This thread is in two parts. The first part is the ULTIMATE Guide to doing an ex-LIS by the divine dnw.
The second part is sort of a reference guide to BA and the Exec Club.
I've just brought together all the knowledge that everyone has contributed over the years to the forum.
Special thanks go to RJB and Swanhunter for editing, adding, and correcting stuff.
I'm sure there will be mistakes, innacuracies, spelling mistakes, typos and stuff. These are listed in the change log (the last post).
If you want to comment on anything in the thread, suggest an addition, correction, inaccuracy etc., I'd be very grateful, if you could post it in this thread: BA FAQ: Thanks and comments
Update September 2005
ba97.com has produced a superb lounge access calendar so you can help a fellow FT'er get access to a lounge if required. To access it and enter your details, please follow the link below. http://www.ba97.com/calendar.asp
Each item in the contents page will link to a separate post in the thread, allowing easier access to each part.
This thread is designed to be a first stop for new people to the forum. It hopefully will address the most common questions to do with flying BA, and membership of the Executive Club.
The ultimate ex-LIS FAQ by dnw
-----------------------
****WARNING WARNING****
It appears that the ex-LIS deals are coming to an end, at least in F. Next quarters deals (Jan-Mar 2005), whilst not yet officially published, appear to show MASSIVE increases in F fares and slight increases in J fares. ATH is now much more competitive for J fares, the general logic explained below applies equally to ATH. We have yet to locate any other starting point with F fares anything like the current/old ex-LIS deals. If you want to 'lock in' an F fare at the current rate, for use anytime in the next 12 months, your deadline is 15th Dec 2004 and please pay special attention to the section highlighted below.
What's all this about cheap BA premium fares from Portugal?
How much/when/where?
What are the rules and restrictions? But I want to book further ahead / I'm worried they won't renew the offer?
What is the catch?
So how do I find/book these fares?
But I have a UK/other credit card and ba.com wants a PT one?
Can I do the LIS part of the trip back2back?
You keep mentioning LIS, what about OPO/FAO?
What about other EU destinations?
Will I ever be able to go back to Economy?
What's all this about cheap BA premium fares from Portugal?
The worst kept secret on the BA board... if you want to save thousands (literally!) on J and F travel on BA to a number of destinations just by doing a quick roundtrip to Portugal, read on...
How much/when/where?
The fares are published on a quarterly basis on THIS PAGE, usually appearing a couple of weeks before the end of the previous quarter . The fares are valid for DEPARTURES in the specified quarter. Although there is no guarantee that the 'specials' will be renewed at the end of any given quarter, they have been for the last 2 years... The current quarter is 1st Oct - 15th Dec 2005.
The destinations available and respective fares (return NOT including tax) for this quarter are as follows:
The rules (and prices) do seem to change a little bit from quarter to quarter. As and when the new fares and rules are made available, I'll try to update them here.
-Changes charged at ƒ200 each
-Stopovers' charged at ƒ200 each
-Cancellation penalty ƒ250
-Return within 12 months
'- A stopover is a transit of an intermediate point that exceeds 24hrs.
A neat trick for the Club fares- if you time your arrival into London from LIS and departure of your longhaul segment right, you can essentially have a free nightstop in London without having an 'official' stopover. EG you arrive from LIS on a Monday at 2115... you can book your longhaul flight the next day (Tuesday) at any time up to 2114 (<24hrs) and it is NOT charged as a stopover. Book it for 2115 or above and that'll be ƒ200 please!
I want to book further ahead / I'm worried they won't renew the offer?
Only your FIRST SEGMENT has to depart in the specified quarter. For example, you want to go to JFK in First on 4th Jan... you can book:
LIS-LHR 15th Dec (or before)
*stopover*
LHR-JFK 4th Jan
JFK-LHR whenever
LHR-LIS whenever
and you'll still get the pre-Dec 15th fare. Remember that stopovers are charged for on J fares so if you have to do this, you might find that the difference between the F fare has suddenly shrunk
Your return trip can take place at any time in the 12 months following your origonal departure.
What is the catch?
There isn't one! well, except you MUST MUST MUST start your journey in LIS. You CANNOT discard the LIS segment and just turn up for the longhaul, Amadeus is not as forgiving as BABS was and it will automatically invalidate your entire trip.
You don't need to take the final segment if you dont wan't to. If you are on a J ticket (where stopovers are chargeable) and are worried about BA wanting to check your bags all the way through to Portugal, then book your return segment back into OPO or FAO which go from LGW- the LHR/LGW transit means they CAN'T through check your bags. Or just use up your premium handbaggae allowance and take a couple of rollons!
If you are on an F ticket then a neat trick is to take advantage of the free stopovers and book your final LHR-LIS segment a long time in the future... you can then use this to get down to LIS to start your next trip!
So how do I find/book these fares?
In order to get a special fare you need availability in the following booking classes on your required flights:
LIS-LHR segment I-class (sometimes D on F fares but we'll say I to be safe)
LHR-<DEST> I-class for Club, A-class for First
You can use THIS PAGE to check availability by I/A code but you MUST fill out every field for it to work. If you get Japanese you have not filled in all the fields.
If you get all this right, ba.com PT will spit out the required fare without fail.
I want to go to Sao Paulo in F, I want to go on the 20th Dec and back on 2nd Jan.
I have to start my journey before 15th Dec because of the expiration of the current specials. So I check the following (hypothetical results) using the link provided:
LIS-LHR on 15th Dec I9 - OK
LHR-GRU on 20th Dec A5 - OK
GRU-LHR on 2nd Jan A3 - OK
LHR-LIS at some random date in the future - I9 - OK
So i go to ba.com PT and the stopover section and plug in dates:
LIS-GRU
Departing on 15th Dec, returning on 2nd Jan
I want to make a stopover on my outward Journey
I want to stop in LON and leave there on 20th Dec
I want to make a stopover on my return journey
I want to stop in LON and leave there on <some random date in future>
Hey presto the nice F fare I want comes out.
At the moment the OPO/FAO fares don't seem to price on ba.com. Call BA in PT for these.
But I have a UK/other credit card and ba.com wants a PT one?
Two choices:
1) Just put your number/details in anyway. It has been reported to work but the choice is yours.
2) Call the nice folk at BA in Portugal. They speak perfect English, are very helpful and well used to people phoning up for the cheapo J/F fares. They'll be happy to take your card. The number is: +351 21 415 4151
Can I do the LIS part of the trip back2back?
