PIKnic

JFK Terminal 8 move- Has there been any change to the plan to move some BA flights over from Nov 16/17 and complete the move by Dec 1 ?

1rosco1

First post for me here, so go gentle LOL

I've been silver for years and my clock has just been reset, so I am desperate to reach gold this year and did not realise all the tricks that there are until hearing about this site, so thank you all for a very informative afternoon read.
A few questions if I could please?

How do you get 320 TP from flying LHR to SOF. Should be 160, so how do you double it when only flying in and out or staying a couple of days. Do you pay to hire a car for 5 days?
What is the trick here?

Do you get TP for Avios or reward flights? On a call to BA earlier I am told not, but I clearly have this last year from my travels as I hardly paid for any flights apart from taxes only and got 930 TP's. I have 5 long haul flights already booked going forward, so am hoping I will get some there, but they are all reward and Avios again!

TIA for any help/tips.

ceej123

Im not sure if this is still around but Alaska had a relatively cheap but horrible fare from the NY area- possibly EWR to FAI via SEA and ANC. It’s also worth checking the Flagship transcon routes for cheap first class fares. Just last week I found a return in flagship first for £1500 LAX-JFK and back.

BA707

LHR-SOF is 80TP each way so 160TP return. The fares in TP-run territory are 2+ nights stay so it's booked as LHR-SOF with a SOF-LHR return nested. The 320TP would be for two B2B return trips. Eg. Ticket 1 LHR-SOF 1st Jan, SOF-LHR 8th Jan, Ticket 2 SOF-LHR 1st Jan, LHR-SOF 8th Jan.

With that said, the Double TP Holidays promo requires 5 nights car rental / hotel so you could do book that together with 1 return flight to net 320TP.

No avios or TP is awarded for reward redemptions. If you access the booking through MMB (Manage my booking), it will show 0.
On rare occasions, the system can err in your favour but I certainly wouldn't count on it.

xenole

I messed up my little holiday TP run. Booked it for when I'm working as I got the months confused! (return when I'm off, outbound on my second day in out of 6 days)

Looked at same day flights, and €279 in CE from SOF-LHR, and €67 in economy from LHR-SOF = €346. Price comes up as €381 for some reason (knocks €17 off that price if I select economy plus)
That said, redemptions available I don't want to pay £250-£350 for 100TP.

Need 335TP to hit GGL, so 320TP if the holiday booking works out, redemption back to LHR, and £61 in economy LHR-SOF for 10TP gets me 330TP. 5 short

fluffymitten

For that extra 5 points, just do a cheapo domestic flight - you could get the train one way or the other if that worked out cheaper (and if you work remotely you could work on the train too so take less time off if a mid-week flight is more cost effective).

Or, see if you can get the LHR-SOF in a higher booking class and get 20TP? The price may negate that

Pilot37

No change to those dates has been announced, so assume all on schedule!

Pilot37

PIKnic

Thank you, due to come back about 5/6 Dec so it will be good to check it out.

xenole

Nothing too cheap domestically until Nov.
(Well, looked at the 3rd Nov and MAN-LHR is £89 in CE, and then £61 in economy the following day. Go to the payment page and it's now £484! Few pricing bugs.....more realistically pricing at £105 for economy for 15TP, 5 + 10, but would expect the ex-MAN flight to be cancelled knowing BA)

The LHR-SOF flight books into O class unfortunately, and no business available that day.

vintagepilot

A bit of a TP run, but not a BA B2B and cant find a B2B directory in the AY forum, but - anyone had look at, or had a go at, a B2B LHR-HEL-DXB with AY?

Looks like a B2B should be possible at DXB.

Edit: Answering my own question, or answered over on the AY forum to be exact, it is apparently fairly straightforward.

JonathanC

Seeing one-way CE RTN Economy Basic

London (Heathrow) To Manchester (Manchester)

1 hours 5 minutes18:25 LHR Wed 2 Nov Terminal 5 19:30 MAN Wed 2 Nov Terminal 3
Business2 x 32kg checked bags includedOperated By: British Airways



FLIGHT DETAILS. SELECT THIS OPTION FOR DETAILED FLIGHT DETAILS OR PROCEED FOR SUMMARY

Manchester (Manchester) To London (Heathrow)

1 hours 0 minutes 19:30 MAN Thu 3 Nov Terminal 3 20:30 LHR

£125.55

xenole

It's MAN-LHR I'm looking at. It was £89 for CE, and now it's changed to £393.

Tempted just to fly LHR-HEL at 7:30am for something like £290 and 80TP, 4hrs layover at HEL, down to VIE as a redemption, have a couple of nights there, and then catch a €14.99 Ryanair flight from VIE-SOF that gives me around 4hrs before the BA flight to LHR.

I'm reluctant to book anything ex-MAN in case they cancel. Can finish work for 5ish and catch the 7:30pm flight to LHR, but that's a favourite to cancel isn't it?
Might end up driving to LHR, or flying MAN-HEL.

Lux

This is helpful, but just to clarify a bit further about nesting etc. you could do a couple of different things. Consider different bookings as Ticket A (in business (J), Ticket B (also in J), Ticket C (in economy (Y) or a low cost carrier or an Avios redemption)

Option 1

Monday - Ticket A - LHR > SOF - in J - 80 TPs
Monday - Ticket A ; SOF > LHR - in J - 80 TPs

Tuesday - Ticket B - LHR > SOF - in J - 80 TPs
Tuesday - Ticket B ; SOF > LHR - in J - 80 TPs

Total - 320TPs. Cost (if you can find all of the fares aligned, which I couldn't), a minimum of £400.

Option 2

Monday - Ticket A - LHR > SOF - in J - 80 TPs - booked through BA holidays with a car for a minimum of 5 days*
Monday - 'collect' the car in SOFSunday - Ticket A - SOF > LHR - in J - 80 - TPs

A total of 160 TPs, which is then doubled at some point by BA Holidays to make a grand total of 320 TPs

* £140 for five days at the moment

What you can't do is get the BA holidays deal twice by using the middle return ticket from Sofia as a double points earner, so you can't use that as your 'nested' flight, although there's nothing stopping you doing a BA J class flight from there for another 160 TPs.

What you choose to do is up to you. Option 2 is likely to be better value overall. If you're feeling wealthier, option 1 works better (if you can find the cheap fares). I've made it work for a total of about £450 which, for 1.5 years of lounge access as my travel ramps up again, works for me.

I wanted to explain this as I've been on FT on and off for, I think, 21 years now and we all had to start somewhere!

PS I know LHR > SOF is not seven days a week, before you take me too literally.

xenole

Well, I've just booked some nested flights after getting the wrong month for days I'm not working. Not as cheap as I would have liked it to have been, but I used some Avios to offset the cost a bit.
Worst bit is not getting in my favourite row 1 seat of 1F! 1C and 1D on two flights was the best I could do; row 4 and row 8 (might go back to the exit rows of row 11? according to the seat map) on my other two flights, so obviously popular November days

1rosco1

Thank you. That explains it! Never heard of nested flights before either, but yes that all makes sense.