Maximum ticket validity with Avios

[monsieurcurt]

Hi all,

I think that cash flights with BA have a maximum time of 12 months between first and last flight but does the is apply to Avios redemptions?

I’ve done an outbound to SYD using a companion voucher Jan this year and want to change the return to next Feb/Mar – likely to pose an issue?

Thanks!

[JDB]

All the same fare construction and ticket validity rules for cash tickets also apply to Avios tickets. This means that even if you are using a 241 that still has some validity after the 12 months, the ticket itself is still only valid for 12 months and the second half of the voucher won’t be usable.

[monsieurcurt]

Thanks JDB

[Lady London]

Just to clarify – since I fell foul of this some time ago – if I buy a ticket on avios or cash for, say, a flight departing in 11 months’ time, my return won’t be able to be more than 12 months away from today my booking date. (in fact istr it might even be max 364 days not 365 from today).

This is whether you’re booking it upfront, or needing to make a change later, such as if you want to change the return to a later date. You can still choose flight dates on your ticket only within 12 months of the date you made the booking. Not within 12 months of the outbound.

There are 2 ways round this : Some types of flight reservations allow a booking to be held on airline system but can be left till much closer to the date of the outgoing flight to be ticketed eg ticket can be issued anytime up to 7 days before the flight. Then you get up to 12 months, but maybe still less, time from the date the agent issues your ticket, to do the other flights on the ticket eg the return. This depends on the fare type, and you’d need to do it using a good travel agent (not an OTA).

The other situation in which the validity of a ticket can be exceeded is irrops such as flight cancellations by the airline, or if you miss a ticketed connection on same ticket due to an earlier delay, say. In that case IATA does allow the maximun validity of tbe ticket to be exceeded when tbe airline rebooks you. But as we saw during covid, many airline agents may not have been trained for this and some airline systems (eg BA, for quite a while) may not be able to cope.

[louie]

@LadyLondon – that might be how it is supposed to work but it’s not how it does work with Avios tickets in practice. Otherwise all those people who book at T-355 (or whatever it is) would only be able to have holidays for ten days. I’ve had one instance where I booked at T-355 and then flew the return 11 months later, so almost two years since the original ticket was booked.

[NorthernLass]

Same here – I used the outbound of a soon-to-expire Covid-refunded 241 to fly to GIB in April last year and we’re flying the inbound from AGP next week. If you make 2 separate bookings, the only date which matters is the 241 validity.

[JDB]

@Lady London – there are actually two stages of ticket validity. To avoid paraphrasing, BA’s Conditions of Carriage (which mirror those of most IATA airlines) state:-

“3b1) Unless it says differently on the ticket, in these conditions of carriage, or in any tariffs which apply, a ticket is valid for travel for:

one year from the date it is issued or
one year from the date you first travelled using the ticket, as long as your first flight took place within a year of the ticket being issued.”

BA will extend tickets in various exceptional circumstances upon production of evidence.

[Lady London]

@louie good news but I was definitely told this when I had been told at purchase I would be able to change my avios ticket to a later return date if needed. But when i came to change it BA refused saying the latest return date had to be within 12 months of the ticketing date, not the outgoing, which I had not heard of before but they refused.

Any advice I give on here, most of the time it’s because at some point I’ve made the same mistake myself 🙂