aceman

I'm planning on using some avios in an attempt to untangle a mess my little cousin has made on some flights booking. She's 17 and needs to get from JFK-TLV.

Are there any issues I need to be aware of as she's 17 and travelling solo. Currently travelling and can't call into BA to find out, was just planning on booking an online award redemption. Looking at booking it as a straight through connecting at LHR


Secondly, one of the flights I'm looking at only has a 1 hour layover at LHR. Is that enough for an inexperienced traveller to make at T5? I'll need to give her instructions, but have never transferred at T5 myself!

UAPremExecflyer

Moderator alerted! OP's question is about BA and Avios, not Hertz!

aceman

guv1976

​​​​​​Have you checked one-way cash fares at Google flights? Given the high cash surcharges on BA flights, you are likely to get very poor value for your Avios -- especially if this is for Coach Class travel.

jason8612

Moved to BA

Thanks
Jason8612 Hertz Mod

Cymro

You say there's a "mess." I'd be a little more concerned about solving that mess - if it means flying alternative legs, you're at risk of seeing the entire ticket cancelled for not flying it in order.

A 1h connection is perfectly possible, but it will always be tight at LHR, particularly for people without an EU/UK passport. If the flight is on time it's fine, but any delays will quickly eat any contingency. I would be happy to take it myself, but only on the understanding that I could afford to delay my arrival by up to 24h and that there was no more comfortable alternative. Given that TLV generally has two flights per day, the risk should be manageable as long as it is all on one ticket as she shouldn't need to find hotel accommodation, etc.

If you can get her onto BA112 rather than BA174, the extra 30-40 minutes will make a big difference in reducing the risk of a misconnect, even though the jet stream means that ontime performance of the overnight flights is generally good.

flatlander

There's no intrinsic problem with booking a 17 year old using Avios.

If your cousin does have the 1 hour connection, try to have her look for a connection in the B gates instead of the A gates. I.e. on arrival at LHR she should look at which gate her next flight is leaving from. She will mostly likely arrive at a B or C gate, and leave from a B or C gate, so if that is so and she goes to terminal B and then to flight connections inside terminal B it will be much faster. Gates for relevant departing flights are displayed in each arriving terminal area, near the point where you either go down to the train or to flight connections in that terminal.

It will not be necessary to show a passport in transit at LHR from the USA to Isreal.

She may well get a hard time from Israeli security, but that will happen however you get her ticket.

aceman

Thanks for the replies, there is no sorting out the current mess, we're ways past that point, in her infinite wisdom her mother bought her a one way from tlv-lhr and then the two of them a lhr-jfk-lhr ticket to ensure they were on the same flight home, intending to discard the last leg, and then realising that getting to TLV on a one way wasn't cheap...

I'm just mainly wondering if there will be issues a 17 year old checking in by herself at JFK for a flight.

Getting her into the earlier flight is an excellent idea, I'll double check to see if I can make that happen

Cymro

How much would it cost to change the LHR-JFK-LHR to LHR-JFK-TLV? At least that way you'd be on one ticket. Separate tickets and a one-hour connection would be more risk than I could handle, especially as there is zero chance that any luggage will be travelling with her.

Otherwise, if Mum is in London, can she stay for a day to get her bearings and, if Avios doesn't work, look at an EasyJet flight or something like that?

LondonElite

Ldnn1

The answer to that question is no, there won't be any issues.

Globaliser

14 year-olds can fly entirely unaccompanied on BA with no need for handoff from/to adults at either end of the journey. Even if such a 14 year-old might cause eyebrows to be raised (which I doubt - it certainly didn't back when I was doing it as a 12 year-old), I doubt that anyone would even notice that a near-adult was doing so.

Frequent flyer 101

Flew BA solo many times as a 17 year old. My favourite airline back then are I never once got asked for ID when ordering alcohol. That's going back a while now, I wonder how much it's changed.

aceman

So all done and booked, I'm now going to email them a step by step guide to getting from her JFK to catching her TLV flight.

I was just looking at the connecting at T5 guide

What does FCC stand for?

Secondly, is there any way for me to see which part of T5 her flight leaves from, she's arriving on BA112 and departing on BA165 to TLV, I'd quite like to have her directions relatively down pat. First time travelling alone (and a bit dopey) etc etc

UKtravelbear