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I’ve booked our family of 4 on return flights from London to Singapore on BA in F.
The total charges were £2197.
16 in total.
We used 2 companion vouchers and 476,000 Avios.Does this look correct? It seems low on charges and I’m worried when we fly in May they will ask us for more ££.
I’ve searched around but can’t seem to find info and I can’t do a new dummy booking as I don’t have any companion voucher.Thank you for any advice.
However did you find 4 x returns in F on avios to SIN?!!
But it may be because taxes departing SIN are very low, which is pulling down the overall cash element. F isn’t subject to RFS fares, so the original fees charged from SIN may still be being applied to the inbound legs.
For dummy bookings, you don’t need a companion voucher as it doesn’t affect the amount of cash involved, only the avios. Good luck finding another F seat to test it on, though!
The 476k avios is correct as it’s 119k per leg off peak and x 4 you get 476k
https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/02/14/how-to-redeem-avios-first-class-tickets-british-airways/
What are the fees if you just do a normal avios booking? Even a CW one woukd still be in the same ball park.
I know people keep on about the high BA surcharges but that tends to be on the US routes. Other destinations can be quite reasonable and that gets lost in the yammering.
Surcharges outbound from the UK are still high in F. MEX is around £500 pp one-way. It was only returns from the US where inbound surcharges were massively inflated (but these have been superseded by RFS fares in Y, PE and J, of course).
CW surcharges for SIN return are starting at £600 pp, which is going to be the RFS fee structure. It’s been reported that if you book SIN-LHR separately, you get charged the lower fees. As F cabin was never absorbed into RFS pricing, the old fee structure might still apply.
The actual disbursements should break down as very roughly LHR charges £50, SIN charges £40, UK APD £200 all per person with no discount for any children. BA then adds its own surcharges of £300pp each way to F cash or rewards bookings, so the fees at c. £550pp return do look a bit low.
That’s £ 590 so whilst higher than the £550 quoted it’s not massively over for BA to be able to claim it’s some sort of egregious error that requires the ticket to be cancelled.
What I wouldn’t do unless absolutely necessary is make any changes that would force any sort of reprice!
4 x return F redemptions for SIN…Sensei teach me your ways!
That’s £ 590 so whilst higher than the £550 quoted it’s not massively over for BA to be able to claim it’s some sort of egregious error that requires the ticket to be cancelled.
What I wouldn’t do unless absolutely necessary is make any changes that would force any sort of reprice!
The £300 surcharge is each way so theoretically it all adds up to £890. The sum charged is close to the Club RFS. It’s all rather manual and badly organised unfortunately.
Thanx everyone.
In terms of how I found them, 30th of Nov I couldn’t sleep well and started searching with our usual May Bank Holiday dates in mind and boom they were there. I did come on here to let others know but it had already been posted that they must have done a big avios release as there were quite a few available but I think by 9am most had gone. I snapped these around 7:30am.
I’m gutted because I intended to hopefully add the domestic flight on from Manchester if Avios seats opened up but now I’m scared to.
I can’t attach an image here but I’ve copied the breakdown….
authority and airport charges Per adult Per child
Passenger Service Charge – United Kingdom GBP 48.69 GBP 48.69
Passenger Service Charge – Singapore GBP 27.50 GBP 27.50
Air Passenger Duty – United Kingdom GBP 202.00 GBP 202.00
Airport Development Levy – Singapore GBP 6.40 GBP 6.40
Aviation Tax – Singapore GBP 4.70 GBP 4.70
Total government, authority and airport charges*
> More informationGBP 289.29 GBP 289.29
British Airways fees and surcharges Per adult Per child
Carrier Imposed Charge GBP 260.00 GBP 260.00
Total British Airways fees and surcharges
> More informationGBP 260.00 GBP 260.00
Total taxes, fees and surcharges per person GBP 549.29 GBP 549.294 x return F redemptions for SIN…Sensei teach me your ways!
Just luck when checking our dates I promise
The ITA Matrix tool is quite helpful in breaking down charges etc, which should be the same as for a redemption? (it’s years since I’ve looked TBH). It shows for LHR-SIN return in F:
United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge Departures (UB)
£48.89
United Kingdom Air Passenger Duty APD (GB)
£202.00
Carrier-imposed surcharge (YQ)
£600.00
Singapore Airport Development Levy (L7)
£6.40
Singapore Aviation Levy (OP)
£4.70
Singapore Passenger Service And Security Fee Pssf (SG)
£27.30I’ve not added those up but roughly £860.
The ITA Matrix tool is quite helpful in breaking down charges etc, which should be the same as for a redemption? (it’s years since I’ve looked TBH). It shows for LHR-SIN return in F:
United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge Departures (UB)
£48.89
United Kingdom Air Passenger Duty APD (GB)
£202.00
Carrier-imposed surcharge (YQ)
£600.00
Singapore Airport Development Levy (L7)
£6.40
Singapore Aviation Levy (OP)
£4.70
Singapore Passenger Service And Security Fee Pssf (SG)
£27.30I’ve not added those up but roughly £860.