Yes you can. The best way is as follows:
-Book the trip down to LIS on BA as well (an elcheapo will do). The incoming/outging flight pair are fine, you have enough time to get off and back on again.
-Use OLCI and print your own BP for the return LIS segemnt, or if you are nervous of this you can ask at checkin/in the lounge for them to issue you the return BP. Just give them your booking reference.
-On arrival at LIS go straight UP THE STAIRS before immigration marked 'flight connections', this is visible whetehr you arrive via a gate or via bus. If you get to immigration you've gone too far.
You can do this easily in about 20 mins even with the buses. If you are nervous, just take the earlier flight down and enjoy your LIS lounge access!
DONT take your bags with you if you are doing a b2b in LIS. It really isn't worth it, leave them in left luggage at LHR and then check them in when you get there (just go to the fast bag drop, show your boarding pass for the longhaul segment and say you want to tag these bags through)
You keep mentioning LIS, what about OPO/FAO?
"ex-LIS" has become part of the BA board volcabulary! The fares are equally valid from Porto and Faro if you fancy a weekend there instead and that way you also get to sample the great GB Airways franchise from LGW. If you are intending to only do a back2back, its recommended that you do LIS.
What about other EU destinations?
We have yet to find any EU destination that offers anythign close to the First deals, however quite a few do offer very good club deals. You can try:
BA has four different classes of travel. They are:
FIRST Club World and Club Europe (Business Class) World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy) World Traveller and Euro Traveller (Economy / Coach)
FIRST(Picture) is on all 747 equipment, located in the nose, and on most 777 aircraft. It is also on longhaul 767 aircraft, but will be phased out, most likely by late summer 2005. The 747’s have 14 seats, the 777’s have 13, 14 or 17 depending on type, and the 767’s have 8. It is a 6’6” bed that goes totally flat. Also there is an ottoman, which, if travelling with a companion, can be used by them to sit on, allowing you to dine facing each other. The seat also features EmPower which is what most airlines use for providing in-seat power. There is a video screen, which gives access to the 12 or 18 channel entertainment system on the aircraft. Additionally there’s a Hi-8 video player allowing you to watch movies supplied by the crew. You also get a nice amenity kit, with an Anya Hindmarch designed bag, and on night flights, grey pyjamas. The First cabin on the 747 and 777 fleet was given a make over by Kelly Hoppen in 2000, with new soft furnishings and cushions. The makeover also saw the IFE updated. The 767 have not received this treatment.
Club World(Picture) comes in two varieties, New Club World (NCW) and Old Club World (OCW). The New product is on most aircraft. There area now only a few 767’s left at LHR left to refit. NCW is a 6-foot, fully flat and horizontal bed. Like first, it also features Empower and the same IFE options, though there is no tape player. The seats alternate forward and backwards facing to fit together in an almost yin/yang like shape. OCW is the more typical Cradle seat first implemented in 1996, featuring a 50” pitch (Picture). The amenity kit features nice Molton Brown Products.
World Traveller Plus(Picture) is an improved economy product, and definitely not a downgraded business class. It features eight abreast seating, instead of nine or ten abreast, and a 38” pitch. They are new seats, specially designed by Recaro and have foot rests and extra recline. They also have Empower. The discounted WT+ fares are typically around £300 more than the cheapest WT fares.
World Traveller(Picture) is standard economy. It’s 3-4-3 on the 747, 3-3-3 on the 777 and 2-3-2 on the 767. It’s got a 31” pitch and each seat has a personal TV with either 12 or 18 channels depending on the aircraft. There is no at seat power.
Club Europe is the European business class seat. On the narrow body planes, it’s configured with convertible seating. This means on the left hand (ABC) side of the aircraft, the B seat squishes, leaving wider A C seats (an extra two inches or so). On the right hand (DEF) side, they expand giving around an extra couple of inches per seat. If the flight is busy, BA do sell the E (middle) seat. The front two thirds of the aircraft can be converted like this according to how many club passengers they are expecting. The curtain also gets moved to wherever the divide is that day. Club Europe has around a 34” pitch, so not particularly generous, but adequate. Some newer Airbuses have 120V European style plug sockets, although there aren’t too many of these. The new A321’s should have them. On the 767 aircraft, Club Europe is configured 2-2-2.
Euro Traveller is the European economy class. On the narrow bodies, it’s in a normal 3-3 configuration, while on the 767, it’s 2-3-2. Again it has a 31” pitch. One side effect of the convertible seating on the narrow body aircraft is that the very first row of euro traveller, on the left hand side also features this A C configuration, with no B seat. They are the best in Euro Traveller.
UK Domestic is the single economy class available on all UK routes using Airbus A319/20/21 and Boeing 757 to/from LHR; Boeing 737 to/from LGW. These types feature 3-3 configuration throughout. Regional services operated by subsidiary CitiExpress feature Avro (configured 3-3) and Embraer 145 (configured 1-2) regional jets with a small number of routes operated by Dash-8 props (configured 2-2).
The BA fleet currently consists of the following aircraft:
Airbus A319
Airbus A320
Airbus A321
Avro RJ-100’s
Boeing 737-300
Boeing 737-400
Boeing 737-500
Boeing 747-400
Boeing 757-200
Boeing 767-300
Boeing 777-200
Boeing 777-200ER
Embraer ERJ-145
The BA website shows which plane will be operating your flight if you click on the flight number on ba.com during the booking process.
The mainstay of the longhaul fleet is the 747-400. These are currently all based at LHR. There are two versions, one of them has 38 club seats, the other have 70 seats. It’s a fairly even split between the two types.
The other main longhaul aircraft is the 777-200. BA has three different types, which are configured in four different seating plans. They have three of the oldest 777-200’s which are GE powered. They have first, club world, a three row world traveller plus cabin and world traveller. The main bulk of the fleet are GE powered 777-200ER’s and are also four class, but have three less first seats, and five rows of world traveller plus. BA more recently took deliver of some RR powered 777-200ER’s. These are split fairly equally into a four-class variant, and a three class variant. The three class plane has club world, world traveller plus and world traveller (no FIRST). There are also some three class GE-powered aircraft based at LGW.
The 767-300 does both shorthaul and medium to longhaul. The shorthaul version is configured with club Europe, and euro traveller. The longhaul variant has just started to be configured from having FIRST, old club world cradle seats and world traveller, to a plane having, club world, world traveller plus and world traveller. This is due to be completed late summer 2005. All the 767’s are LHR based.
