sorry--yes i meant that day of travel then obviously i'd risk losing all due to it being within the 24hr window.

potentially brilliant idea--does it matter if i have him cancel his (revenue) return leg and book him LIN-LHR-SFO which currently shows avios availability on the date and time he needs? i imagine he will need to cancel that leg, or would BA allow a person to have a paid tix AND an avios tix on the same flight? its a corp contract, so fully refundable, easy to cancel return leg etc.

does that increase the likelihood of BA helping out getting him to SFO if IRROPS occur on the first leg LIN-LHR?