KARFA

When you cancel the one you booked for the inbound though there is no guarantee those seats will reappear as reward seats so you may end up with nothing. There is no process of "moving" reward seats from one booking to another.

Plenty of people have managed to add the return in at midnight, the Japanese office seems quite a popular choice and they seem to have some competent agents.

hearingdouble

Thanks KARFA. Agree that the midnight option is usually fine, but I've been disappointed a couple of times and so was wondering if there was another way (and I have ready from others that what I've described above was even recommended once by a BA agent). What about booking the return seats online using the BA.com "hold/reserve" mechanism, and then calling BA to drop the hold and re-allocate to the existing 2-4-1 booking?

KARFA

The hold and reserve function doesn't apply to reward bookings.

omk298

It's been reported to work in comments on HFP. I think the process is phone up and cancel the return flights then hope they become available again. Might depend on how good/helpful an agent you get through to. I don't think you're supposed to be able to add a 241 retrospectively.

hearingdouble

Thanks all. Guess I'll stick to the midnight call centre.

KARFA

There are plenty more comments on here that it works, we don't need to refer to HfP to show that.

Even the most helpful agent can't guarantee that when a reward booking is cancelled the seats will definitely become available again.

Steve in Olympia

Yes, I have done precisely this, successfully. But there are no guarantees. I wanted to grab the return seats, on-line, before the availability disappeared, and I was willing to take the risk that I might not be able to add the flight to my existing 2-4-1 outbound booking. YMMV.

By the way, this did not involve canceling the return booking and hoping the seats re-appeared. The agent simply applied the 2-4-1 voucher to the booking and refunded the avios.

KARFA

Yes, but that is a different method again from what hearingdouble has suggested.

I think as general advice either your method or that of hearingdouble is not recommended. Instead, the recommended method is as noted on FT many times already, namely book the outbound using the voucher at 355 days and then add the inbound when those dates open up. This seems to be the most efficient way to do it.

windowontheAside

Is it? I'm trying and failing to see a difference.

KARFA

hearingdouble method:

• Book the outbound at T-355 at midnight online, using the 2-4-1 voucher
• Book return leg tickets at T-355 at midnight online as a separate booking (note: this uses twice as much Avios as booking the outbound, as at this stage there is no 2-4-1 applied to the booking)
• Call up BA later in the day once the UK call centre is open to have the two return tickets 'moved' to the 2-4-1 booking. This results in a partial Avios refund and a recalculation of the taxes payable (since there is now a return booking, rather than two one-way bookings).

Steve in Olympia said that the agent " simply applied the 2-4-1 voucher to the booking and refunded the avios." so I assumed that the voucher was not initially used when booking the outbound, but that could be my misunderstanding so apologies if so.

In any case, I don't think either method is advised. The advised method is that set out in the wiki:

martmonk

Firstly thanks to everyone on here who provides the answers to the (what must seem sometimes to be blindingly obvious) questions that people like me post.

Secondly, here's my situation and question;

We (the wife and I) have 137,000 avios in the household account, and a 241 voucher ready to use.

Our plan is to book F outbound to San Diego and I can see availability for a date we want.

That'll cost us 85,000 points.

We want to return from AN Other airport - probably San Fran, Oakland or Vegas etc (not important at this point, or for my question) - in J, which will cost us 62,500 points.
I know we'll get the extra avios we need in about 6-8 weeks from now.

So the question is - how long can I leave it between booking the outbound and the inbound, or is there no restriction?

All the queries and answers I've found so far all relate to T-355 which isn't of relevance in this situation, we're talking outbound in around 10 months and return a couple of weeks later.

Just concerned the F availability will disappear if I wait until we have enough avios to book the return, but equally concerned that if I book the outbound and leave it 8 weeks to book the rtn I might be told 'too late'.

My gut says that's unlikely and what I want to do is fine, I suppose I'm just looking for the validation a nod or two on here might provide!

Steve in Olympia

As I specifically stated in post 172, I did precisely what hearingdouble suggested. And I said that I added the return flight to "my existing 2-4-1 outbound booking."

BrianDromey

No restriction, but any change just needs to be 24 hours before travel of the first sector. If dates and cabin are available now, grab em.

windowontheAside

Yes, you can add the return at any point but you'll have to pay the change fee (unlike adding the return when the date comes online).

You have the additional gamble of hoping for some availability of course, as the original allocation of seats will be long gone on those popular routes.

hearingdouble

Thanks all -- I think Steve may be describing what I'm talking about... it's hard to say because I've never done it any only heard it talked about. Steve, when you say that the agent was able to apply the 2-4-1 to the already-booked return leg (without cancelling it), does that mean that ended up with two sets of one-way booking references (each of which benefitted from the 2-4-1)? How did you describe to the agent what you wanted them to do?