The mainstay of the shorthaul fleet at LHR is the A319/20/21 fleet. They are configured with convertible seating. This means on the left hand (ABC) side of the aircraft, the B seat squishes, leaving wider A C seats. On the right hand (DEF) side, they expand. The front two thirds of the aircraft can be converted like this according to how many club passengers they are expecting. The curtain also gets moved to wherever the divide is that day. One side effect, is the very first row of euro traveller, on the left hand side also features this A C configuration. They are the best seats. Euro traveller on the rest of the plane is a standard 3-3 configuration.
The diagram below (created by jamespvg) illustrates this convertible seating:
The 757 fleet is much smaller than it once was. BA used to operate over 40, but now is down to about 12. It is the same seating as the airbus described above.
The 737 fleet is all based at LGW. BA plan to replace them all with A319/20/21 over the next few years. It features the same seating as the airbus above.
The ERJ’s and Avro’s are part of BA CitiExpress and they are operated from BA’s regional bases.
BA’s franchise partners operate a varied fleet. GB operated A320’s and A321’s in a standard Club Europe configuration. British Mediterranean operate A320’s and A321’s fitted with Club World cradle seats in addition to World Traveller.
NB, if you can find seating plans for the A319, A321, the 737-300, 737-500, 767-300 (European Version) or the 777-200 with only three rows of WT+, please let us know!
Other seating plans that are missing at the A320 and A321 operated by British Mediterranean. They have OCW seats in a 2-2 configuration. They have no plans to upgrade to NCW, but will be slightly upgrading them in 2005.
Below is the full fleet breakdown as of September 30th 2004, according to the Q2 2004/5 accounts.
Code:
AIRCRAFT FLEET
Number in service with group companies at December 31, 2004
On balance Operating leases Changes
sheet off balance sheet Total Since Future
Aircraft Dec 2004 Sep 2004 deliveries Options
AIRLINE OPERATIONS (Note 1)
Boeing 747-400 57 57
Boeing 777 40 3 43
Boeing 767-300 21 21
Boeing 757-200 13 13
Airbus A319 (Note 2) 21 12 33 3 47
Airbus A320 9 18 27 3
Airbus A321 6 6 6 1
Boeing 737-300 5 5
Boeing 737-400 (Note 3) 18 1 19
Boeing 737-500 10 10
Turbo Props (Note 4) 10 10
Embraer RJ145 16 12 28 17
Avro RJ100 16 16
British Aerospace 146 5 5
GROUP TOTAL 206 87 293 6 7 64
Notes:
1. Includes those operated by British Airways Plc and British Airways CitiExpress Ltd.
2. Certain future deliveries and options include reserved delivery positions, and may be taken as any A320 family aircraft.
3. Excludes 2 Boeing 737-400s sub-leased to Air One.
4. Comprises 10 de Havilland Canada DHC-8s. Excludes 2 British Aerospace ATPs stood down pending return to lessor, 3 British Aerospace
ATPs sub-leased to Loganair and 12 Jetstream 41s sub-leased to Eastern Airways.
There are fours types of lounge on the BA Network, the Concorde Rooms, First lounges, Club Lounges / Terraces, and Arrivals Lounges.
BA has just added an excellent table that shows exactly the entrance criteria for all of their lounges, based on either your status or class of travel. It can be accessed at the following url: http://www.britishairways.com/travel...e/public/en_gb
There are only two Concorde rooms in the network, one at LHR and one at JFK. They are only open to people in first class on BA, people who are BA Premiers, or Qantas Chairman’s Lounge. Guests are only permitted to BA Premiers, and Qantas Chairman’s. We believe that those travelling in Qantas First class get access too.
The First lounges are open to people travelling first class, and oneworld emerald passengers. Oneworld emeralds are allowed one guest.
The business class lounges (sometimes referred to as Terraces), are open to people travelling first, club world, or club europe, oneworld emerald and sapphire passengers, and Qantas club members. AA Admirals Club members are NOT granted access. Oneworld emerald and sapphire are allowed one guest. Full fare "Business UK" domestic travellers are invited into the Terraces lounges located at most UK airports (excluding Aberdeen, Inverness, the Isle of Man, and Southampton).
Arrivals lounges are open to people travelling in first or club, BA Premiers, BA Golds, Qantas Chairman’s Lounge, and Qantas Platinum members, but NOT other oneworld emeralds. Premiers and Chairman’s Lounge are permitted one guest.
Some airports have separate First and Terraces lounges, even outside the UK – eg Boston. At others, all passengers use the Terraces lounge.
BA Golds are allowed to use BA operated Business class lounges regardless of the airline they are flying on - this is known as "Open Doors". Guests are not permitted.
Some BA lounges have WiFi provided by BT Openzone. As the list will probably get longer, I won't include it here. However here is a link to the AskBA? article that should have the correct info: AskBA? Answer 2802
Outside the lounges at LHR, there is T-Mobile WiFi access for those of you who subscribe to their service.
BA have a comprehensive list of worldwide lounges on their website, but unfortunately it's rather out of date now. I've included it from completeness though.
They also have a list of all the "Terraces" styled lounges. If you follow this link and then click "Locations".
BA also use contract lounges in many locations. These are of variable quality!
Other Notes:
At LHR T1 and T4, and rumoured to be JFK, there is a Molton Brown travel spa. They offer various treatments such as massages, facials, etc. They are open to people travelling first, club world and BA Premiers and Golds. Other oneworld emeralds, and people travelling in club Europe are not entitled to a treatment. The MB spa is first come, first served. Flying F does not enable you to jump the queue!
When flying with a Oneworld partner that uses a non-Oneworld lounge in a particular airport, BA Gold and Silver members may not always gain entry to that lounge.
Exceptions:
Nice – Only oneworld emeralds and sapphires are allowed access; NOT club Europe passengers with no status.
Lisbon - Oneworld emeralds and sapphires are allowed access; Club Europe passengers with no status will require an invitation (usually given at check-in).
Gatwick – AA Admirals Club members are admitted when travelling on AA only.
Miami – They are just odd here. AA members seem not to be welcome here, in contravention of the oneworld rules.
Hanover (HAJ) - Only oneworld emeralds and sapphires are allowed access; NOT club Europe passengers with no status.
Geneva - Open Doors for Golds on CHARTER flights doesn't apply during the ski season due to lack of space. You're ok if you're on a non-oneworld scheduled flight. Again, this seems to be a bit contradictory to BA's rules.
