BA companion voucher how and when to use?

[sbchannel]

Hi Dibbers

I actually posted a while ago about companion voucher but I cannot find my post, I got some great advice but it doesn't come up when I search anything I have posted.

Thanks to Virgin pricing me out of rebooking with them (7.5k for a Flydrive! ), I am going to use my Avios and BA companion voucher to book flights with BA who seemingly have been fantastic during this crisis!

I need an open jawed ticket going from Newcastle to Miami then Orlando International to Newcastle.

Is it right I would need to book the LHR to Miami first then add on the regional flights later, then when the flights are released for the Orlando leg do the same?

I also wanted to fly to Heathrow the night before the Miami flight, would I be able to do this?

And it is 364 days before the outward flight I would book right? What time do I call to ensure I get my business class flights?

Thanks in advance, stay safe!

[tonymc]

You can book the Newcastle-Heathrow-Miami flight using Heathrow as a stopover point. The booking system should allow you to book the first leg on the day before your MIA flight, then the MIA flight the following day. This would save you Avios as connecting flights are no extra Avios BUT beware of the taxes - it was almost £200 extra for us to connect from MAN-LHR for our flights next year!

Flights can be booked 355 days ahead - today, you can book flights up to 8th April 2021. Flights are released at 01:00 in the morning (during BST), so you would need to be online to grab a seat, or be on the phone to the USA call centre which would be open at that time.

For the return flight, as it would be overnight, any connection would not be available to book at the same time as the Orlando flight. Furthermore, worth noting that the Orlando flight usually arrives into Gatwick, but there are no BA (or any other carrier) flights from Gatwick to Newcastle, so you would have to make your own way from Gatwick to Heathrow.

It may be that you will have to travel first to Miami in order to then have a less risky connection via LHR. We did this quite a few years ago, and drove back from Orlando to MIA - not too bad, as we left mid-morning and spent some time at one of the malls near to the airport.

You would also need to contact the BA Call Centre to make this booking for MIA-LHR, in order to get the Companion Voucher Avios reduction. They should be able to put a hold on the flight until the LHR-Newcastle flights are released the following day.

Good luck with the flights - I’m waiting for Tuesday morning (01:00) when seats for our return from Australia next year should become available.

[sbchannel]

Originally Posted by tonymc

You can book the Newcastle-Heathrow-Miami flight using Heathrow as a stopover point. The booking system should allow you to book the first leg on the day before your MIA flight, then the MIA flight the following day. This would save you Avios as connecting flights are no extra Avios BUT beware of the taxes - it was almost £200 extra for us to connect from MAN-LHR for our flights next year!

Flights can be booked 355 days ahead - today, you can book flights up to 8th April 2021. Flights are released at 01:00 in the morning (during BST), so you would need to be online to grab a seat, or be on the phone to the USA call centre which would be open at that time.

For the return flight, as it would be overnight, any connection would not be available to book at the same time as the Orlando flight. Furthermore, worth noting that the Orlando flight usually arrives into Gatwick, but there are no BA (or any other carrier) flights from Gatwick to Newcastle, so you would have to make your own way from Gatwick to Heathrow.

It may be that you will have to travel first to Miami in order to then have a less risky connection via LHR. We did this quite a few years ago, and drove back from Orlando to MIA - not too bad, as we left mid-morning and spent some time at one of the malls near to the airport.

You would also need to contact the BA Call Centre to make this booking for MIA-LHR, in order to get the Companion Voucher Avios reduction. They should be able to put a hold on the flight until the LHR-Newcastle flights are released the following day.

Good luck with the flights - I’m waiting for Tuesday morning (01:00) when seats for our return from Australia next year should become available.

See more...

This is so helpful thank you... follow up! If I wanted to book online I’d have to book the outward flight at 355 would I need to call them to add the return? And would I just book it as a single way trip?

Eeek, I hope you get the seats you want on Tuesday! x

[onion2803]

Originally Posted by tonymc

You can book the Newcastle-Heathrow-Miami flight using Heathrow as a stopover point. The booking system should allow you to book the first leg on the day before your MIA flight, then the MIA flight the following day. This would save you Avios as connecting flights are no extra Avios BUT beware of the taxes - it was almost £200 extra for us to connect from MAN-LHR for our flights next year!

See more...

