[Alwaysbusy]

Off-peak, one-way LHR-BOS in J booked using the Barclays Upgrade Voucher (saving 75,000 Avios). Eastbound TATL cruise NYC-Southampton booked with Cunard.

Thanks for all the suggestions for activities during our week exploring New England. Building up a nice itinerary.

Now to find the optimum one-way BOS-NYC car rental deal. Will start that discussion over on the Car Rental forum.

[Alwaysbusy]

@NorthernLass Many thanks for your advice on using the upgrade voucher, especially finding an off-peak date. Availability in CW to BOS currently looks good for off-peak dates in late August.

@executiveclubber – Newport mansions definitely sounds interesting; will do some research. Also looking at exploring Cape Cod.

[Alwaysbusy]

Following the submission of my complaint on Monday, a lady from Barclaycard complaints phoned me on Tuesday morning and I explained the problem to her. She said she was having a meeting with “the Avios team” on Wednesday. Hey presto, the voucher has appeared in my BAEC account today!

[Alwaysbusy]

Update – So I’ve now spoken to BAEC Customer Support who have told me they can’t do anything towards tracing the voucher without a Barclaycard Transaction number. So, stalemate! Any suggestions on how I should proceed?

[Alwaysbusy]

@LouiseL I’ve tried a different tack – by using the Barclaycard chat function. The chat agent confirmed that the voucher has been issued but I’ve have come up against the same brick wall – “you need to contact BA team to get this resolved.” So, I guess my next approach is to contact BAEC. Will report back.

[Alwaysbusy]

Could someone who has successfully received a Barclaycard Upgrade Voucher let me know how the existence of the voucher shows in my BAEC account. Does it show as a “1” (as opposed to a “0”) in my dashboard?

[Alwaysbusy]

Exactly the same issue for me (Barclays credit card). Redeemed on 17 Oct (so, now 6 working days ago) and nothing has yet landed in my BAEC account. Intend to contact Barclaycard on Monday.

[Alwaysbusy]

This is excellent. The main advantages being able to see at a glance all flights for any given date and, in the detailed view, the aircraft type. Well done! Could this render Seatspy redundant?

Another filtering suggestion in addition to availability of selected class….

In the monthly overview, the *absolute* number of available seats in each class is not that important to me. Rather, are there sufficient seats in that class for the size of my party? This would be indicated simply by a tick or blob of the appropriate colour rather than a number. So in addition to the From and To boxes, allow the user to specify the class and the number of seats required (as in Seatspy) For example, if I am travelling with my OH, it would only show flights with at least 2 available seats in my selected class. The absolute number could still be shown in the detailed display for a particular date.

[Alwaysbusy]

Nigel, many thanks. Shades in Barbados does indeed look very good and would suit our needs well. Unfortunately, reward flight availability (on BA.com) in business for the return flight , even with a 241 voucher, is non-existent for the entire Jan, Feb, March, Apr period.

I will set a Seatspy alert keep checking availability on BA.com in the hope that something comes up.

[Alwaysbusy]

Many thanks for all the advice.

@Not Long Now. I was under the impression that the “honeymoon” seats were the preferred option for those travelling as a couple (at least for couples who wish to talk to each other during the flight!). Will do some further research on the benefits of the “window pair” option.

[Alwaysbusy]

My thinking was that even though BA add the return leg to the original booking after Silver expiry date, because the date I made the booking in the first place was prior to Silver expiry, I might have free seat selection for the entire booking i.e. outbound and inbound.

[Alwaysbusy]

Well, surprise, surprise – overnight, two “your Avios are on the way” emails arrived in my inbox for the two Sainsbusy’s orders I’d placed recently and are showing as pending in my account. So the “Ooops ….” message in my original post seems not to relate to a tracking problem.