Tel Aviv - The BA (contract) lounges at TLV and CAI are open to Silvers/Golds/OW Emeralds & Sapphire but you must ask for an invitation at check-in if you're not flying in a premium cabin. Showing your card at the lounge reception is likely to prove unsuccessful.
Washington Dulles - The long-awaited refurbishment of the British Airways Lounge at Washington Dulles International Airport is scheduled to start at the beginning of March 2005 with a proposed completion date of 1 June 2005. The proposed refurbishment will be completed in two phases, reducing the passenger capacity during the period of the works. During this time the lounge will only be able to accommodate fifty passengers at any one time, with priority being given to FIRST passengers and a small number of Club World passengers. Entrance will be therefore be restricted to a 'first come, first serve' basis. There will also be no dining facilities available during this time, however a selection of sandwiches will be provided.
Paris (CDG) - only admits BA J/F and BA Silver/Golds, not other oneworld elites. This is due to it being an Air France contract lounge.
ceBA stands for Customer Enabled British Airways. This covers a multitude of sins such as the website, manage my booking (MMB), online check-in (OLCI) and the self service kiosks.
Ba.com is (unsurprisingly) BA’s website, allowing you to book tickets for any BA flight. There’s also an area for Executive Club Members.
BA.com has also recently been updated to properly support Macs. Previously, it was coded so badly that you couldn’t even bring up your exec club statement. They’ve ironed out most of the bugs now though. However, they are only supporting Safari under MacOS X. Any other browser is NOT supported. Under Windows, they are only supporting IE. Gecko based browsers such as Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox tend to work mostly (especially since it’s been re-written for Safari support), but some things may not work properly.
If you’re booking a flight that’s a single hop, you’ll be presented with the Fare Explorer to choose your times. It’s an easy colour coded way of selecting the cheapest fare. It’s recently been enhanced to allow you to upgrade either one, or both legs of the flight. If you’re logged in to the Exec Club area, it’ll tell you how many miles you’ll earn too. The fare explorer won’t come up, if you’re booking flights with a connection.
Paying for Flights
It’s a little more of a pain to book flights that don’t depart from your country of residence, but it is possible. In the navy blue bar near the top of the site, the country you selected when you first visited the site will be displayed (for the majority of people it’ll be United Kingdom or USA). Clicking on it brings up a country list, where you can change your starting point.
Proceed through the booking process as normal. When you get to the payment page, the country in the field is irrelevant despite what the website says. As long as the credit card number, name on the card, expiry date, and security digits are correct (and it’s not a nicked card), it will process and authorise regardless of the billing address.
They accept:
American Express
Diners
JCB
MasterCard
Solo
Switch / Maestro
Visa
Visa Debit (Visa Delta)
Manage My Booking (MMB)
Once you’ve booked a flight, you should get a reference number. It’s called a PNR (Passenger Name Record). It’s a 6 character alphanumeric string, which will start with either, X, Y, Z or 2. MMB will allow you to do the following:
• add your Executive Club number to your booking
• request a seat
• advise dietary requirements
• view, print or email your itinerary
• print or email your e-ticket receipt (if applicable)
• provide Advance Passenger Information for travel to relevant countries
• check in online
MMB is a great way of selecting what seats you want to sit in. However, not all seats are made available for selection in advance. In general, about a third of WT, about a half of CW and most of F is available for pre-selection. If you’re stuck in less than desirable seats, wait until 24hrs before the flight, and OLCI. If you are not able to get your preferred seats (i.e. two together, upper deck etc) with pre-selection, it is still highly likely that you can get them using OLCI.
On-Line Check-In (OLCI)
This brings us nicely to OLCI. OLCI is a great tool, but has some limitations.
Executive Club members can check in from 24hrs before the first flight, and registered users of ba.com, from 12 hours. We highly recommend that you OLCI at as close to -24hrs from departure as possible in order to guarantee yourself the best seat. This is especially true if you want an emergency exit row. Despite CAA rules to the contrary, you can get usually book an emergency exit seat through OLCI at -24hrs, even though BA check-in staff have not been able to physically check that you are capable of opening the exit door.
If you have a multiple segment itinerary, you will be able to OLCI, for all segments, from 24hrs before the first one. This means that for some segments, you will be able to check-in greater than 24 hours in advance. This also works if you have a return flight on the same day – i.e. you’ll be able to check in for the return segment 24h before the outbound.
OLCI on it’s own, will NOT give you a boarding pass. Some airports however are trialling print your own boarding pass. They are (as of 22nd October 2004): (list is dry and a moving feast – perhaps say ‘if you can do this, it will tell you when you OLCI’)
• Amsterdam
• Athens
• Barcelona
• Berlin
• Bordeaux
• Cologne
• Düsseldorf
• Edinburgh
• Frankfurt
• Geneva
• Hamburg
• Hanover
• Johannesburg (domestic flights only)
• Lisbon
• London City
• Madrid
• Moscow (DME)
• Munich
• Newcastle
• Nice
• Oslo
• Paris (CDG)
• Stockholm
• Stuttgart
• Tel Aviv
• Vienna
• Zurich
This is still newish, so you may have a few problems going through security with it. However, it should get you all the way to the plane. Places like EDI where they’ve had it longer, should be better equipped than others.
OLCI looks pretty similar or MMB, but they are totally different web-based application, written by different teams, and interface with different systems.
MMB for example, can pick the seats of all the passengers within the PNR. OLCI can NOT. You have to OLCI for each passenger separately. This could potentially lead to you picking a seat, doing OLCI, and when you then get to your travelling companion, the adjacent seat being taken by someone else. The way around this is to have two browser windows open.
Recently, BA have added a feature that allows you to check in all passengers on a PNR. This is basically a bodge job, as you still have to go through the process separately for each person, but you don’t have to login and logout of the EC secure area. If you still manage to lose the seat next to you during that short period, once you’ve OLCI’d, you can always go through the entire process again, and move to another seat.
NB, If you print your own boarding pass, you can only go through OLCI once (as BA's instructions say you can only print it once). So if you end up with the situation where a companion can't sit next to you, you'll have to change seats at the airport.
The choose your seat function will not work on any web browser using the gecko rendering engine (Netscape / Mozilla / Firefox), nor will it work on Safari. You will need to use IE5/6 for Windows or IE5 for MacOS X.
Sometimes, you may not be able to pick your seat. This could be because the flight is very full, or the airport have taken control of the seating or because OLCI is having a bad day! It is worth waiting a few hours, and going through the OLCI process again, seats may have opened up. You can use OLCI as many times as you want during the 24 hour window. Worth doing on a busy flight as seat availability can change quite a bit.
