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My understanding, which may of course be flawed, is that there’s a mechanism where Companion Voucher business class seats are opened up if the cash fare drops below a certain undisclosed amount. So it’s always worth checking in when BA has a sale on, etc., as you might suddenly find that your fancy seats have dropped below the threshold. I’m pretty sure that’s how I managed to get the dream MAN-SYD business return booked last year.
When I’ve looked for seats on the BA Exec Club website, and see business availability WITHOUT a number of seats remaining, that’s what I’ve assumed has been happening. These seats will not appear on SeatSpy, etc.
In terms of the Caribbean, I regularly look for school holiday flights to Barbados (one can dream, right?) but have never found anything. If demand is high, I suppose the price never drops below the magic threshold.
There’s also the idea that more Companion Voucher seats are made available if you’re going from a provincial airport. I’ve certainly found availability in the past from Manchester via LHR that wasn’t available when searching from LHR itself. But I have no idea what governs that one!
@NorthernLass & @Mahinda – thanks for that info. Very interesting. All the flights I’ve looked at from September onwards (including from January) to PVG are being sold in ‘I’ class and ‘T’ class on the website. I’ve looked on FlyerTalk and they seem to be the lowest fare buckets for CW and PE. I presume few people have booked in PE hence the numbers of seats available – a lot of dates have no number which means at least 7 seats. May be there will be a promotion/sale soon for PVG or other destinations like the 15% discount promotion I received recently for US.
As far as what is acceptable to BA going from west to east or south via London or Madrid, I think I need to start looking at distances and then make a phone call to BA once I have found availability.
@Mahinda, if you want Caribbean and don’t mind high accommodation prices, try MAN-LHR-NAS or MAN-LHR-GCM (same flight). There tends to be better availability than other islands, and it’s a T3 departure which means the much nicer lounges! I’m currently feeling hugely spoiled as we’re doing GCM next January and NAS next April ✈️ 🏝️ 😎
Just a word of caution on NYC, which occurred to me afterwards- BA have recently been refusing some open jaw bookings based on the 2 sectors being in different zones, so you may find that you need to stick to MIA, ATL or another US city in that zone.
This is if I’ve understood it correctly but there was quite a bit of discussion last week about it.
Yes, a connecting flight would be completely separate so you’d need to plan for that.
Thus far, such open jaw routing objections have only been in respect of origin open jaws, not destination ones.
Are you able to clarify what you mean here? Basically I would have to start and finish at LGW?
No, because both LGW and LHR are classed as London, so that would be fine. Basically BA have been refusing to book or refund avios where people have been flying out from one city and back from another, and those cities have been in different pricing zones. Any simple return from London to NYC is not going to fall foul of this.
No, because both LGW and LHR are classed as London, so that would be fine. Basically BA have been refusing to book or refund avios where people have been flying out from one city and back from another, and those cities have been in different pricing zones. Any simple return from London to NYC is not going to fall foul of this.
Thanks, again v helpful- I might do Miami instead, availability seems pretty good even in/around Feb half term, and warmer spot for a hotel stay the day before we go to Caribbean!
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