expatboy

Hi all,

I haven't redeemed any Avios on short haul for ages, so a little rusty. We are headed to the Apls next winter, and with 6 of us travelling I need to be organised. With plenty of reward availability, I got our outbound sorted out no issues - ABZ-LHR-GVA. For the return, which opened up today, there is only availability GVA-LGW-LHR-ABZ, which is less than ideal and will not go down very well at home. If I book GVA-LGW-LHR-ABZ, can I easily change online to a GVA-LHR flight should availability open up?

As it would be £600 in RFS charges for a return trip using Avios, I checked the cash price of the trip, but ba.com is only giving me H class on the return leg (regardless of the number of travellers - tried with 1 and 6, and no difference in fare bucket) - would the discounted fares get loaded later?

Thanks!

sunshinebob

Could you stay an extra day for less money if there is availabilty the next day?

Globaliser

In a sense, yes: on the assumption that you're booking GLA-ABZ on a separate ticket from the outbound ABZ-GLA (which would normally be the recommended approach), you'd be easily able to book the new itinerary online and then cancelling the old itinerary, rather than formally changing the booking.

pauldb

I'm easily confused but presumably you are travelling 1Feb, which seems to have decent availability through LHR. If you had to, you could work out which leg is tight in the class you want and an possibly mix classes, or one segment or both.

You can change the routing, but if you book the inbound as oneway the taxes are £28. It's cheaper to cancel and rebook (forfeiting the £28) than to change (for £35). The only downside to this is if you cancel the whole trip: you'd have 12 bookings to cancel which more expensive than 6.

expatboy

Not easily - we'd need accommodation in Geneva, and the hassle and cost of that would outweigh the hassle of transferring from LGW to LHR.

I have the outbound as a single booking, so am following recommended procedure . I will probably just suck it up and book via LGW and keep checking for the flights I actually want.

Correct, 1st Feb 2020. Weird - it's not showing me anything from GVA to LHR, only LGW. The LHR to ABZ segment is no issue at all.

orbitmic

expatboy

I thought that it was generally best to try and get in early, but happy to wait.

pauldb

OK you're right - I think I fell for the website glitch on connecting flights: when you search for 1 passenger it implies plenty of seats, but search for 6 and it correctly shows you the LHR flights don't work.

All the GVA-LHR flights seem to have 4Y and 2J available. Not sure if you want Y or J but I'd probably split my party in preference to doing LGW-LHR. You can only book Y all the way through on ba.com or J all the way through, but if you call you can mix Y&J for each passenger as you prefer. Hope that makes sense: split for GVA-LHR but all be in the desired cabin LHR-ABZ.

corporate-wage-slave

I guess the other alternative is to book GVA-LGW-EDI or GLA and continue by rail, though I accept that is equally inconvenient. With 6 passengers I wonder if a mini van taxi would cost a lot per person.

If you have a shiny Gold card this would be perfect for a GPR, and then you can replace that with a conventional redemption if and when it comes up.

expatboy

I would agree - I'll suck up ET with 3 of the kids with Mrs EB in Club with one of them.

Rail is more inconvenient - the car will be in ABZ, and although fine on our own, I can't see Mrs EB putting up with this with the kids in tow. Regrettably I have never travelled frequently enough to attain Gold, although I was a regular SCH for a number of years. Now I'm a lowly Blue, thanks to the oil downturn!

Thanks for all the responses - I will see what else opens up, and probably split across cabins to avoid the schlep from LGW to LHR.