If there are children or infants in the booking, NO passenger will be able to OLCI. BA’s reason for this is that potentially the child or infant could OLCI by themselves, which would leave BA with an unaccompanied minor on the flight.
OLCI is also frequently un-reliable.
OLCI can be used if you have baggage to check-in. Most airports have a “Fast Bag Drop” (FBD) desk where you can tag the bags, and obtain your boarding passes (if you haven’t already). The advantage of using the FBD desk is that the queue is usually very short. At some airports, the FBD desk doubles as the Club/First counter, meaning it’s even quicker. You can also drop your bags at a normal counter if the queue is shorter – the Club line (assuming you have a Silver card or are travelling Club) is often quicker than Fast Bag Drop.
Self Service Check-in Machines (SSCI)
Most UK airports, some European airports, and JFK have self-service check-in machines. From these you can, select your seat and obtain your boarding passes. You don’t need to be an Exec Club member to use them, however it does speed things up. The machine will also require you to insert the credit card the booking was purchased with. There are usually a few staff milling around to help customers with them, however they are very straightforward and easy to use.
Most airlines frequent flier programmes are open to anyone to sign up for. BA’s is not.
To join, you must have a flight booked that will earn you tier points. This means that if you are on a cheapo economy ticket, you will not be able to join.
The eligible booking classes are:
Economy: Y B H
Traveller Plus: W T
Club: J C D I
First: F A
If you are not booked in any of these classes, you will not be able to join.
Is not as rigorous as it should be. It does not check to see if your flight is in the fare classes mentioned above; meaning it will let you sign up, even on cheap fares. As far as anyone has reported, BA haven’t done any manual checks on this, however they theoretically could, and cancel your account.
You can even put in a flight with a random flight number that you haven’t even booked yet, and you’ll be able to join.
If you are based in the UK, the other way to join the EC is to take out a BA Amex card. In the USA, you can join by taking out a BA Visa card.
If you are based in Australasia, you will not be able to join the executive club. BA recommends you join the Qantas programme instead.
If you are based in Asia, you will also not be able to join the executive club. BA recommends that you join the Cathay Paciific Asia Miles / Marco Polo Club instead.
For more information on this, see the membership countries section, later on.
You also need to be 18 or over to join the EC. The only exception to this is the household account, which has its separate section, later on.
Comping from other FF programmes
BA very rarely comp status from other FF programmes. The exception to this is if you’re an employee of a large corporate that has a deal with BA. Your best bet is to speak to your account manager to see what he/she can arrange. Comps can also come through contact with your local country office – obviously this would be easier in somewhere like Romania rather than the US.
BA's official position on comping is:
Quote:
Originally Posted by BA Executive Club
It is very rare for BA to match the tier status you hold with another airline. There are a few examples that I’m aware of in the US where this has been done for individuals from specific corporate clients, however as a general policy we don’t match tier status.
Kind Rgds
Lyndsay Meldrum
Executive Club Customer Service
British Airways
Most airline programmes work on the principle that if you fly “n” thousand miles in a twelve-month period, you’ll get elite status. BA’s programme doesn’t work like that. Instead, each flight, if it’s booked in an eligible fare class will earn a certain number of points. Get enough points, and you get promoted to the next tier.
There are four tiers in the BA Exec Club;
Blue
Silver
Gold
Premier
Blue is the basic level and is what you start on.
Once you reach the required number of points, you will be promoted to Silver.
From Silver, with another load of points you’ll get to Gold.
Premier is an invitation only level. There are only around 1500 Premiers worldwide. You can’t get to it by flying a lot. They are generally given to people that BA consider are important, and each new Premier has to be approved by the board.
Promotion
The promotion process is not as simple as it could be. First off, you need to have four flights on BA that earn tier points. If you don’t have this, as your flights are all on partners, you will remain blue forever. Also, the number of points required for each level, depends on where you live. The levels are given below.
Code:
UK and USA Rest of Europe
Silver 600 400
Gold 1500 800
The chart shows that if you are a UK/US resident, you need to get 600 tier points, before you can be promoted to silver. A resident of the rest of Europe (or someone with a European mailing address – see FAQ for more information on this) only needs to get to 400. To reach gold, a UK/US resident would need a further 1500 points, and someone living in the rest of Europe, only a further 800.
When you reach or exceed the number of points required for promotion, your tier points will be reset to zero. Your membership year will also be rest immediately. This means that from that date you are promoted, you will have one further year to maintain your status.
So to get to gold from blue, you will need at least 600 tier points to get to silver, these will then be reset to zero, and you will need a further 1500 points to get to gold.
There are some additional pitfalls that you need to be aware of during the promotion process. For most people, it’s fairly unlikely that they will hit 600 points exactly. When I was promoted, I got to 680 points, which then got reset to zero. So what happens to those extra points over the 600 mark? Well, you lose them. BA will not credit them back to you. So if you’re on 580 points, and you take a first class flight, you are effectively losing 160 points. As with most “rules”, there are some exceptions. A few people have managed to get these points credited so if you desperately need the points, it may be worth a try.
Secondly, the promotion process itself can take a few days. This means that you can get several hundred points over the promotion threshold. When you do get promoted, and reset to zero, you will lose these points as well. However, do not fret. You will need to contact BA, and they will put a note on your account saying that you are “owed” how ever many points got reset. When it comes to getting promoted or renewed, you will need to contact them for them to manually process things.
Renewal
Renewal is fairly simple. Again, you need to achieve the required number of tier points and make four BA flights within the year to maintain your status. The number of tier points required for renewal is exactly the same as the number required for promotion.
Earning Tier Points on one-way BA Flights
Tier points can only be earned on oneworld flights. Tier points can not be earned on discount economy tickets. This means, if you only ever fly cheapo economy, you will never get status. In economy, you will only earn tier points on Y B H fares.
Below is a table that shows how many points you’ll earn for a single segment flight that has a BA flight number:
Code:
Cabin Economy WT+ Club First
Fare Class Y B H T W J C D I F A
UK Domestic 20 20
Europe 20 40
Longhaul 60 75 120 180
Australia 110 135 220 330
A small point with the Australia flights; if you’re booked to travel to Australia, but with a stop over, it will count as two longhaul flights, so you will actually earn slightly more than it booked as a single flight.
