[NorthernLass]

@tootsci, congratulations and hopefully they will accept it or just want minor corrections (I had to re-write about 4 pages’ worth). Then you get your life back, lol. You know your subject inside out now, and IIRC you can take your thesis in with you so you should have lots of confidence to answer the questions!

[NorthernLass]

It does look like you might fall foul of clause 25, however you may get an agent who doesn’t notice the expiry date, isn’t fully aware of the terms, or is just very amenable. Or you could just go somewhere where you can book both legs at the same time online!

[NorthernLass]

Thanks, @Erico.

[NorthernLass]

You can definitely book, e.g. NYC-(LHR)-DXB-(LHR)-NYC with the companion voucher online, with stopovers. Whether routings which will require BA intervention, such as open jaw, or adding the return later, are doable probably depends very much on the agent. It’s also not clear whether BA would agree to add domestic connections to such a booking.

[NorthernLass]

You can use it over more than 1 booking, you just have to spend that amount on the relevant card at participating Hilton properties.

But looking at prices for next spring, unless they come down a bit I’m booking the HIX or CP at T4 and getting up a bit earlier!

[NorthernLass]

@Man of Kent, the £50 Amex cash back comes in very handy when wanting to book the T2/3 HGI! Has worked with the pre-paid rate for us for the past few years.

[NorthernLass]

It’s how BA sees it which counts to all intents and purposes, and that’s what all the evidence amassed here over the years points to.

The voucher is clearly intended to be used for a return journey (or just one way) where both legs are booked at the same time, otherwise it would arrive in 2 parts.

I do think as well that BA is becoming swamped with people calling to apply the vouchers to elements of bookings which can’t be completed online, and their MO will be to become less and less accommodating rather than looking for IT fixes!

[NorthernLass]

@Cat, many thanks! (The first bit we have been imploring him to do for years plus to make better use of the extra time he gets due to his dyspraxia).

My Amex tip is to browse the Wine Flyer website and you might suddenly get an email from them for extra avios! Plus I just found out that golds get an extra 15% off.

Can you get one of the Amex business cards as a sole trader?

[NorthernLass]

Same for the north of England, especially as we don’t have a city like Edinburgh to draw in business and tourism!

I mainly use the offers for cash back on hotel stays, then the odd one for extra avios such as Wine Flyer. I was mulling over whether the most recent 3k bonus avios was worth it when they sent me an email for an extra 2k avios which should stack. And I discovered that BA gold gets 15% off on top which has made it a decent deal!

So I definitely get the BAPP card fee back and more, which is my measure of whether it’s worth keeping the card in the long term.

[NorthernLass]

I’m slightly surprised every year that our council still allows it!

[NorthernLass]

25. Outbound travel must take place before the expiry date of the Companion Voucher however inbound travel can take place after the expiry date of the Companion Voucher, provided it is booked at the same time as the outbound travel.

I think this is the relevant clause. Technically you’re supposed to book the whole trip in one go, but BA has historically some leeway with this as a goodwill gesture. However, it’s always been the case that you can’t book the inbound after flying the outbound (or cancel it, if it’s on one booking, though you can change it in some circumstances).

As we have seen recently, such goodwill gestures are not guaranteed and can be withdrawn at any time!

[NorthernLass]

I pretty much gave up on the e-store a few years ago when they became quite aggressive about clawing points back for no apparent reason. I challenged this a couple of times successfully but it wasn’t really worth the hassle for a few hundred/thousand avios.

[NorthernLass]

@BWS, we have made some strides, you can even use it at Aldi and Lidl!

@freckles, it was also a general comment trying to be helpful – a lot of people don’t actually realise that you can still use the Paypal route even though the recipient doesn’t officially accept Amex. E.g., also works for Iceland supermarket online.

[NorthernLass]

If you did find something from DUB and have a couple of days to spare – in December we flew DUB-LHR-MEX on BA in F to save on surcharges and had 2 nights at the very nice CP DUB and took the bus into the city for sightseeing and shopping.

[NorthernLass]

EI is a bit of an odd one because it’s not a One World airline and the benefits for people with OW status are a bit random. It would make more sense really to be able to use the voucher on AA or QR instead! I can’t recall if the rationale of EI being included in the 241 terms was ever made clear.

Also see today’s HFP article.

[NorthernLass]

They don’t release a guaranteed number of seats and availability tends to be pretty woeful from MAN whenever I’ve looked, unless you want economy to or from JFK!

People have reported better availability from DUB (which of course is very easy to get to from MAN), but readers have also advised that EI keeps a lot of reward seats for its own status members.

[NorthernLass]

As above, you have to pay for domestic connections on short-haul routes, and the requirement to use full avios and minimum cash makes the Barclays voucher a poor option. What you could do instead is to use the voucher on the LHR-ATH sectors and book EDI-LHR separately (I did exactly this last year). You can then choose whether you do the domestic connection in economy or Club Europe, and which ratio of cash/avios you want to use on that leg.

Bear in mind, of course, that the connection won’t then be protected in the event of a delay, so this works best if you fly the domestic leg the day before and/or only take hand baggage.

Interestingly, did you get EDI-LHR-IAD to price up in Club Europe/Club World? There’s an issue with the Barclays voucher which means that normally you have to call to add the domestic leg.

[NorthernLass]

Have you been there for 70 nights?!

[NorthernLass]

What’s that going to achieve? The entitlement is the same whether they formally accept or not.

[NorthernLass]

+1 on this. Amex clearly don’t want to commit to anything which might come back to bite them, but you’ve given the retailer more than reasonable opportunity to reclaim the item and nobody in their right mind would think otherwise. I would keep a record of your communications with them in case they do ever challenge you, but this shouldn’t take up as much space in your basement!

[NorthernLass]

In F a couple of years ago we did submit claims because we had intended to do some work during the flight and were somewhat inconvenienced by the non-functioning WiFi. IIRC we got 10k avios each. I don’t know if it’s cabin or status-dependant as it was just that one time.

[NorthernLass]

https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/avios-alerts/

Might be of interest. I can’t attest to how reliable RFF has been recently.

[NorthernLass]

Have you tried PayPal? Sometimes businesses forget to disable the ability to pay via Amex, even if they don’t officially take it. I think this must be the case with my local council which probably wouldn’t envisage that anyone would even have an Amex, let alone want to use it to pay their council tax!

[NorthernLass]

https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers-and-public/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/downgrading/

Any claim would have to be submitted after you fly. The fact that you paid with avios doesn’t affect your rights.

[NorthernLass]

There is a huge amount of information on this site about downgrading, and it’s also covered in UK legislation so make sure you known your rights before making a decision. If you choose to fly rather than cancel, the compensation you’ll be entitled to will very likely outweigh the fare difference.

You don’t have a legal right to re-routing in another F cabin (as opposed to if your flight was cancelled), however there’s nothing to stop you calling BA and trying to negotiate something.

It sounds like the aircraft may have been swapped for one without an F cabin, you can check this by doing a dummy booking for the day you are travelling, or checking the aircraft type and seating plan in MMB.