MattUK81

Dear all,

My first post here, so apologies in advance. I made a booking to travel to Europe, starting in my current location and connecting in Heathrow T5 (two flights in total). The original flight was cancelled and now I have been moved to one the day before, but this now means I have a 6 hour connection time in Heathrow T5, which under normal circumstances is bad enough and in the current climate a touch *pants* to say the least. I have tried to get in touch with BA to see the option of upgrading the one leg of the journey to Club Europe, as this would give me lounge access, but no one has replied. I know that BA do not offer 'pay upgrades' for just the lounge, either by cash or Avios, so I'd have to do the whole upgrade of the flight to Club... but sadly I cannot do this online (it seems as though because I have 'car hire' booked as well, it classes as the BA Holiday Team and not just flight team).

Does anyone have suggestions on how my wife and I would go about getting the access, or a better number to contact about upgrades, etc.

Thanks in advance.

wilsnunn

Welcome to the forum MattUK81, I am sure one of the ambassadors will be along shortly to give you an official welcome.

For a BA flight in T5 you have a few options

- you could pay to access either of the third party pay-for-entry lounges; Plaza Premium or Aspire (or you may have access to one or both through any lounge schemes, credit cards etc)
- upgrade the flight to Club

As you have a BA Holidays booking, it is not too difficult to do. You should be able to call the general BA number and follow the options for holidays team (best done during the day in the UK) and they should be able to price it up on the phone for you.

A quick Google gave me: 0344 493 0787 and option 1 - but I normally call the Gold line so I am not sure if that is correct or not.

KARFA

Welcome to FT MattUK81!

So if you want upgrade your second flight I think the most likely way you can do this is using avios. In order to check whether an avios upgrade is available there are two things you ought to do.

1. Have a check what selling class you are in, they should all be upgradable unless you are in O, Q, or G. You can find this by going in to manage my booking, click on the flight, and click on "More flight information" which should show selling class.

2. Check whether there are any club reward seats available on your flight. Just do a reward search via your BAEC homepage for the second flight only and see if club seats are shown.

If you manage to get past 1 and 2 then you will have to call to do the upgrade with avios,

MattUK81

Wilsnunn, thank you for such a quick reply. It seems as though the only third part lounge available is Aspire. The others are sadly closed because of the Covid restrictions in place.

KARFA, just checked the selling class and that flight appears to be in 'H', although I cannot check any upgrade information through the online portal. I'll have a check on the club reward seats hint you gave though.

TTmex

Hi Matt, have you got the date and the route you're looking for, one of us can help you find availability.

MattUK81

Hi TTmex, thank you to the reply on my post. I have a BA holidays booking already with outward and return legs (two flights each leg, 4 in total) and I'm just looking at the possibility of upgrading the second flight, BA718, Heathrow to Zurich (Sunday 2 August) so we can have lounge access and not have a 6+ hour wait in Heathrow T5

wilsnunn

Unfortunately it seems as though there are not any award seats (i.e. ones bookable with Avios) left for that flight. Your best options - in decreasing order of certainty of getting the upgraded ticket - are now going to be:

- Pay for an upgrade by calling BA Holidays and asking them to price the upgrade
- Ask at the airport if they have any upgrade offers [known here as AUP] (see here: Airport Upgrades (AUP) promotion 2020 thread)
- Hope for a POUG (see here: Pro-active Online Upgrade (POUG) tracking and discussion | 2020 thread) although in my experience, I never get these on BA Holiday bookings

Just to add, if I had a 6+ hour wait at Heathrow, I would probably pop into central London and get some lunch and/or go to a gallery/museum. 6+ hours would not be too enjoyable in the lounges at T5 no matter what - although there will certainly be people who disagree with me there.

Radiation Station

I once spent 12 hours in the T5 BA lounges... It’s okay if you take it as an opportunity to sample all the available liquor.

Edit: I should say that I didn’t want to spend 12 hours in the T5 lounges, before someone tries to stage an intervention

MattUK81

Sadly, I cannot even get through to the helpline. I have tried 3 times and 'no one is available to take my call'. It hasn't even put me in a queue this time. What with that, and not being able to access an upgrade online, it seems like I am a bit stuck....

corporate-wage-slave

Given the situation with Spain, now isn't going to be an easy time to connect with BA Holidays. If you are on a BAH booking your options are slightly different to the ones above
- No POUG is possible on BAH bookings.
- AUP is possible, has to be done on the day of travel at the airport. You cannot call up for this.
- Upgrade using Avios is possible so long as you are not in fare buckets O, Q, or G. You can find this by clicking the More Information line in MMB for the flights in question. You need enough Avios and it can only be done by telephone.
- You can upgrade by simply paying the fare difference to Club but the BAH is complex due to combinability rules. Again telephone only. If you are on an H fare Club Europe is typically cheaper anyway.
- You may be able to persuade the agent to restructure your flight timings in view of the other changes to the ticket. By telephone only.
You emphatically need to call BAH, not the main flight contact centre, it should be an option under the IVR when you call the main number.

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum MattUK81. Note you can only make 5 posts on your first day on Flyertalk.

MattUK81

Thank you very much. I am now on hold with BAH, so hopefully will find out the options available when I do get through to them. I'll let you all know how it goes after I have finished. It may be they have nothing available or it's just too expensive to go ahead with. But I'll see what they have on offer anyway.

TTmex

Hi Matt

Keep an eye out in for availability in the next 48 hours too. Last-minute places do open up for Avios avail.

Also, try the AUP option when you arrive to Heathrow.

MattUK81

Thanks, I'll do that. After finally getting through to the BA holidays team on the phone yesterday evening, I was told there wasn't the ability to upgrade the Heathrow-Zurich leg to CE for both of us as there was only 1 seat, however I could upgrade both the outward legs (to Heathrow and Heathrow-Zurich), which I found a touch strange. Apparently the 1 seat turns into 2 when you do that. Anyway, at £300 each, we decided against that somewhat pricey upgrade.

Truthmonkey

Availability does change depending on the origin of the flight, so starting somewhere differently from Heathrow may indeed find some hidden seats. Another oddity that keeps Flyertalk a useful tutor!

MattUK81

I'm seeing that this will be a very useful site and forum to be on! I'm learning lots of little oddities.