bisonrav

Just an idle question really.

Triggered because I found in my inbox an email from Zavvi saying I'd won the mastercard competition and had won a VIP luxury trip to the European Cup Final, which at the time I'd missed. After a few minutes rapidly traversing various stages of grief (being a Liverpool supporter) and then remembering the final was rubbish anyway, and nearly walling my laptop, and so on, I found another email from Zavvi saying sorry for sending the email out to everyone on their mailing list and here's a 15% discount, which was rather a relief.

Anyway.

The actual question is this. In the event of winning BA or OW flights in a competition, what is the situation regarding tier points, avios and upgradeability? I've heard that the tickets are issued by airlines and can be prone to cancellation on full services.

Not that I ever win competitions, but it just piqued my interest. Anyone ever won anything and has experience?

gcuk

We won a trip to South Africa promoting tourism in South Africa (shortly after returning from living there ironically!) and the prize was First Class on South African to Cape Town, Hotel in V&A Waterfront, Blue Train to Johannesburg and then First class flight Jo'burg to London. All confirmed bookings and a great experience but no Voyager miles on the South African flights. To be honest, the miles weren't a deal breaker

rapidex

I only have 1 data point. I was at the staff travel desk in HKG and a couple were begging CX to get them a seat. They had won a prize of a trip to HKG but it seems the seats were some sort of standby. They had been there 3 nights as all the flights were full, and he was worried he might lose his job.

Not sure who supplied the prize or any other details but it was rather upsetting for the couple.

dddc

Wow, that's pretty poor if it was a proper prize. T&Cs of competitions I've seen have never said anything about stand-by travel, just if it was an open ticket (ie travel anytime up to x date in the future) or within a set period, it had to be on a space available basis at the time of booking - not time of travel.

Closest I've had is the BA/QF Ashes fare, where in the year that I "won", the price was set at the number of runs Australia scored in the first test (£215! Including taxes) and the number of seats was what England scored (460 odd I think). Tickets went on sale at 8am one morning London to Sydney. I'd booked my ticket in 40 seconds and from what I heard they'd sold out in 3 minutes. These were for date specific travel at the time of booking. I went for just over a week at that price! No problems being offloaded etc. I got 0 TP/Miles as it was in the T&Cs that there was none with this fare from memory.

I would think that a prize ticket still has a PRN and the lucky passenger can access the booking on line. I'd advise to check in early, both online and at the desk to ensure you don't get bumped. My experience has been that those that don't check in online, or are the last in the queue at the check in desks tend to get to bumped first.

Often1

PNRs are irrelevant. What matters is an e-ticket. If one does not hold an e-ticket showing an OK status for the segments in question, one has nothing.

The problem is that these sorts of prizes are often BULK and other consolidator tickets which are only supplied by the vendor at the last minute.

In any event, the greater worry beyond disappointment, is that the return, not outbound, is not confirmed, leaving one stranded.

UKtravelbear

babats

And no afternoon tea!

TTmex

I won a 12 day holiday to New Zealand and the Cook Islands with Aeromexico's Club Premier. All flights were confirmed and ticketed by a high end travel agent. Only the Mex to Lax was on aeromexico. They put us on Air New Zealand for the rest, which while perfectly comfortable was no use for points nor lounge access. Used PP lounges instead. Trip was stunning and stayed at 5 star hotels and had new year's dinner at top of the sky tower.

inasmuchas

dddc

This was 2009 and jointly done with BA. I managed to find the original email from QF and actually didn't say anything in the T&Cs afterall! Don't know what made me think that. I've had some AA deals that were like that. What it might have been was that the fare class might not have earnt any or many miles, as I added my BA FF number. Maybe I did get full miles!!! Tried to check it out on BA.com but the history only goes back 3 years. I wonder if BA does delete history after that time because it isn't relevant to a CIV score anymore?

teledude

They will be the same as PR tickets usually. And I know on BA that means revman will use seats from the avios buckets - so zero TP and avios, but you can use the lounges etc.