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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…

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Currently in the Canaries and our 3 residences so far all sent email links to check in on line in advance. Picture of ID document and home address required, but nothing about bank details. Staff not overly impressed with longer times required for visitors to fill in forms if not done in advance…

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As it’s now a voucher worth a certain number of miles, as opposed to a voucher worth a second seat irrelevant of what the cost was, one could imply that you could use it for as many people as you like, the limiting factor being the number of miles, as the total cost to Virgin is the same, in fact one could say that this would encourage larger bookings and so potentially extra revenue for Virgin. Or Virgin agents/IT could ignore all that and impose whatever they feel like on the day…

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gw57, Thursday 12pm AEDT is the second release of tickets to the general public. The linked site from the AUS RFU is to Ticketek, who, according to its terms, as far as I can see, would sell you tickets provided you are not resident in UK or Europe. Do you have a friend or acquaintance somewhere else in the world?

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My wife is currently between the Falklands and South Georgia, and then on to Antarctica. Just a note on internal flights with Aerolineas Argentinas, hers were changed twice (once from AEP to EZE, one from 07.30 departure to 15.30) and no notification received whatsoever, only picked up when looking at the booking online. Other forums have similar stories, and I’m not saying everything is always changing, but definitely check online every now and again, especially as the day approaches, to check you are going when and where you think…

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Is there actually a delay, or just an equipment swap?

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Thinking about it, personally I think I’d be better off if they did follow this route. Almost never travel peak holiday times, usually choose location by price of flight, really only use Avios for CV booking each year. Hopefully the extra “availability” would add to my options, but can plainly see for those tied to half terms and the like, it’s probably a killer, unless of course as Rob says, they keep the guaranteed number of fixed price seats and just add the rest as variable prices.

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I’ve seen lots of stories of how dreadful driving is in Costa Rica, but we did 2 weeks self drive, and apart from one road (OK, it was in MonteVerde, about 4 miles of RNT606, which unfortunately you probably want from San Jose, and then just take it easy and try to avoid most of the pot-craters), it’s really no worse than a myriad of other worldwide places. Is it as easy and smooth as UK? Mostly, but obviously unfamiliarity plays a large part, and at night, signage could be a lot better, and wildlife is slightly more abundant (in places).
Having said that, buses are abundant and generally reliable especially between tourist hubs, and private transfers equally so, but haggle!

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Lions is 28th June to 2nd August, first in Perth, then SW corner….

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I’m going for a month to follow the Lions. Agree match ticket prices on the “official retailers” are, well, extortionate. They were offering 2 x (3 nights Holiday Inn plus test ticket), so 6 nights and 2 games, for the “brilliant” price of only £3,000. Given that equivalent accommodation was available on Hotels.com for a total of £400, that’s just a bargain £1300 per match, which seems to allow for a fair profit margin!
Although I have alternate plans for match tickets, I did see test tickets on German ticketmaster at £400 each, so, strangely wouldn’t be bothering with the official package, although it does include a free shirt, and access to “The Lion’s Den” on match day, but even so the word “profiteering” does leap to mind…
Flights booked for me, but obviously being several thousand miles closer, and not in a traditionally rugby heavy country I presume your flights will be easier.
Good luck!

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The biggest issue is absolutely that there’s no route to use a voucher that gets you to Perth. Somewhere connectable, yes, but on the one booking, no, sadly.

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Saved us about half an hour queueing when departing Dublin for Denver last month. The MPC channel is where the old fast track channel was at the bottom of the escalator on the way down to America…
Presumably the differential will decrease as more people become aware of it.

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All sounds odd. I booked MAD-NRT through JAL for next July and was offered seat selection before I even got to the payment page. Such a reassurance that all these airline’s systems don’t seem capable of talking to each other, until they can, of course…

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Too late I’m afraid, it all has to be booked at the same time.

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I believe it’s a no, you can either save the avios on both legs and book as a return, or save the taxes on the return but pay more avios. Time for some maths me thinks…

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ed_fly, basically, none. T&Cs state seats may be changed for operational reasons, so in reality, just because. This has happened twice to us, complained both times after the flight, one ‘tough’ and one 10,000 Avios apology.

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Feels like one of those lovely BA issues that depend on, well, pot luck? Marvellous that the staff don’t know the answers to questions about their own offers.

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I considered upgrading a BA hols flight last year, and spoke to an agent (BA Hols not exec club) about the double tier points issue at the time. They said that it would earn double tier points on the original cabin, but not the upgraded one (euro to club euro, not long haul, if that makes a difference?), so I didn’t bother.
The question is, which agent was, or wasn’t correct, and in either case is BA IT up to being able to differentiate?

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Just cancelled a pair of Avios econ returns, having paid £70 and 21000 Avios. All Avios back already and £68 ‘in the system’.

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Difficult to tell at the moment but I wonder how long the CrowdStrike issue can be used as an extraordinary event. My brother had his BA return from Split cancelled on Sunday, and the rebooked on Monday also. Made it home yesterday, and considering claiming….

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I have had a similar situation before. I changed, by phoning, a 2-4-1 return CPT-LHR from PE to Club when availability appeared, the agent told me how many extra Avios, and took my credit card details for the extra ‘fees’. Next day I reserved seats online, so presumed all was well. The Avios were charged immediately, but it turns out the card was never charged, which I failed to notice. Couldn’t do OLCI, but nothing new there, bless BA IT, but at the airport, wasn’t allowed to check in, even though we had reserved seats, the agent could see us on the manifest, but ‘ticket says no’. Spent a quite frantic 2 hours on the phone to Exec club before finally being transferred to ticketing, who took the payment, got escorted through security and straight on to plane as they shut the doors behind us.

It’s not always someone trying to game the system or knowingly benefit from ‘bank error in your favour’.

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Florida, along with many US states includes spouse/life partner(same address)/carer as no-charge driver. They must still show drivers license at pick up.
The fact that many companies ‘allow’ you to select this as an additional fee is ‘interesting’, like many US customs…