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Hi all I’m looking to attempted to book the dreaded multi partner award ticket which is outlined in this article. I’m planning on doing 9 months in Australia with a 3 week stop in Bali on the way out. I’m thinking a route roughly like this LHR-KUL-DPS-MEL(leaving mid Sep 2 nights in KUL, 3 weeks in DPS)// SYD-LHR (flexible on routes back- mid June 2023). Trying to get it under 20,000 miles so will potential start and end in Europe to reduce total miles if needed.
Does anyone have any tips at finding reward availability? I’m using Qantas to find the seats but it looks like they only have business flex available- does this count as a reward seat or do you need to find a classic reward? Cash flights from KUL-DPS are very cheap so if I removed that segment is that allowed? Ideally would like to fly QR to KUL. I can’t find any QR reward flights straight to Bali hence the stop in KUL. Do you call BA up to book this even though I’m not using BA metal? If anyone has any tips or suggestions on this that would be greatly appreciated. (looking to use 200,000 avios)BA is actually pretty good for searching segment by segment. As you’ve see if you use sites like Qantas you’ll see seats that aren’t going to be available via BA
Qantas J seats bookable by a partner are very very hard to get hold of. I’d consider playing around with departure airport from Aus and you might find something on somebody! If it’s just you then Malaysian usually released 1 seat on their Aus flights IME
Once you’ve figured it out you need to call BA to book
I’m looking to book something similar to OP, but to New Zealand. I’ve found that Avios J redemptions on Air Fiji are fairly easy to find on BA but struggling to find anything on Qantas, Qatar, Hawaiian etc. Anyone else have any tips following the OP’S post. It would be great to have this thread as the base for anyone planning similar.
Be aware, a multi-partner/RTW booking will save loads of Avios. However the taxes/surcharges/thieving imposed by BA does not equal the taxes/charges when adding up each individual sector. A couple of years ago I built a PNR over the phone with a very competent BA agent – LON-Oz/Oz-domestics/Oz-USA/USA-domestics/USA-LON all in J with some F using QR/QF/AA/BA. The individual sector charges totalled £450, but the final PNR was back-room priced at £1,500 by BA ticketing. I asked for a reprice and why, but got nowhere.
Given that airport charges and government taxes would be fixed regardless of how a sector was ticketed, the difference can only be down to a penalty charge by BA. We can’t have customers actually getting real value from the multi-partner deal!!Appreciate your situation @SteveCroydon but I’ve just had the opposite happen. Appreciate mine wasn’t a multipartner, was all on Iberia.
Priced up an open jaw, MAD-UIO and then MVD-MAD-MAN. The MVD-MAD leg priced up as £350 in taxes alone, the MAD-UIO was approx £100 but when I called to buy the ticket the entire itinerary priced at £250.
Be aware, a multi-partner/RTW booking will save loads of Avios. However the taxes/surcharges/thieving imposed by BA does not equal the taxes/charges when adding up each individual sector. A couple of years ago I built a PNR over the phone with a very competent BA agent – LON-Oz/Oz-domestics/Oz-USA/USA-domestics/USA-LON all in J with some F using QR/QF/AA/BA. The individual sector charges totalled £450, but the final PNR was back-room priced at £1,500 by BA ticketing. I asked for a reprice and why, but got nowhere.
Given that airport charges and government taxes would be fixed regardless of how a sector was ticketed, the difference can only be down to a penalty charge by BA. We can’t have customers actually getting real value from the multi-partner deal!!Be aware, a multi-partner/RTW booking will save loads of Avios. However the taxes/surcharges/thieving imposed by BA does not equal the taxes/charges when adding up each individual sector. A couple of years ago I built a PNR over the phone with a very competent BA agent – LON-Oz/Oz-domestics/Oz-USA/USA-domestics/USA-LON all in J with some F using QR/QF/AA/BA. The individual sector charges totalled £450, but the final PNR was back-room priced at £1,500 by BA ticketing. I asked for a reprice and why, but got nowhere.
Given that airport charges and government taxes would be fixed regardless of how a sector was ticketed, the difference can only be down to a penalty charge by BA. We can’t have customers actually getting real value from the multi-partner deal!!How did you find the availability on all those airlines?
Appreciate your situation @SteveCroydon but I’ve just had the opposite happen. Appreciate mine wasn’t a multipartner, was all on Iberia.
