Alfie68s

Hi all, first post so go easy! I'm looking to fly to Hanoi from Manchester returning from Saigon back to Manchester late February. Cathay seems to have reasonable options in business but I'd like to check if I can use avios to partly pay for the flights. This is where I'm a complete novice!
How can I check Cathay reward flights if I'm in the BA club?
Is it even possible or can I only book with cash?
Cheers for any help
Alfie

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum Alfie68s, a happy New Year to you too. It's good to see new faces here, so please make yourself at home.

You can book Cathay redemptions via BAEC, subject to availability, and you can also reduce the Avios amount by paying more cash, but the one thing you can't do is book a revenue ticket on Cathay and use Avios to reduce the balance, this needs to be a BA metal service. Using Avios this way is rarely good value for money unless there is a special offer on at the time, as tends to happen once a year or so. On the other hand availability is always there, which is the case for redemptions. Moreover a flat revenue Cathay booking won't be bookable online via BA.com anyway. You may want to peruse the stickies and Dashboard to get the long version of the above.

Ldnn1

Welcome to Flyertalk, Alfie68s. One important point to add to the advice above is that BA.com is not very good at finding connecting reward itineraries on partner airlines. Therefore if you want to look for reward flights for MAN-HAN on Cathay, you may need to search for availability for MAN-HKG and then HKG-HAN separately, then call BA to book them together. Similarly for the return from SGN.

Best of luck in your search. Cathay is an excellent airline and Vietnam is a fantastic country to visit, so I hope you find something that suits.

Alfie68s

Thanks for the quick response. Just to help my novice flyertalk jargon, a Cathay redemption would be similar to a BAEC reward flight? I can use BAEC site to search for this?
I find the BA site rubbish looking for reward flights etc - is there any other site to look for Cathay redemption flights and then try to book via BA?
Sorry if I being a bit of a bumpy, I read through some of the stickies and posts and it seems like a different language!

Ldnn1

Yes that's correct, you can search for Cathay rewards on the BAEC site. Don't use the 'map' function, it's useless. Just log into your account and use the search tool on the left. Try MAN-HAN as a whole, and if that doesn't offer much then try MAN-HKG and HKG-HAN individually. From a quick search for November, it is showing the Cathay/Dragon options for the whole thing - but note that if a HKG-HAN flight doesn't have availability in business, it won't show business available on the MAN-HKG flight either. That's another reason to search for the legs individually, since you can then find the long-haul J availability you need and choose Y for the shorthaul. Again you then call BA to book this.

While the BA site is by no means great -especially for anything complicated- it's the simplest solution for your purposes. It's certainly what most of us on this forum use.

Modo

A point of info - if you do use CX connecting at HKG the return cash component will be about £200 less for the same flights if you book them separately. It will make little or no difference outbound. The HK Authorities have restricted carrier surcharges out of HKG - but they don't seem to get applied on a through itinerary!

The CX flight from MAN to HKG is 4X weekly. J availability is usually good. But Y can be rammed around university term times with Asian students studying at North West England universities.

105,000 Avious J each way on CX or 120,000 on QR via DOH. The HKG routing using the technique above will be cheapest on cash and Avios.

Globalist

I booked a CX first last week and had a great flight.

to book CX, go to the BAEC reward booking tool.
You can get there either via your executive club member page (choose pay by avios in the drop down) or log in, go to the executive club menu, using your avios, spending avios and click the red button "book a reward flight"

you might need to look by sector and call if you want them on one booking.
Try searching MAN-HKG, HKG SGN or MAN-SGN.
One way search or return search.

I prefer one way searches as that gives a bit more flexibility as tickets become unchangeable 24 hr before the first flight.

The BA option appears on top, scroll down to see partner airline options. If available they show. if not, then no luck.

Availability within Asia is usually quite good on CX.

I hope that helps.

Globalist

Slotski

Apparently there is a Qatar sale (ex-EU) commencing on Monday. This might help the OP's options for their trip to Vietnam.




http://www.qatarairways.com/global/e...26300000000000

Alfie68s

Thanks for all the tips. I see that searching the individual segment brings up quite a few options. As a general rule are my options 200k points or about £2k to buy the flights outright? Is there enlightened thinking as to which is better? (appreciate 1 option is much cheaper!)
Thanks
Alfie

corporate-wage-slave

Well that values Avios at 1p each, which isn't great, but isn't appalling (one legendary FTer was recently quite chipper at getting 0.548p value per Avios!). I try to get 2p or 3p but you need to work the system quite hard to get there, so maybe your redemption option isn't a bad one. One key thing to note is that you aren't comparing apples with apples here, the Avios booking is pretty much flexible until 24 hours before departure, including upgrades and route changes, which you won't be getting for £2,000.

Your other alternative is look at Third Country Itineraries, or exEU as it usually shorthanded here. I suspect you can get a revenue ticket for a few hundred pound less, if you are prepared to wander around Europe a bit before your longhaul flight eastwards. DUS seems a good place to start from a very quick look.

Swiss Tony

Are you including taxes? Remember they will add up (although CX is far better than BA in this regard!)

Also, note that Finnair currently offers a fare from MAN to SGN for £1366 (14/2-23/2 as sample dates). For another £50 or so they will let you go via Singapore as well.

The connections in Helsinki really don't work well at all from Manchester, but at those prices I would be tempted!

Globaliser

One thing to be aware of is that phantom availability is sometimes shown for CX flights. An award flight will be offered, but it will then prove impossible to book. AIUI, this problem isn't limited to ba.com but is more of a CX issue.

timezonehopper

Agreed, I had this exact problem a few days ago whilst booking ICN-HKG-SIN. The booking went all the way through, past credit card verification and to the "wait up to 90 seconds for your reservation" page before giving me a message that the flights I was trying to book had become available during my transaction (or some similar wording). I got the same error repeatedly over a few hours. In the end I called the Gold Line up and they told me that there was absolutely no redemption availability on the flights that were being presented to me as available.

irishbcn

There seems to be an issue booking long economy flights from Europe. There is availability showing from various locations, e.g. MAN, LON, AMS, DUS but when I pick economy it says that it can't be booked but picking a higher class there doesn't seem to be an issue.

Anyone else seeing this?

corporate-wage-slave

I haven't really seen this. And given the V fare bucket availability for BA Gold cardholders, it seems a bit unlikely to me, other than closer to departure when V will get zero'd out (temporarily, other availability shows up at T-72 hours approx). Perhaps you can identify some specific examples?