pauldb

You would be able to change the date of MAN-LHR if you wanted to fly down earlier, though that's subject to availability and maybe less convenient than the train.

BA6501

It simply isn't possible, your onward flight to GIG will be automatically cancelled.

You could always pay £35 and the phone service fee to change the date of the MAN-LHR or change the booking to just LHR-GIG, they will recalculate taxes at that point.

One benefit of having it on one booking would be in the case you will go MAN-LHR-GIG in one go you will be protected and your bags checked all the way.

a mirrer

as a followup I called the gold line and once I gave my account info and they logged into the us POS they managed to book 4 seats in line with with the v class availability in the us

sodaisei

I saw the new avios promotion to London. Tried to book an award round trip between Tokyo and London only to get a fare of ALMOST 500 EUROS in taxes and other fees!! ...! Is this normal?

PETER01

Probaly yes and I am seeing this return LHR-NRT for November as an example and not good value. From HKG on BA is incredibly cheap though if you can get there if you want to keep the cost down.

Total Price (Including all taxes, fees, and carrier charges)

19500 Avios + £ 426.52

More info here:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1911949-reward-flight-sale-economy-world-traveller-half-avios-required.html

https://www.headforpoints.com/2018/06/01/british-airways-avios-economy-sale/

sodaisei

It is ridiculous... Good thing avios are really nice for intra japan awards.

PETER01

Using Avios for BA Y flights for economy are generally speaking not good value at all.

frankied

Hi there, I have been reading this guide and thank you very much for all the comments. I do have a question that I hope someone could answer with relative ease.I am planning on taking my family to Orlando next July, early in the month before the schools finish for holidays (Scottish schools finished), I imagine that late July\August reward availability is virtually non-existent. I have a number of Avios points (circa 250k) that I would like to use for this trip preferably to get into WT+ to make the trip all that more special. More likely I would be looking to book in WT+ then use Avios to reduce the price as likelihood of reward availability on this route for WT+ would not be good. I am using May next year as a basis of checking reward availability as part of my research. I read on the first page that “you will often find that certain days of the week are permanently blocked for reward flights”, out of experience what days tend to be?. The challenge I have is needing to book the hotels etc by the end of this this month to take advantage of Disney’s deal. Would look to book to avoid the permanently blocked days to potentially have an opportunity of reward flight bookings. Looking at May it looks like Thursday through to Sunday ?

Many thanks in advance

David

guv1976

Greetings from across the Pond!

While I cannot answer your specific questions, have you looked into getting yourself to DUB, and flying Aer Lingus from DUB to MCO? If you can find award space, you'll pay much lower cash surcharges than on a BA TATL award.

If you prefer to stay on BA, you might also consider checking BA's service to TPA, which is not that long a drive to/from Orlando.

frankied

Thanks for the reply, will also look at Aer Lingus, though they don't to a premium eco cabin. Also not sure how to login to the Avios reward site as a BA Exec club member. Will contine to try and figure this one out.

Lefly

I am after two J seats on CX from BRU/AMS to HKG for the next April. I started looking for them more than a week ago and I found enough availability up 31th March, but nothing beyond.
I checked again this morning and still nothing, also from LHR or FRA. I am wondering if it's really an availability problem or CX has still to start to release something for the summer season 2019, while the flights are already bookable with money.

pauldb

Hi David

Just to be clear, there are too ways to use your points to reduce the cost of WT+.

One is to book a cash fare and then use some avios to bring down the price. You can do this on any date as it doesn't book into reward space. The downside is that you get a pretty modest return on your avios: 250k avios will probably save you £1250.

The other is to make a standard (seats restricted) reward booking but then reduce the avios cost with more cash, from 100k+£420 to maybe 60k+£740 or 40k+£870. The latter is the best deal IMHO. However are you talking about a really good deal from Disney as I would be very wary of booking a package before having my flights sorted. This sort of reward availability is very unpredictable and it's not as if the gamble is getting you a good deal on the flights.

I can't say how you should value your avios, but if WT+ tickets are £1200 for example, I would seriously think about saving your avios this time and paying cash. With a bit more planning, using them for RFS (admittedly not as useful from Scotland) or getting some Amex 241 vouchers so you can stretch to a longhaul business class trip would be a better return. The latter is possible for a family: as it happens I've just taken 5 of us to MCO at Easter.

shadowline

How is other people's experience getting Avios seats in F to and from SCL?

I know nothing is guaranteed - I will book a J return at T-355, but this trip is a special one and would like to travel in F!

PETER01

No experience at all on the SCL route but in general if you have ExpertFlyer, £7.50 per month and worth it if you fly often, you can set up an alert as well as checking ba.com every day.

If any F seats are to be released then midnight is when it usually happens or sometimes after 1500 hours.

frankied

Hi there

Thanks for taking the time to reply, it has giving me some idea of how best to use or not to use them this trip and maybe use them sometime in the future.

Out of interest are Thursday to Sundays normally the worse days in looking at reward bookings ?. Appears that way on the BA.com reward flight finder.