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Does council not accept Paypal?
The free domestic connection only applies on BA, you’d need to make separate arrangements to get to MAD for IB.
When you come to make the booking (or dummy booking), the system will ask you if you want a stopover. Select this. Make sure you leave several hours or even an overnight stop between the 2 outbound legs, in case of any delays. You can then pick all your sectors individually, and you can select Club Europe for no extra charge on your domestic connection. This gives you lounge access at the regional airport and better seating.
And potential lounge access at LHR as well before LHR-TYO sector
Not unless the long-haul is in CW. But lounge at LHR prior to return leg to MAN would be included.
@WoodyYork, btw, this is such a lovely plan. Your wife and kids will be beyond thrilled for a very long time if you pull this off! 😀@woodyyork I think you’ll be looking at £200 fees per person, using max avios, so £1000 not £400. Using 1 x 241, the avios requirement will be 280,000, 300,000 or 320,000 depending on whether your travel dates are off peak vs peak dates, with £1,000 of fees for 5 people travelling.
This is another thing. You can save a lot of avios by flying off-peak, but this is quite difficult in school holidays. BA usually leaves one or two days per as off-peak, though (IB doesn’t), so if you have a bit of flexibility with your travel dates, this can be very helpful.
Next year Easter is almost at the very end of April. IB has different peak/off-peak to BA and they don’t follow UK school holidays.
Can you help me to understand why some flights I look up (obv ones this year, as Apr25 are t released yet) have fees of £400 and others have fees of £1000?
@woodyyork I think you’ll be looking at £200 fees per person, using max avios, so £1000 not £400. Using 1 x 241, the avios requirement will be 280,000, 300,000 or 320,000 depending on whether your travel dates are off peak vs peak dates, with £1,000 of fees for 5 people travelling.
Thanks! I hope it’ll be the trip of a lifetime.
Back to an earlier comment, can I book the CW (with lounge perks) on the domestic leg if I book the flights via the call centre at midnight when they release?
Not unless the long-haul is in CW. But lounge at LHR prior to return leg to MAN would be included.
@WoodyYork, btw, this is such a lovely plan. Your wife and kids will be beyond thrilled for a very long time if you pull this off! 😀Can you help me to understand why some flights I look up (obv ones this year, as Apr25 are t released yet) have fees of £400 and others have fees of £1000?
@woodyyork I think you’ll be looking at £200 fees per person, using max avios, so £1000 not £400. Using 1 x 241, the avios requirement will be 280,000, 300,000 or 320,000 depending on whether your travel dates are off peak vs peak dates, with £1,000 of fees for 5 people travelling.
Where are you seeing fees of £400? Can you provide an example? That would suggest fees of £80 per person return, which seems quite low. I did a dummy booking at it was coming out at £200 per person for the return flight.
This is in line with Ron’s reference article – https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/02/13/how-many-avios-points-do-i-need-to-fly-to/
We’re thinking of Japan in 2025, possibly April or the two week half term in October my son has (mid to end October) any views around which may be best?
Also one thing to think of is if you can’t get Japan flights you could go via China I’m considering a stop via Beijing as much more availability as you get visa free stop over for 144 hours if it’s a transit country. Although that would make it slightly less than two weeks in Japan so working out whether that would be doable.
@WoodyYork – I doubt they would know what you were asking for and may well decline as it’s more of an IT glitch than a booking feature. If you’re online at midnight you don’t want to be wasting any time prior to them reserving the seats for you.
However, given recent reports of trying and failing repeatedly to book via the call centre, I would strongly suggest practising beforehand and booking online as soon as the seats are released. You should have a decent chance as you’re booking economy – most people on the phone and online will be after CW seats.
Can you give examples of exactly what you’re looking at which is giving you different amounts?
If you search LHR-HND, one-way, off-peak, as well as the standard pricing of 35k avios plus £100, you get:
More pricing options
You can select when paying
25000 Avios + £ 140.00
19500 Avios + £ 205.00
15000 Avios + £ 230.00
10000 Avios + £ 270.00
6850 Avios + £ 300.00So for your family of 2 + 3, with 1 BA voucher you need to times the avios by 4 and the cash element by 5, each way.
If you search LHR-HND, one-way, off-peak, as well as the standard pricing of 35k avios plus £100, you get:
More pricing options
You can select when paying
25000 Avios + £ 140.00
19500 Avios + £ 205.00
15000 Avios + £ 230.00
10000 Avios + £ 270.00
6850 Avios + £ 300.00So for your family of 2 + 3, with 1 BA voucher you need to times the avios by 4 and the cash element by 5, each way.
I think my response got stuck in moderation as I added a link to an HfP reference article on how much avios / cash do I need. When doing a dummy booking I saw the same rates as Northern lass, I.e. for a family of five looking for return avios flights to Japan taxes and fees are going to be £200 per person, £1,000 for the family, when using maximum avios.
Slightly related question:
Various Sakura related websites give dates for first bloom and full bloom.