Interesting.
So our carrier imposed surcharge is well out at £260 each.
I just can’t seem to find another available Avios 1st redemption available to dummy book to test it.Has anyone ever been made to pay more at check-in? I might post that question separately.
Surcharges outbound from the UK are still high in F. MEX is around £500 pp one-way. It was only returns from the US where inbound surcharges were massively inflated (but these have been superseded by RFS fares in Y, PE and J, of course).
CW surcharges for SIN return are starting at £600 pp, which is going to be the RFS fee structure. It’s been reported that if you book SIN-LHR separately, you get charged the lower fees. As F cabin was never absorbed into RFS pricing, the old fee structure might still apply.
Yes I think that may be it. Because I tried it with a few dates (within about 30mins of each other) so it’s not like it glitched at checkout.
I would just be so gutted if we had to pay more (we just don’t have it at the mo)
4 x return F redemptions for SIN…Sensei teach me your ways!
Just luck when checking our dates I promise
I believe you. These seats aren’t as rare as people like to make out. Also, don’t rely on SeatSpy to find them for you.
When you show the breakdown so one can see how BA has generated the TFCs, I think you will be just fine as long as it has been ticketed. The officially levied charges look spot on and BA imposed surcharges fluctuate wildly such that the figure is well within norms. You have done very well. Enjoy!
4 x return F redemptions for SIN…Sensei teach me your ways!
Just luck when checking our dates I promise
I believe you. These seats aren’t as rare as people like to make out. Also, don’t rely on SeatSpy to find them for you.
When you show the breakdown so one can see how BA has generated the TFCs, I think you will be just fine as long as it has been ticketed. The officially levied charges look spot on and BA imposed surcharges fluctuate wildly such that the figure is well within norms. You have done very well. Enjoy!
Thanx, I appreciate the confidence in your reply/ info.
So do you think I could add the Manchester connection or would you not risk the addition?
We did this journey a few months ago via train and I’m not joking we caught our St Pancras – Sheff train with 20seconds to spare even though we left plenty of transit time (luggage didn’t get on the belts for over an hour and Heathrow express Sunday service just made for hellish run at every step)
Think @SamG and l would disagree. These F to SIN are very rare indeed. You did so well to grab them. They must have had an aircraft change. We thought we were lucky getting J return in 2 weeks time…..
@squishsquash – while adding a MAN leg doesn’t increase the Avios, it will lead to a recalculation of the TFCs the outcome of which would be uncertain. It’s your call, but personally I would leave well alone as you are up by about £1k. Clearly you could call YouFirst and enquire about adding the domestic flight and say no if they want much more but it’s difficult to know how that would go.
There’s now no avios or cash charge for a domestic connection on an award flight (on CW and below, anyway, might need to double check whether they still charge the local airport tax for connections to F), so possibly you would just be charged the £35 pp change fee as a separate transaction?
You could fly down the night before and stay at the Sofitel. Although you have the added hassle of collecting and rechecking bags, it’s not too arduous because you don’t have to leave the airport, or even change terminals. Obviously it’s slightly riskier on the way back, but if you leave plenty of time between connections you’ll probably be ok. You could even try to book back-up avios flights for the next day as an extra precaution!
Or drive down (again the day before) – the very last option for me would be the train with the current state of public transport!
Just looked up our 2x F redemption LHR-SIN return flown in Nov-23, we paid £1783 for the two of us.
Think @SamG and l would disagree. These F to SIN are very rare indeed. You did so well to grab them. They must have had an aircraft change. We thought we were lucky getting J return in 2 weeks time…..
They released a lot of F tickets to SIN around end of Nov for pretty much all dates after April. I booked F for July.
Taxes for me were £562.
Think @SamG and l would disagree. These F to SIN are very rare indeed. You did so well to grab them. They must have had an aircraft change. We thought we were lucky getting J return in 2 weeks time…..
They released a lot of F tickets to SIN around end of Nov for pretty much all dates after April. I booked F for July.
Taxes for me were £562.
So OP is not alone. I wonder if there is any logic here between the two prices (~560 vs ~860)?
I booked LHR – SIN in First for June when a load of availbility appeared in November. The fees were £549.29 pp, which were less than the fees for the J booking I had made previously and cancelled so we could switch to First.
I was also surprised how low the fees were!
Is there no logic to this?
Thanx all, this has given me confidence it was ‘correct’ for the time when I booked anyway so I’m going to risk adding the domestics on closer to the time.
Is there no logic to this?
Yes, there is a logic to this. The reward surcharges for F where RFS doesn’t apply track cash fares. This is one of the reasons why if you mix Club RFS and F you can get expensive results. You start with the base on longer haul flights of disbursements of c.£300 (APD plus two airport departure taxes) and the standard BA surcharge on these sectors is £300 each way, although often less on the cheaper return F fares and if starting from some EU airports. BA flexes the surcharge more than the underlying fare within what is a very dynamic pricing structure.
BA’s move to RFS for Club has been rather advantageous in this respect as it has cemented higher surcharges while tucking some of it into the Avios element.
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