mickeyjaw

So I tried to put together a trip on 2 separate tickets: LHR-MCT-LHR (BA, Y) with MCT-BKK-MCT (QR, A/J) nested.

I managed to snag MCT-BKK-MCT for 23/4 - 29/4 in QR J for a bargain £600 just before midnight on 28/2.

When I had looked just before booking, LHR-MCT on 22/4 and MCT-LHR on 1/4 were available. By the time MCT-BKK-LHR had ticketed (less than 10 mins), it seems that availability on the return MCT-LHR on 1/4 had disappeared.

Can anyone help me with checking what has happened to this flight? Has it been cancelled or is there just no inventory left? Do I have any options or am I left holding a ticket from MCT with no positioning flight?

Ldnn1

Are you trying to book the BA flights as award or cash?

mickeyjaw

Tried both, no availability for either in any class.

I guess this means the flights have been cancelled?

Andy49

Is this what you are looking for? Seems to be all working ok.




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Beaulieu

Is this meant to read MCT-LHR on 1/5? If so, I cannot find a BA flight MCT-LHR on Expertflyer for 1st May.

:D!

Most likely so. The BA MCT-LHR flight does not operate on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and I believe has never done so or not for some time. I encountered the same trouble when the same deal was on last year - was really hard to find a set of dates to minimise transit time yet leave enough time between separate tickets.

A typo on FT is understandable, but I'm confused about how the OP could make this mistake when searching, as no booking engine would permit a return flight before an outbound...

Still available in Y for £424 if you return on 3 May (30 April too, if arrival time in MCT permits). Oman is worth a visit and the only reason I didn't enter when I did this deal was because I already planned to go to Oman again with my wife.

In the future, since BA flights are refundable within 24 hours of booking, always book the BA flight first (unless using an OTA)!

mickeyjaw

Morning all! So it appears I may have been a bit (ahem) 'tired and emotional' when I booked this and posted here last night.

I did in fact mean 1/5 (tipsy typo) and yes you are right that there is never a BA flight on Tuesday or Wednesday. Truth is that I spent ages faffing with the dates on the AMEX travel website trying to get both longhauls on the A380, midnight was fast approaching and I wanted to book before midnight to trigger my £200 off £600 AMEX travel offer. As a result I ended up panic booking at 23.49 and failed to realise that the return flight arrives in MCT on Monday after the BA flight will have already departed. Never mind, I might take this as an opportunity to visit Muscat or I might rebook since the change fee is a fairly reasonable $110 + fare difference.

And of course if I'd done this properly I would have booked the LHR-MCT-LHR on BA before booking the MCT-DOH-BKK-DOH-MCT but time constraints meant I couldn't.

I'm also still waiting for a AMEX MR-> Avios transfer to complete so I can part pay with Avios although if I'd thought about this properly I should have booked cash then cancelled and rebooked if the Avios arrived in time.

I guess I'll have to chalk this one down to experience and learn from it...

nufnuf77

Part Paying with Avios is in my book one of the worst things to do. i regularly get £0.0400/Avios and one some of the CX/JAL redemptions in Asia in J/F even more. If I recall partpaying gets you something like £0.0066/Avios!

mickeyjaw

Well it certainly isn't the best value for your Avios, but it's still better than using MR points to part pay at £0.005/MR. The actual £/Avios varies depending on how many you use and also the cabins booked. The more you use the worse the return, at the level I'm planning on using it's about £0.0071/Avios for travel in WTP.