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@craig – there is no issue with booking your itinerary MAD-EZE//GRU-LHR-MAN as it’s well within the open jaw rules and there’s no problem mixing IB & BA but the tax/charges saving will likely only work to optimum effect with two separate bookings which is easy for a normal Avios booking but if using a companion voucher, requires you not only to book each leg as soon as it is released (so T-360 for Iberia and T-355 for BA) but also to have a sufficient float of Avios to book the leg from Brazil at full price and then call to get half the Avios back by linking your voucher. If BA simply adds the return, they will in common with many European airlines not apply the Brazilian surcharge limit. You may need initially just to book GRU-LHR as those seats will be released before the domestic ones.
@jdb
Thank you. I do have enough avios to cover it if needed. I am still toying with the same outbound and then coming back to Madrid from Brazil. Then making my own way back to Manchester on a separate booking.As I am looking at Iberia off peak dates it is a considerable saving in avios (60k), than coming back to the UK. But slightly higher taxes from Brazil > Spain, than Bra > UK.
When I started planning this trip I was going to do UK > Brazil, then Argentina > UK. By swapping the route I will do in South America, and starting in Madrid, it saves almost £1,000 in taxes. That was a bit of an eye opener.
You should be able to get MAD-MAN added at minimal cost on IB, if the flight times work. You’ll still benefit from the lower taxes and also have your luggage checked through, plus the connection will be protected if you’re delayed and miss it. You might have to stay a night in MAD but IB would be liable for that. If your MAN connection is on a separate booking, you’d lose all that.
I’m sure others have commented previously, but my recent experience of trying to book on the day award seats are released was that I phoned the US number at 1am and was diverted to an overseas call centre where the very pleasant agent frankly had no idea what I was trying to do by adding the return leg to an existing booking. I wasted 5 minutes with her before giving up and phoning again. Second time I got lucky and the call was answered by an agent who used to work in another department and understood the urgency straight away and luckily the seats I wanted were still available. In short if you feel like you are not getting anywhere try to redial and hope for more success with another agent.
I’m sure others have commented previously, but my recent experience of trying to book on the day award seats are released was that I phoned the US number at 1am and was diverted to an overseas call centre where the very pleasant agent frankly had no idea what I was trying to do by adding the return leg to an existing booking. I wasted 5 minutes with her before giving up and phoning again. Second time I got lucky and the call was answered by an agent who used to work in another department and understood the urgency straight away and luckily the seats I wanted were still available. In short if you feel like you are not getting anywhere try to redial and hope for more success with another agent.
hi Ross, thank you for sharing your experience. Just wanted to double check, when you called back, did you call the US number again? Thanks.
hi Ross, thank you for sharing your experience. Just wanted to double check, when you called back, did you call the US number again? Thanks.
Yes exactly the same number – 1 800 247 9297 – via Skype credit in my case.
Yes the very same number
Just a quick query about how long it normally takes to ticket the inbound leg when added to an open jaw 2-4-1 redemption booking?
It should be done immediately unless there’s some issue with pricing and they have to send it off to the back office, in which case it seems to take anywhere from a week to never and needs chasing up!
My last one was sent to the back office and took 4-5 days to be ticketed but all was good when it came through
Thanks, I’ll check today then before the weekend and see what they say.
Mine has been over a month and still no ticket. I’ll need to call them.
Was just told on the phone it went to ticketing, should’ve been done in 72hrs but will take another 24hrs for *reasons*.
So I’ll check Monday and if not call again.
Thanks everyone for all the tips on here. Just thought I would share my experience in case it helps someone else.
We were trying to book the return leg from Tokyo to London. We called the US customer service team via Skype on the 1-800-247-9297 number but were told they couldn’t change avios bookings and directed us to the US-specific executive club line (1-800-452-1201).
We initially got connected to a very tired-sounding UK-based agent who told us (at 00:53) that she wouldn’t stay on the line, could only book for people in the USA (which isn’t true), and our only option was to book online and claim a 50% refund (even though we were just short on avios to do this).
We cut our losses and phoned back the exact same number, with a new super-friendly agent sorting us out at 00:59 with seconds to spare, snagging us the perfect CW seats. I’m so glad we persisted with the call centres as the webpage showed that all of the CW reward flights for both the flights that day were gone by 01:10.
Hopefully this lesson in perseverance is helpful for someone – if you aren’t getting anywhere, end the call and call again! Best of luck and happy travels 🙂Well done @emilyspc glad to hear it worked out. I must say I think you were lucky to call back and get through so quick. My experience in the past has been wait times of 30mins plus, making it so hard to time the call right.
