Splitting reward flights

[kevwuk]

Hi.

I haven’t redeemed my Avios for a reward flight before, but having done some searching on the BA website I found that I could get a one way economy flight from LHR to SAV (Savannah-Hilton Head, USA), via Philadelphia (BA for the transatlantic leg, AA for the domestic) for 32,500 Avios plus £299.51 cash, yet if I search for the two legs separately, the exact same two flights comes to 32,500 Avios plus just £54.70.

There must be a reason for such a difference in the cash element, so is there any downside that I’m missing to booking the two legs separately instead of in one go?

Thanks.

[Lady London]

Book it quick separate. Leave a big big space between the two in case of late arrival though.

This pricing, or most of that difference, should not happen. Have you definitely got the right airports?

Did you follow it through to the payment page? Often apparent anomalies get corrected there.

Otherwise I’d book it right now.

[Blair Waldorf Salad]

If you’re late arriving into Philadelphia, you have no protection for your second leg. If you miss it, tough luck. Immigration wait at Philadelphia can be significant and there’s no such thing as segregating the line according to onward connection tightness.

Personally I never attempt a US onward connection unless flying there from Ireland wherein one lands as a domestic passenger.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

It’s a different market of people who merely want to fly to PHL and those that want to fly to SAV.

Calculating tHe price isn’t just a matter of adding the two separate flights together. It’s far more complex than that and for sone trips the single trip can be cheaper than the two separate flights.

Aw mentioned above there are significant implications of doing this trip on the same day with separate tockete. AA won’t just rebook you on separate tickets for example if you miss their flight.

[NorthernLass]

The separate pricing presumably breaks down as 25k avios plus £50 on the long haul (RFS economy) plus 7,500 avios plus £4.90 on the AA domestic. Unless something changes before the payment page, BA seems to be “adjusting” the cash element for whatever purposes. Agree it’s very risky to book these separately, AA is notorious for cancellations and changes. I always build in at least a couple of days to see the arrival city when I do something like this so it doesn’t matter too much if AA then decides to mess around with my next flight, as did happen with my Xmas USA road trip – AA flight from DC to Key West was moved to 3 hours earlier with no other options on the day of travel.

[e14]

NorthernLass wrote:

The separate pricing presumably breaks down as 25k avios plus £50 on the long haul (RFS economy) plus 7,500 avios plus £4.90 on the AA domestic. Unless something changes before the payment page, BA seems to be “adjusting” the cash element for whatever purposes. Agree it’s very risky to book these separately, AA is notorious for cancellations and changes. I always build in at least a couple of days to see the arrival city when I do something like this so it doesn’t matter too much if AA then decides to mess around with my next flight, as did happen with my Xmas USA road trip – AA flight from DC to Key West was moved to 3 hours earlier with no other options on the day of travel.

Mixed carrier booking would negate the RFS, so BA.con is pulling the TFCs from the commercial fare calculation. Am in total agreement around not booking separately having had family misconnect in both Mia and Phl recently due to BA staff and catering delays