Maximizing the value of a BA Companion Award eVoucher flying out of Canada?
 

I think the problem here are the high taxes and surcharges for flights going to and leaving London. The rules also state that I can only fly on BA. I'm having trouble figuring out how to best extract value out of the Companion Award eVoucher. If you were to fly out of either Vancouver or Toronto and don't have a particular destination in mind, how does one extract maximum value out of the Companion Award eVoucher?

Thanks.

Help?

If you can only use the voucher on BA flights but you're not prepared to pay the taxes, fees and charges for BA flights, then perhaps the answer is to throw the voucher away?

I don't think I said I don't want to pay the taxes and surcharges. I'm just saying that it hurts the value of the voucher. Anyways, I'm looking for suggestions on where to fly to and extract the most value out of the voucher. I have no specific preference as to the destination at this point in time. I'm prepared to go where the miles will take me.

Thx!

Long haul and first or club world cabin would be best value when comparing actual price vs taxes and fees. I've used it to good effect to Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong recently. How many points do you have? What sort of trip do you want... City, beach etc?

Given that you're based in Canada and you're limited to flying BA only then you're looking at a flight to London in the first instance and then - if you so choose - an onward journey from there to one of the other destinations that BA serves. I am not sure that it makes sense to fly to London and then on to Tokyo, Singapore or Hong Kong if you're closer to Vancouver (say) as you could probably better use your Avios for a redemption on Cathay to Hong Kong.

That said, if you have never been to Europe then there are numerous places that BA fly to that you can choose from. There would be no reason why you couldn't do an open-jaw booking either. The Middle East is another alternative with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Muscat all springing to mind.

In terms of maximising value and perhaps reducing cost, you could look at booking Club World for overnight sectors and then World Traveller Plus for the daytime flights. That would reduce the number of Avios required as well as the taxes and fees etc.

What we found out the hard way is that an RBC Visa 2-4-1 avios voucher is only valid for trips which start in Canada. So when we tried to book our flights home and they had all gone around Christmas, we tried to route via Chicago or NY. Not allowed!!
With the dropping of Calgary, that leave a total of four daily flights - 2 x YYZ, 1 x YUL and 1 x YVR. Annoyingly, BA started selling (including avios flights) on 2 x 787-8 from Toronto which I think is the smallest LH aircraft. Now, a 747 and 777 (and 2 x 747s today) are operating the route where the downsizing of the supply of seats for the winter (and NO first class) due to the 787-9 issues may have been too extreme and they've had to add capacity. I digress!!
We fly twice a year in J or F for a little over 1000 bucks each. The high fees are mainly out of BA's control. We still see it as good value, though the vouchers are triggered after 30k bucks is spent in a calender year means that (depending on how much put on the card a month), there is a rush to secure seats for Christmas between May and July. Similarly, you almost need to hold onto a voucher for the following year so you can book summer flights the previous summer
We think it's worth it as we would rarely pay for a J or F flight out of our own pocket

An important (to me!) correction - the high fees are entirely within BA's control. There are taxes to pay, which account for a small proportion of the total cash paid on reward seats, but the majority is just BA charging what they can.

I do feel like I have to fly to London first no matter what unless I've misunderstood the rules. I've been to London a few times in my life. I'm not sure what you mean by booking Club World or World Traveller Plus as when I look for flights on BA's website, available seats are shown in economy and business classes.

Apparently I have 24 months to use the voucher so that's plenty of time to sort things out. So I guess I have to fly either YVR-LHR or YYZ-LHR and then move on from there. Unless I'm mistaken, I have no choice but to fly to London first and then from there I can go anywhere I want right? Don't get me wrong, I do actually like London.

Assuming the voucher is like the UK (Amex?) and US (Chase) ones then it is only valid for flights on BA metal. That is no code shares or partners. If you are in North America that means yes you have to fly to/through London because you have to fly BA metal and BA metal only flies from North America to London. So while the terms of the certificate (likely) don't state you have to fly to/through London effectively you do.

To answer your question on "best" use it is likely going to be in the F cabin or less so the J cabin. That said these days you may also want to look at purchasing a cheap cash fare and upgrading using points. Remember with BA you can only upgrade one class. Econ to Prem Econ, J to F, etc.

Club World = Business
WTP = Premium Economy
WT = Economy

I don't mean to sound as glib as this will look, but the best way to maximise value out of a 241 is to use it to fly somewhere you want to go.

Sure, there may be longer flights which give you more time in the F or J seat, more meals, more movies but if you end up spending days in a place you feel a bit 'meh' about, or spend $$$$$ because the 'best value' flight takes you to a more expensive location that you don't really care about, it's reducing the value of your experience. So, bearing in mind you'll be travelling through the UK, pick a few places that you've always wanted to visit and check out those options first.

I usually see BA airfares going for about C$880 for roundtrip YVR-LHR. How much would it cost to upgrade to J? Furthermore, this is separate from issue of using the voucher right?

Correct upgrades mean you don't use the voucher. What I am suggesting is you compare taxes and fees + points on voucher to cash fare + upgrade points - points earned on underlying cash ticket from upgrade to see which is better for you. I assume that fare is regular economy? If so you cannot upgrade to J. Remember BA allows *one* class upgrade on points. So Econ can only be upgraded to Premium Econ.

As to the cost see this: https://www.britishairways.com/en-us...ing-with-avios

I am flying to Athens from East Coast of US in a couple of weeks. I got a $1700 cash fare in J. At the time a J award would have cost me about $1200 in fees ex-US round trip. I then used 38k Avios to upgrade to First. I'll earn about 18k Avios back from my cash J ticket. So I am flying First in the long haul segments for $1700 cash and about 20k net Avios My alternative was going to be something like 180k Avios and a $1200 in fees for an F award. So to me the upgrade path was much better. The fees on award tickets have gone up since I did this and the fees on J and F are not longer the same so the math would have changed quite a bit today at least ex-US. J taxes and fees are around $1400 and F is $1800 ex-US. Thus I assume if I did this today I would have had to pay 20k Avios + pay $400 in additional fees on the F upgrade to reflect the $400 difference now in fees between F and J.

The upgrade path is generally better when there is a good fare sale going on. We have honestly seen far less of them ex-NA in the last year or two. My Athens ticket was something of a recent outlier though was available on and off for months.