Anyone know how long the flowers will last after ‘full bloom’ date?
e.g. on one site, Sapporo is showing first bloom as 2nd May, and full bloom 6th May. What’s the latest one can rock up in Sapporo and still get to see the flowers in good condition?Unfortunately, we just don’t spend enough annually to hit voucher spend requirements each year.
How are you paying for your weekly shop? If you’re spending £100 a week (using this for easy numbers) and putting that on your AMEX, that contributes £5,000 annually towards your target.
Basically everything you can put on Amex, put it there. With 3 kids you must do a fair bit of spending on food, clothes, toys etc. I can only think of Iceland out of all the supermarkets which doesn’t accept Amex.
As you’re using the blue card voucher with a single year validity, you’re going to have to time your voucher triggering very carefully. You’ll need to hit the £12,000 spend very close to the point when you want to book the flights. As you’ll need the voucher in your account at the point of booking, but the voucher will only be valid for travel 12 months from date of issue.
I think it’s valid for 12 months from date of issue, and *outbound* travel has to be completed by the expiry date. You can return any time within 12 months of that. So if the voucher expires on April 30th, 2025, the outbound must be flown by before then, but the inbound can be any time in the 12 months after that.
But yes, the expiry date will be crucial to booking the outbound, and it’s not 100% possible to predict what that will be because it can take a couple of days for the qualifying payment to clear and then a couple more for the voucher to appear in your BAEC account, and sometimes it seems to appear overnight!
I think it’s valid for 12 months from date of issue, and *outbound* travel has to be completed by the expiry date. You can return any time within 12 months of that. So if the voucher expires on April 30th, 2025, the outbound must be flown by before then, but the inbound can be any time in the 12 months after that.
But yes, the expiry date will be crucial to booking the outbound, and it’s not 100% possible to predict what that will be because it can take a couple of days for the qualifying payment to clear and then a couple more for the voucher to appear in your BAEC account, and sometimes it seems to appear overnight!
yes, should’ve been clear 12 months to take the outbound. Trying to get 5 reward seats for Tokyo for cherry blossom season, in/around the Easter holidays is going to be tricky, so the OP best chance is going to be booking at 355 days out. So timing the voucher to land into the account is going to be critical. As there will be little leeway available.
It needs a lot of planning! OP should probably also try a dummy booking to make sure the system will accept 5 pax on one booking – and I seem to recall a post recently about the call centre being difficult about a booking which had 4 pax on it. Re Iberia, I don’t know how many economy seats they release so it may not even be an option, unless OP can make a cash booking for other passengers.
I just use the “book with avios” from my executive club account, I put dates in (I just tried 15 Feb returning 29 Feb and it says 300,000 avios + £400.
Can you help me to understand why some flights I look up (obv ones this year, as Apr25 are t released yet) have fees of £400 and others have fees of £1000?
@woodyyork I think you’ll be looking at £200 fees per person, using max avios, so £1000 not £400. Using 1 x 241, the avios requirement will be 280,000, 300,000 or 320,000 depending on whether your travel dates are off peak vs peak dates, with £1,000 of fees for 5 people travelling.
Where are you seeing fees of £400? Can you provide an example? That would suggest fees of £80 per person return, which seems quite low. I did a dummy booking at it was coming out at £200 per person for the return flight.
This is in line with Ron’s reference article – https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/02/13/how-many-avios-points-do-i-need-to-fly-to/
I’m putting everything on that I can now. I might manage to trigger two amounts in a calendar year, but not between now and when I need to book.
Unfortunately, we just don’t spend enough annually to hit voucher spend requirements each year.
How are you paying for your weekly shop? If you’re spending £100 a week (using this for easy numbers) and putting that on your AMEX, that contributes £5,000 annually towards your target.
This is an excellent point that I hadn’t thought of. Essentially, I need to trigger the voucher so that it comes through between 365 and 355 days from my outbound flight. That’ll be fun 🤩
As you’re using the blue card voucher with a single year validity, you’re going to have to time your voucher triggering very carefully. You’ll need to hit the £12,000 spend very close to the point when you want to book the flights. As you’ll need the voucher in your account at the point of booking, but the voucher will only be valid for travel 12 months from date of issue.
Still trying to wrestle with all the permutations here…
I need to trigger the voucher 365 days from outbound flight and book the flight 355 days out. If I’m using the website how to I book the return flights using the voucher? They won’t be released until 355 days from inbound flight right?
It needs a lot of planning! OP should probably also try a dummy booking to make sure the system will accept 5 pax on one booking – and I seem to recall a post recently about the call centre being difficult about a booking which had 4 pax on it. Re Iberia, I don’t know how many economy seats they release so it may not even be an option, unless OP can make a cash booking for other passengers.
Please note that it is hard to guarantee when Sakura will happen and even harder to be where it will take place first.
Some famous spots get crowded and honestly lose all their magic due to that.
You can still enjoy beautiful colours in Japan during the fall and also during other blossoms that are not as famous.
I would focus on getting there and enjoying the country instead of trying to plan around something you have little control over.
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