Fifth Freedom Flights
Also, BA operates a number of short flights that do not originate, or travel to the UK, these are known as fifth freedom flights. The full list is below:
Abu Dhabi - Muscat
Antigua - St Lucia
Bahrain - Doha
Sao Paulo - Buenos Aires
Singapore - Sydney
Singapore - Melbourne
Bangkok - Sydney
Baku - Bishkek
These are available to book by anyone, and for the short flights, can be fairly cheap, sometimes as low as £300 for a return in first for BAH-DOH. The Asia to Australia flights aren't that cheap. There is some debate about the shorter flights, however the consensus currently is that all these flights will earn the full, longhaul tier points. So BAH-DOH-BAH would earn 360 tier points – a very good deal!
Earning Tier Points on one-way Oneworld Partners
Most oneworld flights (as long as they are in an eligible fare class) can earn you tier points. The only exception to this are flights with a oneworld airlines code, that are operated by a non-oneworld airline. For example AA put their codes on to Alaska Airline flights. These would not earn tier points.
Below is a basic table that shows the tier points earned on oneworld flights. Later, in the oneworld section of this guide, I will document which exact fare classes for each carrier are eligible for points.
Code:
Economy Business First
Flights < 2000 miles 20 40 60
Flights > 2000 miles 60 120 180
As I briefly touched on in the “joining information” and in the “tier points” section, BA has a different set of tier points, rules, and regulations depending on what part of the world you’re from.
Residents of these countries, BA recommends join the Qantas Frequent Flier programme:
Australia
New Zealand
Surrounding Islands (whatever that means)
Residents of these countries, BA recommends join the Cathay Pacific Asia Miles and/or Marco Polo Club:
Brunei
Cambodia
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Laos
Macau
Malaysia
Myanmar
North Korea
People’s Republic of China
Philippines
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan
Thailand
Vietnam
So, assuming you’re in a country, that can join, there are several different membership areas, North America, the UK and Ireland, Africa and Mainland Europe. The rest of the world, places like the middle east, tend to get grouped into the “European” region.
Each area has different promotions and offers from time to time.
You are allowed to change your country of residence, once every six months.
As mentioned in the “tier points” section, those living in North America, the UK and Ireland and Africa, have to get more tier points, than those living in other locations, such as Mainland Europe.
Other items of note with regard to countries of residence include credit card programmes. You have to have an address in the USA to have a BA Visa card, and a UK address for the BA Amex. If you subsequently change address after having one of these accounts, it will be CLOSED. More info on the Amex is in the Amex section, later on.
The North American region consists of:
Canada, Mexico, and the USA.
IMPORTANT – if you set up a HA then you will NOT be able to redeem miles for someone outside the HA, unlike standard BAEC account holders.
Household accounts (HHA’s), or family accounts as they are sometimes referred to are a way of pooling miles for redemptions. They are also a way of allowing under 18’s to join.
Each member must have the same address. You then need to fill in a form, and fax it to BA. They will then lose the form, not do anything, and you’ll probably need to call (and fax) a few times before they manage to set it up.
Once it is set-up, you will have two mileage balances when you log into the website, a personal one, and a household one. The household one is the mileage balance of all the members, combined.
Mileage is the only thing that is shared; status is NOT shared i.e. if one member is silver and the other is blue, the blue member travelling alone, will not have lounge access, club check-in etc.
As you have to be 18 or over to join the EC, the HHA is a good way to let kids join. There is no age restriction when joining a family account.
The maximum number of members in a HHA is eight (one primary member, and seven others).
You can only make one change to a HHA (which means adding and removing members, changes to your address) every six months.
Spending Miles from a household account
There’s a specific formula that calculates how miles are get removed from each members account.
Where a is the first member, b is the second member, c is the third and so on; and x is the number of miles being redeemed:
Miles deducted from a = (a/(a+b+c+...)) * x
Miles deducted from b = (b/(a+b+c+...)) * x
What this means in English is:
If I have 20,000 and my partner has 40,000 (for a total of 60K), they would deduct twice as many miles from his account as mine. e.g. for a 10,000 mile award, they'd take 6667 from his and 3333 from mine.
Some people have had success at getting BA to deduct the miles in different proportions, but don’t count on it.
Members of the HHA who are under 18, can not redeem miles for tickets.
Well, we finally get down to the business of actually earning miles!
First off, you need to actually work out how long a trip you’re travelling on. A great tool for determining the distances between two points is this website:
The distances aren’t exactly what BA use, but they are pretty accurate.
BA are pretty stingy with miles if you’re not travelling on a Y B H fare or higher. In fact, anything less than that (i.e. most cheapy economy tickets), only earn 25% of the miles. That means if you’re on a flight that’s 1000 miles, you’ll only get 250 miles credited.
The chart below shows how many miles you’ll earn, depending on what class you’re in. BA call this a “Cabin Bonus”:
Code:
Cabin Economy Economy WT+ Club First
Fare Class NVRKMLOS Y B H W T J C D I F A
Miles 25% 100% 125% 150% 200%
Award fares don’t earn any miles or tier points at all. These are tickets booked in to X, P, U and Z.
In addition to this, silver members get a 25% bonus on the base mileage, and golds get a 50% bonus on the base mileage. BA call this a tier bonus.
For short flights, there is a 500-mile minimum. However, if you’re travelling on a cheapy ticket, you only get 25% of this, which is 125 miles. The gold and silver bonus is actually calculated from the 500, so you have the bizarre situation of your tier bonus being more miles than the actual flight.
Right, these are the rules, but how does it actually work.
I’ll take an LHR-BOS flight as first example. A gold is travelling traveller plus:
Base mileage 3265
Cabin bonus 816
Tier Bonus 1633
TOTAL 5714
Lets take an example of a silver travelling LHR-CDG on a cheap N class economy ticket:
Base mileage 125
Cabin bonus 0
Tier Bonus 125
TOTAL 250
I hope that makes sense.
In addition to earning miles for flying, you can also buy miles from BA. You can buy up to 15,000 miles per calendar year, in 1,000 mile increments.
Below is a table, illustrating how much it costs to buy miles
You can also buy miles for other members, up to 15,000 per year.
Buying miles looks expensive, but can be good value if you’re just short of an award. A few hundred pounds worth of miles, when compared the cost of a revenue premium class ticket, compares quite favourably.
Another benefit of buying miles if you have a household account is that you can buy miles for all the members of your household. Each member gets 15K miles per year to buy.
Miles can’t be transferred between accounts.
I’ll talk about earning miles from places partners such as Avis, Tesco, Shell and others in the partners section.
