Weekend away in July to use companion voucher

[hollymcr]

We had a trip booked in May that we had to cancel due to illness (we should be in Cairo as I write this). We have the companion voucher returned to us but it expires 10th July.

We don’t have any holiday left from work (at least not enough to take a week anywhere) so I wondered if anyone has suggestions for getting decent value from it for a weekend away somewhere in early July?

I’m thinking that “not a chance” is the obvious answer but there’s no harm asking! I assume that taxes and fees are going to be the killer. (We usually fly from Heathrow but we’re in East Anglia so have some flexibility on choice of airports.)

[NorthernLass]

It depends on how long your weekends are but for 2 nights you’re best looking at RFS options, and you’ll also only be paying £50 pp surcharges in CE if you select that option. There are a couple of regional routes currently (Southampton?) but most options will be from LHR/LGW/LCY. Obviously the best-served routes will have most availability which will be Paris, Amsterdam etc but if you do a few searches on ba.com other destinations may well have seats as early July is generally before the school summer holidays. Even though it’s not the best use of a 241 it’s still nice to relax in a lounge pre-departure and fly in comparative comfort.

[Froggee]

Well reward flight saver is your friend. My inclination would be flying to the US is too far for a weekend in economy so I’d pick somewhere in Europe you actually want to go to, book Club Europe and just enjoy the weekend rather than trying to maximise the Avios saved.

I’m using mine in economy to jersey on the basis that this is where we wanted to go once my wife pulled the plug on Singapore and we’re on an embraer (and there are four of us) so club Europe would be a pointless expense.

So I saved 10,500 Avios which is the worst use I’ve ever had of a voucher other than letting them expire but at least it’s a genuine saving.

The voucher is a sunk cost now so just go somewhere you fancy. Looking at SeatSpy there are too many choices to list but if you give me two dates in July, I’ll give you my top three!

• This reply was modified 54 years, 9 months ago by .

[meta]

If you can find availability on short-haul CE flights from LHR T3 you can get a lot of value from lounge hopping alone.

You can see if there is any availability left for the Jubilee weekend, that gives you 3-4 nights, so you could go slightly further.

I presume it’s an old style voucher. Even if no availability inbound, you could book just outbound and inbound for next year from somewhere else (bearing in mind IATA distance/open-jaw rules) and then cash for return. Remember that only outbound needs to be flown by the expiry date.

[hollymcr]

Froggee wrote:

if you give me two dates in July, I’ll give you my top three!

The voucher expires on 10th July so we need to be outbound before then. And it turns out we already have plans the first weekend of July, so…

Basically, we’re looking at 8-10 July.

I looked at Jersey (accommodation isn’t cheap but it’s not out of the question). Also Luxemburg (no reason other than distance/availability). Looked at Inverness, but we live on the East Coast main line so it’s not impossible to get to by train and by the time we factor in transport to LHR it’s not much difference in price (albeit the lounges are better at Heathrow!).

Lots of options and no compelling reason to pick one over the other at the moment, but it does suit me to narrow it down to short haul in the order of Avios that the above options would use (ie close to free before tax and not that bad afterwards either). Also departure needs to be afternoon so that we can get there in time to use the lounge without staying local to LHR. Ideally the destination airport is failry central so we’re not wasting time and money on transport to a hotel somewhere worth staying. But those are just ways to narrow the options down, I’m genuinely not fussy (I took a weekend away in Corby once just because I hadn’t been, so that’s my baseline!)

I’ve not been to any of the places I’m looking at so have nothing to judge them by.

[hollymcr]

meta wrote:

You can see if there is any availability left for the Jubilee weekend, that gives you 3-4 nights, so you could go slightly further.

We have plans locally for Jubilee so that won’t work, I think we’ve pretty much decided that if we’re going to do it then we’re doing it the second weekend of July. (In part that’s to give long enough that we can be confident the illness that cancelled Cairo has passed.)

I presume it’s an old style voucher. Even if no availability inbound, you could book just outbound and inbound for next year from somewhere else (bearing in mind IATA distance/open-jaw rules) and then cash for return. Remember that only outbound needs to be flown by the expiry date.

Good suggestion, but we have a couple of other companion vouchers to use (with longer dates) so I think we’ll use availability to limit our choices so we have an easier job picking somewhere!

[hollymcr]

NorthernLass wrote:

Even though it’s not the best use of a 241 it’s still nice to relax in a lounge pre-departure and fly in comparative comfort.

Exactly that. Essentially we’re throwing a few Avios and some cash for taxes for the sake of a few hours in the lounges and a day somewhere we otherwise wouldn’t be going to. We’d never use the voucher this way normally (even going to Egypt was a poor use of it) but it’s an excuse to do something a bit silly for a change of scenery.

[NorthernLass]

Prague, Vienna (and a few others) depart from T3 and have afternoon departures (last time I looked!) so you could enjoy the Cathay and/or Qantas lounges.

[Richie]

BACF at LCY is offering its full range of summer destinations in July, including a Friday evening flight to Palma and additional flights from Malaga, Ibiza and Palma on Sunday evening.

[Froggee]

Hokay – here’s some random suggestions more to bring back my memories rather than any other reason.

1) Toulouse – the flight times suck but I had a whale of a time when I visited during the a World Cup when France hosted. It’s a pretty little city and very manageable for a weekend. But… you’d get in late Friday night and if I were you I’d come back Monday morning as the crack of dawn Sunday flight is a non-starter.

2) Basel. It’s a very pretty city and is a perfect size for a weekend. Plenty to see and do. And yes I had a whale of a time when I visited my brother when he was working there. Again, you’d get in late but there are sociable flight times coming back on the Sunday.

3) The Hague. So you’d fly to Amsterdam but then take the train from the airport to The Hague in well under an hour. That could combine a city break and a beach break. It’s easy peasy convenient, there are nice hotels within spitting distance of the train station. My wife’s favourite cousin lives there and I’ve always enjoyed our visits.

Your problem is too many choices. Kinda a good thing!?

[tiriavpo]

I didn’t think you could use RFS with companion voucher?

[meta]

You actually can’t use it for anything other than RFS. Avios&Money won’t work with 241 vouchers.

[tiriavpo]

Ah yes – I was confusing RFS and the £1 taxes option.