DirkGently

Good morning

Questions like the one I’m about to ask always tend to make my head spin but I know there are people on here who’ll just lap this up – here’s hoping anyway.

My daughter has gained a place at the University of Michigan starting this autumn, or fall as I’ll have to start calling it. So the plan is that we’ll all - self, wife, son and daughter - fly out to ORD towards the end of August, and then the three of us will fly back from ORD around 2nd Sept, leaving daughter in Ann Arbor.

I would like to simultaneously play a joker, companion voucher and gold upgrade – I’m going to lose them if I don’t use them soon and the joker is the only way I can get flights to ORD at the time I need them. I only have one companion voucher but I have enough gold upgrades for all four of us.

However, will the fact that one of us is only travelling one way complicate any of that? Can I book all four of us out there but only three back and still use all the vouchers? If I can’t, presumably I could book 4 returns and simply throw away her return but I can see that leading to complications when a party of three rather than four turns up at ORD for the return journey.

In fact, in an ideal world, rather than book her a one-way ticket or throw away the return leg, I’d much prefer to book her a return ticket as well but with the return leg a lot later than the rest of us, say Christmas. But I can’t believe for one minute that I can get that done under a single booking.

The absolutely critical thing is that we all travel out together and that basically means the joker has to cover 4 people outwards because there is no ORD availability otherwise when we need it. With that non-negotiable requirement uppermost in mind, what’s the best way to finesse this?

DrBernardo

I'm pretty sure everything needs to be in the same booking to use the GGL redemption. So you wouldn't be able to book her differently.

Throwing her return away (ie just three of you show up at check-in on the return) won't be a problem, just a waste of avios ;-)

You may find that it is possible to call up AFTER you've done the outbound journey to split her off the main PNR, and change her return flight (although you might need to accept a downgrade for her for availability reasons or because she's not travelling with you any more depending on what sort of upgrade vouchers you've used - if possible use a GUF1 for her rather than a GUF2...).

DrBernardo

Having thought about it, so long as you've used a GUF1 for her, and haven't used the 2-4-1 voucher on her, you may even be able to split her off and change her return sector before you travel. I don't think that would invalidate the outbound seat released thro the joker...

Tobias-UK

They must be on a single booking, nothing stopping you from cancelling the return sector for your daughter after the outbound flight. They will simply separate her from the booking. Call the GGL Team and ask their advice, you are doing nothing wrong!

DirkGently

Outstanding, thank you. Very helpful.

HereToHelp

All 4 have to be on the same booking for this kind of booking. If you want to then change your daughter's return flight you will have to use up the second joker for this. Joker bookings will not be split unless there are exceptional circumstances like a medical emergency.

Filthy Monkey

...but, as mentioned above, you can split the PNR once the booking has been made and remove your daughter's return without any trouble.