So you’ve got a great wodge of miles, how do you spend them?
Well, being an airline, flights would be the logical thing, but you can donate them to Oxfam’s Change for Good programme, among other things.
Award tickets and MFU’s book into one of four fare buckets, X for Economy, P for WT+, U for Club, and Z for First. The amount of seats left in each bucket is only viewable to BA. It isn’t made public on GDS’s such as Sabre. To check availability, you can either call them, and ask, (they’re usually very obliging), or check on ba.com.
Availability varies considerably. To destinations such as the US and Canada, where there a lots of flights, you can generally get awards in all cabins on the dates and flights you want. Unfortunately, especially to popular places, such as the Caribbean, India, South Africa, and South America availability is rubbish, or even non existent – even more so for premium cabins.
We strongly recommend redeeming for Club or F seats as this is by far the best way to get the best value for your miles.
When spending miles for flights, there are several options.
Part Cash, Part Miles (PCPM)
Firstly, part cash, part miles. This isn’t actually a very good deal, as you can only do it for economy tickets. It reduces the number of miles you need for an award by 25%. For example, if you need 12,000 miles for an award, this will reduce it to 9,000. PCPM are best avoided.
Miles Only Awards
Secondly, you can spend miles for free flights! BA break up the world into different zones. The cost depends on what zone you’re travelling to and from. To work out how many miles a flight will cost, go here:
This will give you the “base mileage” i.e. the amount of miles needed for an economy class award.
If you want to travel in a premium cabin, simply multiply the “base mileage” by the following amounts:
Economy 1x
Traveller Plus 1.5x
Club 2x
First 3x
Miles only award tickets are flexible up to 24 hours before departure (however someone has managed to change it on the day of departure). After departure they are non-changeable. Now this is a really silly rule, and it would be great if BA were to change it, but so far they haven’t. Easiest way to avoid it is to book two one-way awards, unless you have an Amex voucher.
Changes that require a re-issue of the ticket (changing destination, changing class, cancellations), cost £25 per person. Date only changes are free.
Miles For Upgrades (MFU)
A third way to spend miles for flights is to pay and upgrade. This is usually referred to as a MFU (miles for upgrade). This can be an extremely good deal. Generally the best option will be to upgrade from WT+ to Club, but I’ll explain the process for any fare.
MFU’s can be from Economy to WT+; from WT+ to Club; and from Club to FIRST.
You can only upgrade from Economy to WT+ if you ticket is a Y B H fare. You can NOT upgrade from a cheapy fare.
Another extremely important caveat is that you can only upgrade a ticket that has been purchased directly from BA. If you are in North America, you can upgrade a ticket, but it must have been purchased from a “BA Preferred Travel Agent”.
Also, you can't upgrade only one segment (i.e. the return flight only). If you want to do an MFU, you must upgrade both segments. However, you can get round this, as BA will allow you to MFU (and charge half the miles) if only one segment is available for upgrade. Actually getting an agent to book this however, can be quite problematic. It may require escalation, or a PM to Lyndsay to sort out.
The good thing about MFU’s is that you’ll earn tier points and miles for the fare you PURCHASED i.e. the fare you are upgrading from.
You can only upgrade one class.
The cost in miles for an MFU is the base mileage multiplied by a certain amount:
Economy to WT+ 0.5x
WT+ to Club 0.5x
Economy to Club 1.0x*
Club to FIRST 1.0x
*Some of the 767’s don’t have WT+. If you’re on one of these flights, you can upgrade from Economy, straight to Club. On all other aircraft, you can only go from WT to WT+, or from WT+ to Club.
When it comes to changing MFU’s it can get complicated. If you MFU from a restricted ticket, then those restrictions still apply. If you MFU from a full fare, unrestricted ticket, then you LOSE that flexibility. The ticket will have the same rules as a normal award ticket i.e. after departure, no changes. Again, this is crap, but it’s the rules.
The Shareholders discount can not technically be combined with an MFU, however you are able to book it over the web.
MFU’s are extremely problematic when it comes to actually getting credit for the fare you paid. BA’s back office systems when it comes to this are a disgrace. MFU’s are an oddity, as the system needs to track two fare classes, the one you paid for, and the one you booked into. The problem is, the fare class you book into, is the same as for award tickets. So the system can incorrectly log it as an award ticket, and it comes up on the statement as earning no points or miles.
For example, a normal MFU from WT+ to Club, should appear on your statement as J/T (i.e. you sat in J but paid for T). Most of the time, it comes up as J/U instead. To correct this, you need to speak to someone at the service centre. This can take anywhere from two weeks to months to credit. Some people have had tens of phone calls, and numerous faxes before it was sorted. What’s crazy is that it actually takes about five minutes for them to do. This part of the executive club is a appalling, and I urge you to write to Sharon Callaghan (Manager of the Exec Club) whenever this happens.
Gold (High Value) upgrades
At 2500 and again at 3500 tier points (2000 only for European members), a BA gold member earns one of these upgrade vouchers. They are a very nice perk, allowing the upgrade of the member and one person to the next cabin for a return trip on any BA flight number including franchise flights but excluding code-shares. Unlike MFU, a Gold upgrade can be used on any revenue ticket (even deep discounted Y). Pre 1st July 2003, the upgrade booked into revenue fare classes (i.e. T, D, A) making them extremely easy to use – and often resulting in tier points and miles for the higher cabin being awarded. Post 1st July, award-booking classes are used, with a consequent lack of availability. Recently (April 2005), people have reported that these now get booked into revenue classes again - please let me know your experiences.
Expiration of BA Miles
BA miles will expire if there is no activity on your account for 36 months (three years). If you're getting close to the end of three years, there are a lot of things you can do to extend the life of your account. You can buy miles, donate them to charity, order flowers, stay in a hotel, rent a car, or even take a flight! Anything that appears as an item on your statement will mean the account is active for another 36 months.
Partner Awards
You can also redeem miles on oneworld partners. Beware however, they are NOT changeable, and NOT refundable. So if you book one of these, make sure your plans are set in stone. This link is a table on the BA website showing the mileage requirements:
However, it’s not correct. Emirates (EK) are no longer a partner, so you will not be able to use them to redeem miles on.
If you really have loads and loads of miles, you can redeem them for a oneworld award. This is an award based on the number of miles flown. The table that illustrates the number of miles needed is here:
As with all awards, if you want to travel in business class, you need to multiply the miles you need by 2x, and if you want to travel in first, by 3x.
