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BA Holiday ex Norway

Hi All,

Mrs F-Mouse and I are looking to go to Australia in April next year, having recently returned and loved it.

We currently have a 2-4-1 booked as far as HKG, out in First 13 April 2019 and back in Club 27 April 2019, and had planned to then book returns from there to Adelaide. We've got around £1100 tied up in taxes with the 2-4-1, and returns with Qantas down to Adelaide go for around £2000 each return.

However, faffing about online has led me to some decent fares from Oslo to Sydney, for about £2300 per person. The disadvantage is starting in Norway although we can make this work quite easily and are happy to stay overnight there at the beginning and the end - and ET fares are pretty cheap. The advantages are a through ticket meaning there's no need to build in time in HKG at the beginning or the end to allow for problems, and, as Gold, with the change of flight number in Singapore, there are a phenomenal amount of Avios to earn (well, as many as I'd ever earn in one go).

So I've attempted to book this today. The plan is to book as a BA holiday and then cancel the 2-4-1 flights and take the tax refund. However, we haven't planned what we are going to do as yet and don't have the money to book all the elements now. I set the country to Norway, and then tried to reserve flights and a single night hotel and it wouldn't let me pay a deposit. I've tried a night at the beginning and end, and it wouldn't let me do that either. It would only let me book as a package with deposit only with a hotel throughout or a car throughout.

If I try to build a custom trip, it says that Oslo and Sydney are not compatible destinations.

Anyone have any ideas? I don't mind putting a few days hotel onto the booking but we want the flexibility to sort out what we will do later in the year, and I'd rather book hotels directly to maintain Status there.

Thanks in advance...

Living ex EU I find the BA holidays website is very UK centric and does not cater for people starting outside the UK

you may be better booking flights and then adding a hotel

I have never been able to reserve a hotel for just part of a trip, departing from an European airport; the online system always return an error. At some point the "custom trip" from the Belgium BA website didn't even start to work.
From UK, never tried.

I tried that, and then when I got to the payment page it only gave the option to pay the full balance.

Frustrating as it clearly must be possible!

indeed, my understanding is that you'll need to book the hotel or the car for the full duration if you want the BA Holidays benefits.

I believe you need to book a minimum of 3 nights including a Saturday night for this to work. I did this to Canada & US this year, 3 week holiday ex Dublin, only 3 days at start in a hotel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by orbitmic (Post 30209850)

indeed, my understanding is that you'll need to book the hotel or the car for the full duration if you want the BA Holidays benefits.

On a related matter, 'hold booking' worked for a near-identical multi-city itinerary from HEL but not from OSL (the only difference being HEL-LHR for the first sector or OSL-LHR for the first sector).

There might be something on ex-OSL that some functions are simply not provided.

Further developments:

On the customise trip screen, the following needed to be done:

Line one - Oslo to Heathrow
Line two - Heathrow to Sydney
Line three - Sydney to Heathrow
Line four - Heathrow to Oslo (remembering the day difference).

This then allowed a one night hotel/car hire, and deposit payment...

Thanks to all who responded...

Quote:

Originally Posted by f-mouse (Post 30210428)

Great, that definitely sounds like some improvement on past experience!! ^

Quote:

Originally Posted by orbitmic (Post 30211292)

Great, that definitely sounds like some improvement on past experience!! ^

Yes, this has also been my experience on a not-dissimilar itinerary although I wanted to book multiple car hires for two or three days each and had to call BA Holidays to book. However no off-line service fee and got away with only a (relatively) small deposit.

I booked a BA holiday weekend from OSL to LHR with a hotel. I will be getting my usual Avios and TP but what is the reason I do not get bonus Avios from the hotel stay? I went to google and it seems that only UK BEAC members get these Avios.:eek: Could be a good reason, but in my opinion it should not matter if you are UK or Norway BEAC member.