nux

You are comparing
A: £160 return fare (which BA.com will show as £80 each way for guidance when comparing other differently priced return fares)
B: £94 one way outbound fare
C: £60 one way inbound fare.

These are all completely different fares, and you can likely find examples where A = B+C or A < B+C or A > B+C.

Some airlines (typically LCC's) do price a return as the cost of two one ways. BA does not and has separate return fares filed. You can sometimes find cases where buying two singles is cheaper on BA, or that a oneway award combined with a single is cheaper than a return.

If you take the time and effort to look into these options, you can sometimes find better value in booking various combinations of revenue and award fares to get a lower cost compared to just booking simple returns.

Godot

Quick question - if I'm booking an open-jaw return using a Lloyds Avios Upgrade Voucher to upgrade both legs (something you are unable to do online even if you split it into two bookings), should I have to pay the phone booking fee or not?

golfmad

In theory I believe the answer is yes. It's only when functionality available on the website isn't working that no fee is due for telephone bookings. However, in practice you may get lucky.

Godot

OK, thanks. Will give it a go I guess.

Stewie Mac

I am seeing different availability on avios.com compared to ba.com (BA flight, avios showing 2 seats and ba only showing 1).

Can anyone confirm the cancellation policy for avios.com? I am assuming that I'll lose most of the cash (will be RFS), but will I get my avios back?

The FAQ on the avios.com site is a little unclear:

I actually read that as needing to cancel within 24 hours of departure to get Avios back, but I think that it's poorly written!

thanks

fuseli

In a similar vein, on Wednesday night I booked a Business Class redemption (40k Avios and c£320) for MrsF next Monday travelling MAN-PHL. Ticketed OK, but when checking seat on US it showed her in an Economy seat, and the Envoy cabin greyed-out. I called US, who were less than helpful; essentially "seated in Economy, must be an Economy booking", so had to wait for BAEC to re-open next morning.

Clearly an ongoing issue, as BAEC rep said they had been emailed the previous day to state there was 'no booking of redemptions on US...while they aligned fare classes' or words to that effect. However, she said she would investigate my wife's case further with OneWorld customer services and get back to me. Good to her word, she rang back within an hour telling me all is OK, and my wife is 100% definitely in Envoy (US Business), but this current system 'issue' means she couldn't confirm a seat number, and colleagues at AA had been similarly powerless to confirm a seat. What they had done was take off the seat number she had initally been assigned by US in Economy.

Reading this thread later, and looking at each airline's ticket codes, it seems to me (happy to be corrected by those of you who know better) that the problem is BA CW redemptions book as "U"; fine on BA or AA, but this represents a low-tier Economy bucket on US.

This raises an interesting question as to whether a Business-class redemption should have been available in the first place (I have no doubt US had plenty of "U" availability!), but as it stands BA are adamant this is a confirmed Business ticket.

I have to say I will be full of praise for BAEC's excellent customer service WHEN MrsF has a boarding pass in her hand that says Envoy and not Economy.

TheDapperDon

. How are you guys using Avios for United flights? Is the merger allowing this already?

Globaliser

If you mean US Airways rather than United (on which you can't use Avios), that's already been available for about a year now.

TheDapperDon

Yes, thanks. I misspoke.

Calchas

This needs to be booked with Avios not with BA Exec Club. Avios.com's rules apply. (In particular their draconian cancellation policy.)

The only reference to an offline fee I can find is "D.1.16 A £15 per person booking fee will be applied to any stand alone flight booking, which could’ve been made online."—a poorly phrased expression if ever I saw one!

https://www.avios.com/gb/en_gb/about...nditions#partd

Amex For Children Of Africa

I have a question about a BA rewards flight listed as a direct flight, but actually has 1 stop. It is from NYC to Central America, and the flight says it is direct, and only cost 12,500 points. When I search for the flight, no direct flight actually exist. Also, the same take off and landing times exist for a flight with 1 stop, and that cost 17.5K points. Is this legit to book, and just a mistake on their end?

nux

If there is saver award availability on the direct flight (with 1 stop) then you should be able to book it for the direct flight distance avios cost.

For example, QF1 is SYD-DXB-LHR which can be booked either as SYD-LHR or SYD-DXB or DXB-LHR at the respective avios cost. There is different award availability for each flight however, so there may be availability on SYD-DXB and DXB-LHR but not SYD-LHR so the only way to book would be as two separate flights.

Calchas

A flight can be direct and still have a stop. There can even be a change of planes and it's still a direct flight. . The meaning of "direct" is that there is a single flight number from origin to destination.

Are you saying there are two different prices? It should be priced as a single flight, even with the stop.

Amex For Children Of Africa

I just though it was strange that on the same day, they have a rewards flight as "direct" with 1 stop for 12.5k avios, and also have the 1 stop flight for 17.5k listed. Only difference is one leaves LGA and the other leaves JFK. Though if what you said about "direct" flights is true, then this makes more sense now. Thanks

fuseli

I am indeed full of praise for BAEC for sorting this correctly. MrsF checked in with assigned seat in Envoy - interestingly now shows as a "D" class ticket on both US and BA. Wonder if she'll get any Avios ?