the voucher and refund the 50% Avios. Otherwise, yes, you’ll have to ring in unfortunately
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