Priced up an open jaw, MAD-UIO and then MVD-MAD-MAN. The MVD-MAD leg priced up as £350 in taxes alone, the MAD-UIO was approx £100 but when I called to buy the ticket the entire itinerary priced at £250.
Re “The MVD-MAD leg priced up as £350 in taxes alone”
I think you’re mistaken with this, possibly you’ve been looking at a different cash/Avios combo?. I’ve flown this route and the price for an IB reward flight in business, whether booked through BA or IB website, is £130 ish. EZE is similar (both come in around £400 return.)
@Scott, nope checked it multiple times. MVD-MAD priced at something like 21500 Aviso +£350 with the voucher. All the other countries in South Amrica such as BOG, UIO, EZE priced around £110 (but flights from EZE for the next several months were non-existent)
These were one way with an Amex voucher.
@davefl – was it an off-peak date? The one-way Avios cost is 51k, so if you were using a 241 voucher to halve this, you should have seen 25,500, and if so, the correct cash element is as I mentioned above.
The next ‘less Avios more cash’ option is 43,350 so half this would have been 21,675. This has a higher cash element, though still some way off your quoted amount.
I obviously can’t say what was going-on on the website at that time, only that your £350 figure isn’t the correct cash cost, and you can see this if you check now.
Just checked it again, no voucher any more, and no, not using the more avios less cash options.
MVD-MAD
peak 75000 Avios + £ 313.50
off peak 51000 Avios + £ 350.50EZE-MAD
peak 75000 Avios + £ 135.80
Off peak 51000 Avios + £ 135.80That’s weird. I’ve just used the BA app and I’m seeing off-peak 51,000 + £490.50 ! Tried a couple of dates and it’s the same.
For a peak date I see the same cash cost you reported.The IB app shows the correct cash elements.
Whether booking via BA or IB, the cash ‘should’ be the same (in the past it wasn’t but this changed a couple of years ago.) And I’ve found the cost to be the same for other flights/destinations, so no idea why it’s doing this for MVD.
To add to above, I clicked into the fees breakdown and the biggest element is ‘Ticket Sales Tax – Uruguay’ = £362. Something very wrong with that.
To add to above, I clicked into the fees breakdown and the biggest element is ‘Ticket Sales Tax – Uruguay’ = £362. Something very wrong with that.
There is a 7.5% tax on air tickets in Uruguay plus a few other taxes/charges.
Be aware, a multi-partner/RTW booking will save loads of Avios. However the taxes/surcharges/thieving imposed by BA does not equal the taxes/charges when adding up each individual sector. A couple of years ago I built a PNR over the phone with a very competent BA agent – LON-Oz/Oz-domestics/Oz-USA/USA-domestics/USA-LON all in J with some F using QR/QF/AA/BA. The individual sector charges totalled £450, but the final PNR was back-room priced at £1,500 by BA ticketing. I asked for a reprice and why, but got nowhere.
Given that airport charges and government taxes would be fixed regardless of how a sector was ticketed, the difference can only be down to a penalty charge by BA. We can’t have customers actually getting real value from the multi-partner deal!!How did you find the availability on all those airlines?
@Whatsthepoint
I just used BA.COM and AA.COM to find individual sectors that would all fit in to my plans – a lot of time, especially given the appalling state of BA.COMBe aware, a multi-partner/RTW booking will save loads of Avios. However the taxes/surcharges/thieving imposed by BA does not equal the taxes/charges when adding up each individual sector. A couple of years ago I built a PNR over the phone with a very competent BA agent – LON-Oz/Oz-domestics/Oz-USA/USA-domestics/USA-LON all in J with some F using QR/QF/AA/BA. The individual sector charges totalled £450, but the final PNR was back-room priced at £1,500 by BA ticketing. I asked for a reprice and why, but got nowhere.
Given that airport charges and government taxes would be fixed regardless of how a sector was ticketed, the difference can only be down to a penalty charge by BA. We can’t have customers actually getting real value from the multi-partner deal!!How did you find the availability on all those airlines?
@Whatsthepoint
I just used BA.COM and AA.COM to find individual sectors that would all fit in to my plans – a lot of time, especially given the appalling state of BA.COMThanks Steve, I’ll try AA. Qatar’s website seems pretty good for their flights too.
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