pauldb

Yes you can do it instore and it wouldn't be that unusual as they are joint JL/Waitrose gift cards, or even in Tesco as they sell them. One step further you could actually load a Zeek account (Amex via Paypal I believe) for a 7% uplift, but you might want to trial run a smaller amount!

nemonon

After some advice please folks, it's a little bit of paranoia after the event but hopefully you should be able to put my mind at rest that I haven't made a massive faux pas.:

I've just redeemed 2 x 241 vouchers LHR - HKG in Jul 19, flying out prior to the expiry of the first (on my wife's account) on 18/07. The other voucher was on my account. Because of the vouchers being on 2 separate BAEC accounts (both now sadly down to Bronze after a lack of business flying) I have made 2 separate bookings for the redemptions: 1 for me and one teenage son and the other for my wife and the remaining teenager. Does this generate any major snags in the event of cancellations, bumping or any other sort of IRROPS as obviously I wouldn't want to split the family at check-in at either LHR or HKG; and doing so on Day 1 of the 2 weeks might make it a little testing with Mrs N for the remainder of the hol. If it is going to be a snag, is it possible to combine the 2 redemption bookings onto a single reference thereby mitigating the likelihood of the above?
Thanks for any advice from those with greater experience.

jfallesen

Beware that American Express might treat this as "transactions treated as cash" in which case you will be charged a 3% cash advance fee and interested and you will not receive Avios. Even worse, if these transactions do not get reported to American Express as cash equivalent and they suspect them to be, they may suspend your card and ask you to explain the transaction.

Some shops (online and in store) will sell you gift cards as a regular transaction in which case you will have no issue but it is advisable to check first.

notakeenflyer

fruitcage

It is possible (though unlikely) that one pair could be upgraded, downgraded, offloaded or re-routed differently to the other pair for 'operational reasons'. You can ask BA to put a note on the bookings - called TCP (To Complete Party) that will note that the two bookings are linked. However, that's a manual note and does not stop them treating the two parties separately if necessary, or if done by some automatic process that doesn't read the notes.

My most immediate concern would be getting seats together (if that's what you want of course). You can look at the seat map as if you were going to pay for seat allocation, and use that to monitor the situation and decide whether you want to pay or wait until T-7 days when your Bronze status will let you both book seats for the two pairs.

Overall, I wouldn't worry too much. I have done bookings in two pairs for similar reasons and never had a problem. So no I don't think you've made a faux pas.

Alan Shave

Anyone?

pauldb

Alan Shave

Thanks Paul.

It's presumably a case then of accepting higher taxes/fees to save the Avios that'd be required under a separate booking with reward flight saver.

squawk

hingus2000

Just qualified for my first BAPP 2-4-1 voucher. Feels like something of a graduation in this hobby.

I'm getting married on 21 December this year, and it feels like the 2-4-1 voucher would be ideal to use for our honeymoon shortly after.

So: (i) I'm in good T-355 day territory, (ii) I've got a big stack of Avios ready to go; (iii) I've signed up to Baredemptionfinder.com; and (iv) I'm flexible as to where we might go. Feels like I'm doing everything right. And yet, my initial searches are proving rather fruitless. Appreciate that for the return leg of my ideal dates we're still further than 355 days out, but even searching one-ways in late December 2019, availability (in F), anywhere, looks largely non-existent. Am I doing anything wrong, or is this the reality of trying to cash in a 2-4-1?

pauldb

Congratulations, on both counts. BA only guarantees to offer, at T-355, 2J and 4Y seats - nothing in F, though of course on some routes it does open F at the outset.

When are you looking to travel: after 21Dec or after 29Dec? You've missed T-355 for anything up to the 29th. Personally I would work out where you want to go (after 29Dec) and book it at release in J; obviously if it was available in F at midnight grab that. Otherwise you risk having nothing. You can hope that F opens up later (£35pp change fee) or of course change to somewhere else if you find better.

(If you haven't picked up on this, you want to book the outbound asap, then call-up once the inbound comes in to range to add it to the 241 booking.)

BertieBadger

Well, the first thing I'd note is that there is no guarantee of release of F seats at T-355, or indeed at any point. To my knowledge, the only seats BA guarantee are 2xCW and 4xWT on each flight. I appreciate for a honeymoon you are almost certainly going to want to travel F if at all possible though.

Next, you note you are flexible regarding destinations, but if you are looking at 'traditional' destinations like the Caribbean then I think you are going to need to be checking at T-355 on the dot, i.e. to the second after midnight (again notwithstanding that there isn't a guarantee of F anyway). If you are looking at places like New York etc, you should have a bit more flexibility, though with your dates you are going to be competing against travelers going away for Christmas breaks etc.

Personally I find the Reward Flight Finder in the BA app to be very helpful in these sort of searches, as you can select whole areas (e.g. Asia) and ask it to list what's available in F for 2 people in Dec 2019, and it will show the number of dates available in each direction, for each destination city. So if you search Asia for dates post Dec 21st, you don't find very much. But search e.g. USA and you can see availability - as an example 2xF avail to SFO on Dec 23rd and Dec 27th.

But ultimately, for any destination with just one flight a day, you'll be competing with a number of people for a very limited number of seats even where they release F, and so need to be ready at midnight T-355. If you can go to destinations served by multiple flights, the availability should be better in general it seems.

EDIT: I see pauldb has beaten me to it, and would echo their suggestion of securing CW seats where you can if no F available. The £35 cancellation/change is well worth it IMHO

squawk

hingus2000

Thanks all - good tips all round. Especially with regards to trying the BA app search.

Noted on there being no guaranteed F availability. That is helpful to know. I'll lower my expectations slightly and search in J! Will keep you updated.

hingus2000

I've signed up and paid my £3 for exactly this function. However my only comment is it doesn't appear to allow you to search one way? So I have to enter outbound and return dates? Let me know if I'm doing it wrong.