How strange...we booked MAN-LHR-MIA this year (now cancelled ) we had to ring up to book as we were flying home from NYC. We were told there was no additional fee/tax due for the regional leg and no additional avios required.

As we were on the phone, I was looking at the flights we wanted online using the availability search on BA website and the cost of the taxes for the flights out of LHR matched what we paid. Maybe we got lucky?

We should've been flying in 10 days

[tonymc]

Originally Posted by sbchannel

This is so helpful thank you... follow up! If I wanted to book online I’d have to book the outward flight at 355 would I need to call them to add the return? And would I just book it as a single way trip?

Eeek, I hope you get the seats you want on Tuesday! x

See more...

Yes - book the outbound flight as one way, then call to book the return flight to get the voucher applied.

When you book the outbound, it will give the option to select a stopover:

Select the stopover option as London, then you can continue your journey the following day:

[tonymc]

Something I should have mentioned - when I tried to book our connecting MAN-LHR-SYD flight three weeks ago, the BA website would not let me book using the Companion voucher, but would let me book the LHR-SYD with the voucher. At the time, quite a few other people were also having this problem, so may be worth doing a few dummy bookings on the BA website to check if this is still an issue.

Also worth noting that quite often, BA will only release 2 Club World/ Business seats at 355 days, so if you need more seats, you may struggle.

Make sure that you have your Amex card details saved against your BA account to save time when making your booking. You will still need the card to hand for the security number.

And finally, may be worth having a look at this site, which has a whole raft of information about redeeming Avios.

[tonymc]

Originally Posted by onion2803

How strange...we booked MAN-LHR-MIA this year (now cancelled ) we had to ring up to book as we were flying home from NYC. We were told there was no additional fee/tax due for the regional leg and no additional avios required.

As we were on the phone, I was looking at the flights we wanted online using the availability search on BA website and the cost of the taxes for the flights out of LHR matched what we paid. Maybe we got lucky?

We should've been flying in 10 days

See more...

Sorry to hear you have had to cancel - hopefully you will get there later this year?

It may be that the connecting flight policy has changed, or it could just be on a route by route basis. Just did another check for the same flights for a week earlier, and it is still showing as an additional £200+ in taxes for two of us. Strangely, on the Avios website, there are NO additional taxes for flying the same route from MAN!

[DisneyCupcake]

Originally Posted by tonymc

Sorry to hear you have had to cancel - hopefully you will get there later this year?

It may be that the connecting flight policy has changed, or it could just be on a route by route basis. Just did another check for the same flights for a week earlier, and it is still showing as an additional £200+ in taxes for two of us. Strangely, on the Avios website, there are NO additional taxes for flying the same route from MAN!

See more...

I had something similar happen with a 2021 trip booked yesterday using a 2-4-1 with a domestic connection when I went from the quote page (pressing the continue tab) the next screen had reduced the cost by over £200. So perhaps a glitch in BA IT system.

[stanleycamel]

Originally Posted by tonymc

Something I should have mentioned - when I tried to book our connecting MAN-LHR-SYD flight three weeks ago, the BA website would not let me book using the Companion voucher, but would let me book the LHR-SYD with the voucher. At the time, quite a few other people were also having this problem, so may be worth doing a few dummy bookings on the BA website to check if this is still an issue.

Also worth noting that quite often, BA will only release 2 Club World/ Business seats at 355 days, so if you need more seats, you may struggle.

Make sure that you have your Amex card details saved against your BA account to save time when making your booking. You will still need the card to hand for the security number.



And finally, may be worth having a look at this site, which has a whole raft of information about redeeming Avios.

See more...

There was a quite detailed article in the Sunday Times Money section yesterday by Rob Burgess who operates the website headforpoints/ mentioned in the above quote about "How to juggle your loyalty points" and there is an update about it on their site today.

[Ladyshopper]

I'm sure I read on Head For Points recently about booking the outbound then calling up and booking the inbound when it was released not being such a good deal any more, but I may have remembered that wrong.

Head For Points is a great site though, I'd highly recommend the Avios Redemption University articles that Rob is currently re-running, they'll tell you all you need to know.

I managed to book a one way flight from Miami to Panama City to join a cruise we've booked for 11,000 avios each and only £5.50 tax each, and that includes luggage! Very happy with that. Also easy to cancel if needed (if this lockdown continues for example!).