My next booking involves a half-term date when I would imagine every man and their dog will be trying to get through. Fortunately I have enough avios to book both legs online, but may go for a two-pronged attack. I’ve seen the flights I want snapped up very quickly after midnight at the recent end of summer hols booking period.
That’s great news @emilyspc. I know that feeling very well. Pleased you got the seats you wanted in the end. perseverance is as important as luck it appears!
Quick data point.
Booked the return flight (of a CV 2-4-1 booking) from GRU to LHR using full Avios online, in order to save over £500 in tax and fees, and called at about 06.30 to get half the Avios refunded.
Got Indian call center, but no problems, very efficient and Avios back in accounts instantly with no questions asked.
Might have saved more if I’d chosen IB rather than BA of course, but trip CEO not happy with that idea!
Wondering if anyone can give their thoughts/what they’d do…
Booked the outbound GLA-LGW-MCO online in WTP last week with the 2-4-1. Planning to go away for 2 weeks, so am waiting until the inbound flights release before going any further.
The situation I’m in is that the inbound LGW-GLA is the day after the initial MCO-LGW inbound, so won’t be available to book when along with the MCO-LGW leg. As someone suggested above, calling up and adding this domestic leg on the day after should be easy enough.
Do you reckon it’s worth me calling up the day MCO-LGW is released to get the inbound leg added, and then calling up *again* the day after to add on the LGW-GLA domestic leg? Or… should I just chance it and call up the day the domestic is released, booking MCO-LGW-GLA at once?
My main concern is if they charge me a phone booking fee on both occasions calling up. Is this likely?
I should also add that I’d be open to returning open-jaw from TPA or MIA, too. So, availability should hopefully not be a major issue in my case.
@tpb_2024 We’ve just had this scenario with our Glasgow connections too. We were told by the call centre agent that no change fees are charged as the tickets were not available for booking at the time of the call.
We phoned up the following day at a leisurely time (not 1am – we figured worst case we’d still get economy seats if business reward seats are gone) and it wasn’t a problem to get the domestic flights added on.@tpb_2024, MCO is a very popular route so you’re best booking the return as soon as it’s released then calling the next day to add the domestic connection. As noted above, there shouldn’t be any charges to do this.
Remember as well that if you do return from MIA, this will be a LHR flight (and possibly into T3, IIRC), though as you’re connecting to GLA that shouldn’t cause any extra difficulties.
Thought this would be best place. One half of 241 used MAD-MEX. Booked on IB separately MIA-MAD. Im I right in thinking that now I could not use the second half of 241 as 2nd flight was not booked on BA?!
Thought this would be best place. One half of 241 used MAD-MEX. Booked on IB separately MIA-MAD. Im I right in thinking that now I could not use the second half of 241 as 2nd flight was not booked on BA?!
You can fly any combination so IB/ IB is fine
ARGH! Ive just called the Australia number to book my return leg using my companion voucher. We are going HKG to LHR. The “level” we booked the outbound flight at was the second option on the pricing options, so I understand this is what we have to take for the return flight (annoying!). However, the fees/taxes for the Hong Kong flight are TOTALLY different to the ones on the website. It is showing as £261.58 for 2 people, whereas on the phone they are quoting £575. Triple checked we are looking at the same options.
Annoyingly I don’t have enough points to make a new booking online, and for them to refund half the avios. Any ideas how I can resolve this? Interestingly, the 2 reward seats are (apparently) reserved for me for 24 hours while I resolve the issue. The guy was lovely, but couldnt offer any other help. Any help appreciated!
ARGH! Ive just called the Australia number to book my return leg using my companion voucher. We are going HKG to LHR. The “level” we booked the outbound flight at was the second option on the pricing options, so I understand this is what we have to take for the return flight (annoying!). However, the fees/taxes for the Hong Kong flight are TOTALLY different to the ones on the website. It is showing as £261.58 for 2 people, whereas on the phone they are quoting £575. Triple checked we are looking at the same options.
Annoyingly I don’t have enough points to make a new booking online, and for them to refund half the avios. Any ideas how I can resolve this? Interestingly, the 2 reward seats are (apparently) reserved for me for 24 hours while I resolve the issue. The guy was lovely, but couldnt offer any other help. Any help appreciated!
One option may be to book the return flight ourselves by getting a friend to gift us the 40,000 avios we would need to make the online booking for the 2 of us. And then get half the points returned to us by BA (from the Companion Voucher), and transfer the avios back to the friend – but that is going to cost an additional £100! This seems really perverse.
@magicmat – unfortunately it doesn’t work to add the price of the two legs together to get the return cost. On a one way from HKG the surcharges are capped but once you buy a return from London which is what you are now doing, the low surcharge benefit falls away. The unofficial arrangement of making a second booking and reclaiming 50% circumvents this, but only applies to a very limited number of destinations.
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