Spending Miles for Children and Infants
Infants (less than 2 years of age) travelling with a Member on a flight Award will travel for ten percent of the Mileage required for the Member's flight Award if they do not have their own seat. Children (2 years of age or older) and infants who require their own seat will be "charged" the full Mileage for the relevant destination. This also applies for MFU's too i.e. a MFU for an infant will only cost 10% of the miles.
British Airways is a founding member of the oneworld alliance. At the time of writing, there are eight members, however Aer Lingus have been strongly rumoured to be leaving.
The members (with their codes in brackets) are:
Aer Lingus (EI)
American Airlines (AA)
British Airways (BA)
Cathay Pacific (CX)
Finnair (AY)
Iberia (IB)
Lan* (LA)
Qantas (QF)
*Lan is Lan Chile, Lan Peru and Lan Ecuador. However Lan Ecuador is NOT a member of oneworld as it is only partially owned by the Lan group.
Within oneworld, there are three different elite tiers. This is an effort to identify a common elite standard across the different programmes.
They are:
Ruby
Sapphire
Emerald
There is no level in the BA programme that equates to oneworld ruby. Ruby allows business class check-in, and that’s pretty much it. It does NOT grant lounge access.
Sapphire is equivalent to BA Silver and gives access to business class lounges, and business class check-in.
Emerald is equivalent to BA Gold and gives access to first class lounges, and first class check-in.
BA Premier members are also given oneworld emerald status.
Partners
BA also has a number of partners that are not a member of oneworld. These partners allow you to earn miles, but not tier points. You can also redeem miles on non-oneworld partners.
BA’s partners are:
Alaska Airlines (AS)
America West (HP)
JAL (JL)
SN Brussels (SN)
Franchises
Sometimes when you fly on BA, you’re not actually flying on BA. In several parts of the world, BA has franchises. You’ll still get a BA flight number, the crew will still be in BA uniform, the planes will still be in BA colours. In fact, with some franchise operators like GB Airways, the service is better than BA themselves.
The franchise carriers are:
British Mediterranean Airways Ltd
British Airways CitiExpress Ltd
Comair Pty Ltd (South Africa)
GB Airways Ltd
Loganair Ltd
Sun–Air of Scandinavia A/S
Emirates
Emirates used to be a partner, but that relationship ceased on October 30th 2004. For more details, please see this link from ba.com:
Earning Miles and Tier Points on Oneworld and Partner Airlines
Earning miles and tier points on partner and oneworld airlines isn’t as simple as on BA flights. In fact, depending on what fare class you’re booked into, and what cabin you’re in, it can be quite complicated. Rather than explain the “n” number of possibilities, I’ll link to the table on ba.com that does a pretty good job of listing all the possibilities.
Most of the time, you’ll need to travel in Y B H to earn anything other than 25% of miles. Business tends to earn 125% of miles flown. First tends to earn 150%. For tier points earning, see the “tier points” section of this thread.
One very important point - you cannot earn miles or tier points, or redeem miles when flying on AA between the USA and the UK. This is the same for AA people, they can't earn miles or tier points, or redeem miles on BA services between the USA and the UK. However, they can on BA flights between the UK and Canada or Mexico. This is due to UK/US government restrictions.
NB, you only get the Silver/Gold tier bonus on BA and QF – no one else
This section deals with the BA American Express Cards that are available to people in the UK. Sorry to all those US users of the BA Visa, but you never seem to generate enough questions, and I know bugger all about the programme. BA in Germany offer a MasterCard, in France there's a Diners Card, and in the Netherlands there's also a Diners Card.
There are three types of Amex card are:
Basic
Premium
Premium Plus
The basic card will earn you 1 BA mile per £1 spent, the premium will earn 1.25 miles, and the premium plus 1.5 miles.
If you a premium or premium plus card (but not the basic) and purchase something from BA, these amounts will be doubled i.e. 2.5 miles per £1 for the premium and 3 miles per £1 for premium plus. If purchasing a BA ticket from a non BA source (i.e. Travelocity) you can phone Amex to have the extra miles added to your account. Be prepared to provide documentary evidence. Purchases from Expedia DO post as BA.
The cards do have annual fees. They are £20 p.a. (free for the first year) for the basic, £60 p.a. for the premium, and £120 p.a. for the premium plus. The serious mileage collector will take the Premium Plus card.
If you hold another Amex card, such as a blue credit card, green charge card, gold charge card, the annual fee for the premium and premium plus is reduced to £30p.a. We strongly recommend, therefore, that you apply for a free Amex card, such as the blue credit card, and THEN apply for the Premium Plus BA Amex. This will save you £90 p.a.
If you have a platinum charge card, or a centurion charge card, there is no annual fee. You may need to call them to get the fee changed, it doesn’t always happen automatically.
The other benefit with the cards is the voucher you get a voucher that offers you a second ticket when you redeem your BA miles for a flight. You need to spend £20K on the basic, £17.5K on the premium, and £15K on the premium plus before you can get it.
Don’t worry if it takes you a while to get to the required spend, there’s no time limit on how long it takes.
If however, you’re spending loads on the card, you can only have one voucher every 12 months. If you’re really spending, and it takes you three months to get to the £15K (for the premium plus), the next nine months of spend will NOT count to your next voucher.
Once you get the voucher, what is it? Well when redeem your BA miles for a ticket, it will give you a second one for free. You still have to pay all the airport taxes though.
The voucher is valid for twelve months; by then you must have flown the outbound segment. If you can't fly within that period, call BA, and they will extend the voucher for another six months.
Stopovers are allowed.
This only applies to bookings with BA miles.
You can NOT use it for:
Flights paid for with money – Miles ONLY
Part Cash / Part Miles – this means no MFU’s
Partner Airlines – BA Flights ONLY
Oneworld Flights – BA Flights ONLY
Code-shares – BA Flights ONLY
Flights starting from outside the UK – the flight MUST originate in the UK
In the T&C’s it says you may not use it for flights operated by franchise partners. However, people have been successful in using it for this, notably, Comair in South Africa.
Unfortunately, to book flights using the voucher, you have to call up BA. They’ve recently introduced a £15 per person charge on all long-haul and short-haul mileage bookings made on the phone. This means it effectively “costs” £30 per booking. This is on top of all the taxes, fuel surcharges etc. This can equal nearly £200 on some longhaul flights.
Another restriction is you cannot combine a Amex voucher with a Gold Upgrade Voucher. Additionally, seats must be available in the cabin you want to upgrade from, as well as the cabin you want.
