What would you do? LHR-JFK, Cash for TP vs. 2-4-1

(title should also say, "with chance of Bronze-to-Silver transition")

Thanks for any advice. I appreciate there's a huge amount of YMMV/"how much is an Avios worth to you" etc. around this, but thoughts/sanity check welcome.

Wife and I are lowly Bronzes at 385 TP (thanks to a recent CX flight to Japan) with a 80 TP CE trip coming up.

Separate to this we might go to NY in October.

Our options are

- to use Avios (we have over 400,000) plus 2-4-1 voucher to fly CW both ways (100K points, voucher, + £1K in taxes)
- to pay WT+ in cash (£1.6K) on the basis that it's a shortish flight, and gets us 180 TP which should put us in Silver for 2018
- to wait and see if there is a flash sale for an Oct/Nov flight.

Questions

- is it silly to pass up a companion voucher opportunity, and pay £600 extra for one class down, just to get Silver and a bit of lounge access? (I suspect it is, as we don't actually travel all that often so it's more of a fetish than a practical accoutrement)

- if I go with the voucher + avios option, what are the chances (statistically that is - I won't hold you to it) that there'll be a flash sale that will have me kicking myself that I could have gone CW in cash and got best of both worlds?

- Conversely, if I go ahead and book into CW with points and voucher, is there is reasonable bet than an F upgrade opportunity will open up on this route? Impossible to say for sure I know.

- Finally - my account page says I just need 215 TP (by Nov 8) for Silver. I read somewhere about making 4 BA flights - as it doesn't say anything about this under 'my account' can I assume I'll get to Silver if I get the TP, or will I find I've failed to qualify because (for example) my Japan trip was with Cathay?

Sorry for all the questions! Suggestions with any are very welcome.

I would say it depends on your travel plans for the subsequent two years. If you are predominantly going to travel in Club or above then solve doesn't add much other than advance seat selection. Unless you are planning revenue flights on BA metal where the avios bonus will be worth something.
Remember if you choose to travel WT+ to NYC, you will loose lounge access for that trip, but will other trips over the coming months/years make up for it?

I would say if you are mainly planning on redemptions in CW/CE, then spend the voucher and ignore status. Spend the difference on an Amex Plat.

How about book WT+ and upgrade to CW with Avios?

If you book with the 241 and avios and then a sale comes up you could always cancel the redemption for £35 per person

this +1

There must be CW availabilty if youre looking to burn a 241 so why not.. the best of both worlds for an extra £150 pp each way. Thats about £20 an hour.

Spend the voucher and Avios on the CW return and go for a nice weekend in TLL for the £600 you saved. You'll have the best of both and a nice extra break for no more than you were willing to pay to go to NY:

Thanks very much for the input everyone, all of which has been informative in different ways.

Brian's point is a good one - why go without lounge access this time just to get points for maybe getting lounge for short-hop skiing flights next year...

Ditto hypercrypt and omk's points about upgrading WT+, and omk's about the ease of cancelling a reward booking if something better comes along.

And being a TP numpty I didn't know about the TLL option but will know for the future ^

Having said all that, I couldn't help exploring the availability schedule and have spotted some F availability over Xmas (with voucher) ...

However, this kind of overlaps with the "why not book WT+ and upgrade" in that I could still do that (albeit perhaps to only CW - haven't worked this out yet).

Which opens the secondary question - is it possible that I could do all this, get the TPs, and still fail because not enough of my flights in the last year have been BA-operated?

Would it tell you that in the accounts page, or does "you only need 215 Tier Points" mean purely that?

I'd be miffed if I got the TPs and then it suddenly changed to "now you only need two more BA flights"... given I only have till Nov.

It seems like we have a very similar (spooky) travel pattern! As I'm looking to do the same and I believe we cross on our CE trip! This keeps me Silver each year but wouldn't achieve this without the incredible knowledge from the people here, anyway...

How about an Ex-OSL to JFK with part pay Avios so could bring the price down to below £400 ret in WTP then UUA or AUP to CW. Still netting you 200TP's. CW is only needed on the return leg if you're happy in WTP plus on a day flight to JFK.

If you drop the last leg accidentally this would get you the 3 BA qualifier of 4 you need.

Ex-Inverness looks like it could work extremely well for you if an ex-OSL WTP doesn't work out.

Note that you can only upgrade from WTP into Club, not First (unless you manage to get an airport upgrade on the day, which is possible but by no means guaranteed).

As stated above, silver only needs four BA flights in total.

I'd bag Silver and fly WT+ for that route. IMHO 2-4-1 deployed for CW to anywhere is sub-optimal as it's really not that nice a product. Of course it depends on the shelf life of the 2-4-1 and whether you'd consider an F redemption to somewhere farther afield down the road.

There was a sale around this time last year according to continental club. Might be worth waiting a couple of days