Hey, hoping some of you knowledgeable folks will be able to give me some steer on whether I can expect any issues with this

I have an itinerary booked in a few weeks time, with BA, in economy, booked via a travel agent: DUB-LHR-BNA (and then BNA-ORD-LHR on the return). London is my home city, and this was originally booked as a personal trip.

My employer has now asked me to attend some meetings in TPA on the same day I’m due to arrive back at LHR. So clearly the only way I can make this happen is to extend my stay for a few days, and book a fresh ticket for the journey home. (At employer’s expense, obviously)

To my mind, the simplest solution is to book an internal flight from BNA to TPA, and ditch the BNA-ORD-LHR. Then book a one way ticket from TPA back to London. But the TPA-LGW direct flight on the day I leave is coming in at around £6k for business. (Employer baulks at anything over £5k, which would send me to premium)

Earlier when I spoke to my employers travel provider (HRG) there was a suggestion that instead of booking a one way fare, instead they could book a return trip as LHR-BNA/TPA-LGW (or /TPA-MIA-LHR) - with the outbound leg in economy (since that was a personal flight anyway) and the return leg in business. This comes in at less than £3k, and it would keep me on the same LHR-BNA flight I was originally scheduled to be on (I’m travelling with a friend)

Will I run into problems with this? Will BA get suspicious and cancel my ticket? I will be checking a bag at DUB and have a slight concern that it won’t make it to BNA! I don’t want to see my employer pay over the odds, but I also don’t want to screw up my vacation beforehand because of ticketing issues.

Any advice appreciated. Thank you

Thanks for the common sense suggestions!

My employer’s policy is that all work travel has to be booked via HRG, so I must admit I hadn’t seriously considered trying to change my own booking. But that might well be worth a call, even if it is “out of policy” (I’ll end up on a naughty list)

Your second suggestion is beautiful in its simplicity. I’m going to get HRG to price that up

It has just occurred to me that if I did book the LHR-BNA/TPA-LGW then wouldn’t the ticket get cancelled after I failed to clear security at Heathrow? (Given that I’m starting my journey at DUB) seems yet another reason to resist this suggestion

Yes you would need to fly the outbound seat or the return would be canceled. You will find however that a return booked from the US is often quite a bit more expensive than a return booked from the UK for the reverse trip. It might be less expensive to book TPA-LHR-DUB and return avknto somewhere in the US much later and take a short trip to DUB. And make the return be during the dates when DUB-US is much cheaper (thanksgiving, Christmas, late March/early April, and summer).