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Offered free downgrade to the free card… er, no thanks

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Iguazú taxis from either side to the other are readily available and relatively cheap and easy, and would definitely recommend doing both sides, for which a day would be enough. Nice bird park by the Brazil side entrance too… take a towel in a dry bag, you’ll get wet from the spray, but if it’s summer you’ll be sweating anyway so it’s quite refreshing.

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Not a location as such, but book a flight, pay using add a new card, and store for future use, then cancel the flight within 24hrs. This method of adding new card has worked for me, although I’m keeping the flight, and when I do a dummy booking for another flight the new card has appeared as the default payment option….
Of course that may just be a BA IT quirk but has worked for me.

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You can just book as multi city and choose the exact dates you want, but if there’s availability or not is another matter. You may find, as it’s not going to be cheap, availability is not an issue if BA would rather sell cash first tickets than, say, allocate the seats to an Avios redemption…
Definitely possible technically though.

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Seconded for Royal Air Maroc, which will take your BA booking reference.

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glensunited, I believe you want to fly from A to B to C with a delay between AB and BC. Open jaw would be ‘jaw’ A to B, an alternative means of ‘open’ travel B to C, and then the return ‘jaw’ C to A.
You, I believe, simply want a delay between segments of the one way flight?
May be wrong but theoretically not impossible? You would be booking a one-way redemption with a time break between segments, and happen to be using a voucher to reduce Avios cost. If so, you could theoretically add a ‘return jaw’ from another airport back to (Far East), depending on mileages between airports, to reduce cost of that flight also, if you wish to end up back in the far east at some point in the future and maximise savings…

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I think you’ll struggle retrospectively applying the voucher to the already booked flight. Adding on a return which was unavailable is one thing, but going the other way round?

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Well done for your perseverance, the truly depressing thing is the HUACA. Why can’t companies actually invest in training their staff properly, and perhaps even giving annual refresher courses on changes or to cover rarities that may have been forgotten…
I know, cost, but think of the time saving, maybe the bottom line wouldn’t be so bad.

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Who knows the ways of BA, but from reading this, it sounds like you booked PE, used Avios and cash to upgrade to Club, then flew in PE. From that interpretation, surely you are due 100% of the upgrade cost refunded, but no ‘downgrade’ compensation as you flew in the original class booked.The complication seems to be the phrasing, and I agree it would be 75% of the fare if no ‘upgrade’ had been purchased, but in this situation, I think it could be successfully argued you weren’t downgraded, but just not provided with the service, ie the upgrade, you had purchased.
As for the missing tier points and Avios, obviously they are due…

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Could always take advantage of Norse’s new Bangkok route… £473 each premium, a day flight, so I’d be happy not to have the flat bed for that price.

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Last month we flew JNB-PLZ with Airlink, £48 each, including 20kg checked bag and 8kg carry-on, extra 20kg checked would have been about £9 I think. ‘Business’ would have included 40kg was about £220 I think, but basically you’re mainly paying for flexibility…

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Also, they’re a lot more flexible, unlike certain European carriers. A 28kg bag and a 12kg bag is fine, don’t need to faff trying to balance them out, from my experience anyway…

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Adding luggage to flights in South Africa is not like LCCs here, I think SAFAIR is about 400ZAR for 40kgs, so not exactly expensive…

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Indeed, we were in there Thursday, obviously just not updated the website to reflect the extra flight going later. Was considerably less congested when the earlier passengers departed…

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As long as you book the return before flying the outbound, and the open jaw bit is shortest leg, then, historically, yes. Much recent discussion on whether BA has to allow this, or if strictly by its Ts and Cs, you need to book both legs at once, but at the moment, it seems BA are still allowing adding the return at a later date…

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Personally, being tallish, 6’6”, I find old club world more comfortable for actually sleeping than club suites, but for the awake part suites win hands down. Also, the 380 being slightly unreliable and a small fleet, the possibility of a last minute change or delay is, subjectively, considerably higher, which may or may not matter to your plans. If you may need to change or cancel, it could be a good back up chance, or an opportunity for a hefty cash back if delayed…

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As historic performance is not necessarily an indication of future performance, this may or may not help, but I too have booked 4 holidays where I had no option for the deposit payment route, all just defaulted to full payment. All 4 were indeed holidays, the confirmation email mentioned BAHols, and all received, eventually, double TPs. I just put it down to BAs special IT systems….

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Are you going to a prime holiday destination? If so, many in economy will be on a package deal, and either unaware or unable to choose seats in advance. Seat reservations don’t equal load…

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We’ve used our voucher for South Africa for the last 8 years, barring 2 COVID non events. Mix of JNB and CPT, and open jaws, depending on what was available at the time. Never booked more than 10 months out. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the 11ish hours to S.A. being in club that matter to me, if I then have to take a £50 hour and a half connection, I still think that’s a good deal.
One other year, never did manage to get a return, but picked up a cash premium economy JNB-LHR one way for £450. Flexibility is the key! ( OK, I know, I’ve not got kids so not limited to holiday periods, but have done a couple of over Christmases)

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Usually plenty of available seats to JNB for your potential Africa adventure, and plentiful connections from there. 2 hours will get you nearly everywhere and apart from Vic falls which always seems expensive, will probably be cheap.

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But have you been checking for the last few years? Surely that is what is needed to see if this is related to recent developments, or simply the usual bunfight caused by people being prepared for peak holiday periods and knowing desirable routes go early, so booking at -355.

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If it matters to you, about 75% of my bookings involving AA have had changes, many multiple times, as AA do like to shuffle their schedules. If you’d like the possibility of future changes which may suit you better, maybe pick AA. They’ve always been very accommodating when offering rebooking of routes or timings.

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Weird IT seems rife in this ‘points make prizes’ world of ours. As mentioned above, Radisson appears as a link to collect on spend partner, but no sign of a status match reference anywhere. Given it took half a day for the app to acknowledge my BA sign up, having initially said it wasn’t possible, I’ll give it a while and see if the ghosts in the machine make it magically appear.
Can you imagine an exciting future where computers make our lives easier and seamlessly link our various affiliations, bookings and the like, behave the same for everyone everywhere regardless of platform… Ah, just imagine!

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Mine came up with “unable” yesterday morning then mid afternoon got an email confirming link. Lovely to see that when joining BA, the IT comes out in sympathy…

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Thanks, they’re in I…