onefreetraveler

Fellow FT members, I really need your help.

I'm getting married in April of 2012 and need to plan a honeymoon trip for the future wifey and myself.

I am not an expert at redeeming miles, but have never had an issue until now.

I realize that I should have started this process many months ago, but due to other family circumstances, I did not have firm dates for travel.

I have read countless threads in an effort to educate myself as to how to successfully redeem BA miles and redeem my companion voucher.

I have been on the BA site and the Avios site to explore redemption opportunities. I plugged in all my info into the Avios site and the only options I found were Europe with $1000+ in fuel charges.

I have also tried to call for assistance and can not get the help I need.

I am not being lazy and giving up, I just running out of time and really need some assistance.

I'm just asking for a kind soul to help me.

Here are the details of my situation:

I have 134,000 Avios points.
I have one companion voucher which I know can only be redeemed on BA metal.
I want this to be special, so I want to fly my wife in First or Business class.
I can not afford to spend a ton of cash on expensive fuel fees.
I want to travel some time between April 6, 2012 and return by April 15, 2012.
We are willing to travel really anywhere as we know availability is limited. It's our honeymoon, so some place tropical would be ideal.
We would be flying out of LAX.

I would really appreciate it if you can please help us.

KenJohn

Easter is April 8 which means a 4 day weekend in the Uk; from Good Friday, April 6 to Easter Monday April 9. The UK school holidays are coming to an end and everyone is travelling. It is like wanting reward flights over Thanksgiving weekend in the US. Unless you booked a year in advance, all the flights are busy and relatively full already. Its terrible timing for Europe.

I find these two sentences contradictory. Fuel surcharge are a lot cheaper than First of Business class fares.

You are not going to get help here by being critical of BA at the start.
I am not sure the question being asked here. If you want to use your 2-4-1 voucher, you have to fly BA and pay fuel surcharges. There is no getting around this so no help is possible.

From LAX, on BA, you can fly to LHR return on BA on business for 100,000 Avios per pax (doubling to two pax with the 2-4-1 voucher). Alternatively, you could buy 16,000 Avios (but it does mean paying out more cash) to get to 150,000 Avios for F. Fuel surcharge in F is the same as CW. It does mean coming the UK or Europe for your honeymoon. I stayed at a lovely moated French Chautau for my honeymoon but then I did not elect to penny pinch. I even gave BA amiss and chose a private jet instead.

If you wish to avoid fuel surcharges, then throw away the 2-4-1 voucher and choose another OW airline and head to Central America or the Carribean.

No one is going to accuse the Op of being lazy - just asking for something that is not possible

LTN Phobia

I think you will need to forego the use of 2-4-1 and use your Avios on a partner airline if you want to go somewhere tropical. 134,000 Avios is not enough to get to a "tropical" destination on BA via LHR in order for you to utilise the 2-4-1.

Perhaps American Airlines to somewhere in the Caribbean would be something you could consider.

Genius1

American Airlines + honeymoon = SYNTAX ERROR.

kilted_barbarian

The trip will be special whatever class you fly in. Choose your destination and book economy, upgrade to WT+ using points if you can. If you want Europe fly to the Italian lakes, it will be nice at that time of year.

I got married this year and honeymoon was in SEA an LAX and Vegas. I chose to spend my limited budget on the experience, not the fancy frills and I was well looked after by BA and by the hotels.

It would have loved to afford CW or F but I can't and I make no bones about it. A private jet too would have been nice, but my advice, take what you can afford, it's a flying bus, and spend your money on the nice touches and experiences.

LTN Phobia

I can completely echo that. We flew economy class (although we did stay at a five star hotel) because we had some big relocation expenses just before we got married and decided to be frugal. It did not make any difference to it being special for us.

kilted_barbarian

LTN Phobia, as did we, booked Monterey IC and was promptly given a triple upgrade. It's amazing how well people look after you.

LTN Phobia

Indeed. I think the travel agent (in those days, we used them) entered something in the system to say it was our honeymoon and the cabin crew served us champagne and generally made a bit of a fuss of us, although subtle and not to the embarrassing extent. It was nice, and I wasn't really fussed about the flight to be honest. I think we had a nice upgrade at the hotel too and I was quite impressed.

BAHumbug

If you don't want to go to Europe then you can discount use of the Companion voucher.

I would say that your question needs more information, because without knowing the sort of things that you and Mrs you like we're really working in a vacuum.

Given that Avios now works on a distance-based model I would work out where you can conceivably go and work from there. As an example, Buenos Aires is 60k Avios Miles from LAX in Economy (return). I would guess that most places within the Americas are possible for you on this basis.

Places I can recommend personally over there are Vancouver and Sao Paulo. I've not recommended anywhere in the USA as I would guess you see that as too pedestrian.

Returning to the use of the Companion Voucher, I can understand you baulking at the surcharges, but I would argue (as so many others have done before on this forum) that you are looking down the wrong end of the telescope. You should look at what you're being asked to pay compared to the overall value of the ticket. If you do that you suddenly are looking at much better value. Assuming the cash side of it is do-able I would look at maybe a 2-centre honeymoon in Europe. If you decide that is what you want to do I'm sure the denizens of this board can give a zillion ideas...but really, you should be talking to Mrs Onefreetraveller !

BAH

onefreetraveler

Thanks for all your responses. You have made some good points about the fuel surcharges, so we will pay them to use the companion voucher on BA.

BAH,
I did take your advice and speak to the future Mrs. Onefreetraveler.

So, a major change of direction for us:

First class is non-negotiable and I have SPG points to convert to Avios points, so getting me to 150K and using the Companion voucher on BA metal is what we want to do.

Accordingly, it looks like a european vacation for our honeymoon.

The future Mrs. likes the idea of a trip to France/Italy/Spain and we can take up to two weeks beginning on April 6, 2012.

I have a plenty of SPG, Hilton and Hyatt points for our hotel stays.

So, we would love to hear from our FT friends as to the best air itinerary and any recommendations on where to stay with our points.

Thanks!

HilFly

Availability for reward flights is not looking good for LAX - LHR in April. The only availability I could pull up for 2 in F was April 19, with return flights available April 26, April 28 and May 3.

Availability in CW was zilch. Any chance of a delayed honeymoon?

onefreetraveler

Thanks Hilfly, but we have to depart LAX very close to April 6, 2012.

kilted_barbarian

I'd fly LAX to LHR, spend a night or two in London and head to Milan. 45 minute drive to Lake Como - stunning! Then how about the Swiss Alps? The Grand Hotel in Bad Regaz is one of my favourites. Switzerland and Austria both amazing. Back to Italy - Parma and Milan. But I can't sit on my backside by a pool, much to the disappointment of Mrs. Kilted!

HilFly

The flights are wide open in F - if you want to fly BA you'll just have to keep checking to see if award availability opens up.

petemitchell

Don't limit yourself to LAX! Consider options for other airports that are a short hop away, such as SFO, PHX, LAS. A relatively cheap round-trip ticket on SouthWest, for example, could get you the flights you want on BA. Just because there's no availability for LAX doesn't mean the same for other "near by" airports.