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Hi, wonderring if you can please help with regard to the refund Avois points by Open Jaw booking by 2-4-1 voucher.
I booked outbound off-peak CW seats to Rio by 2-4-1 online, then booked fresh booking return inbound off-peak CW seats ticket from Rio back to LHR online last week. I called BA Avios the 2nd morning to combine two journey’s together also get Avios return. I was expecting to get 100K Avois return according to milleage guidance from a post from Rob before, for off-peak journey between LHR abd Rio in off-peak season, but the BA staff only returned 75K Avois points back.
It took long time for the BA staff to sort it out by the help from her colleagues so I don’t think she knows much about this return Avios points calculation.
Does anyone know how to calculate the 2-4-1 refund Avios points or where to find the correct information?
Thsis isn’t an open jaw booking as the airports are the same. This is a simple return trip
If you used a pay more cash but use less avios then the refund will be based on that – it will always be 50% of the avious you paid.
@peterz, how many avios did you pay for the return booking? As mentioned above, you should have got 50% back of whatever you paid.
thanks for the response.
I didn’t choose the first payment option for inbound CW ticket, that is 200K point plus £17 tax, but the third one 150K plus £317 tax. Does it mean that I made a mistake by not choosing the first option if I’d ask for Avios points refund later, otherwise I would receive 100K point back but with £300 less tax paid? this doesn’t seem fair as I would expect the standard Avios should be refunded based on the journey, not by the payment option.
BTW: the last payment option is 75K Avios plus £1607 tax. Does it mean that I would only receive 37.5 Avios points back if I had paid with last option? I didn’t remember seeing anyone or anywhere mentioned this rule.
I’m not sure you’ve understood how the companion voucher works. It gives you 2 award seats for the price of the avios you would pay for 1. So if you paid 150k avios, you’ll get 75k back, i.e. half. It’s irrelevant how much you’ve paid for the cash element, as that doesn’t come into the equation with the voucher.
I think we assumed you had chosen to pay the highest avios/lowest cash option as this is the major benefit of booking Rio-London separately, and fairly well known on here. You would have got the 100k avios back and only paid the very low surcharges.
Which combination did you pay on the outbound? BA usually requires you to use the same ratio of cash/avios both ways, but occasionally misses if someone hasn’t done this.
You could try cancelling the inbound and rebooking (with the caveat that BA may notice if you try to make a new claim which doesn’t match the outbound pricing). There’s a slight risk that your seats wouldn’t reappear, however, and if more than 24 hours has passed since you booked, you’ll have to pay £35 pp cancellation fee.
Surely it’s logical that the 50% rebate should be based on what you actually paid not the highest level of avios that you didn’t pick?
Given you paid 150k then the rebate of 75k is correct.
@peterz – there is no ‘rule’ about this! Clearly you had discovered the special concession BA offers whereby they will refund you 50% of the Avios which simply gives effect to the voucher which either gives 50% off a solo ticket or pair of tickets. Each person pays the full cash/taxes element with or without a voucher.
The ‘base’ one way Club Avios off peak fare is 200k plus £17 for two people, receiving the benefit of Brazil’s low tax regime. You chose to spend 50k fewer Avios and paid £300 extra for that. BA has refunded you correctly with 75k Avios.
ok thanks all. I’ve just cancelled the flight and hope to rebook the seats back with more points and less tax, but no luck as the 2 CW seats are not there any more since my cancellation…
I’m sure it’s not been booked up yet and I kept monitoring.
Now I’m panic, when BA will put these 2 seats back?
ok thanks all. I’ve just cancelled the flight and hope to rebook the seats back with more points and less tax, but no luck as the 2 CW seats are not there any more since my cancellation…
I’m sure it’s not been booked up yet and I kept monitoring.
Now I’m panic, when BA will put these 2 seats back?
If the seats do reappear, BA may not agree to refund the 50% as this concession theoretically only applies to bookings made at T-355 (because they weren’t available at the time of booking the outbound) although your original post suggests it’s now about a week after that. You are going to need to land upon a fairly green agent.
ok thanks all. I’ve just cancelled the flight and hope to rebook the seats back with more points and less tax, but no luck as the 2 CW seats are not there any more since my cancellation…
I’m sure it’s not been booked up yet and I kept monitoring.
Now I’m panic, when BA will put these 2 seats back?
If the seats do reappear, BA may not agree to refund the 50% as this concession theoretically only applies to bookings made at T-355 (because they weren’t available at the time of booking the outbound) although your original post suggests it’s now about a week after that. You are going to need to land upon a fairly green agent.
This depends whether Peter cancelled just the outbound leg or the entire itinerary. Assuming the latter, Peter should be able to rebook the entire journey over his Voucher and Avios have been returned and the seats become available again.
If my assumption is wrong then I fear there’s a mess to be carefully unpicked.
now I only care when the seats are going to be back, so many lessons to learn and I shouldn’t have posted it here tbh…
@travelmonkey – yes, if the seats become available again, the OP can rebook by adding the return to the outbound so the voucher is applied but that would make the taxes £287.50pp rather than £8.50pp.
So 100k Avios and £575 (for the return) in lieu of the 75k and £317 he wasn’t happy with.
@travelmonkey – yes, if the seats become available again, the OP can rebook by adding the return to the outbound so the voucher is applied but that would make the taxes £287.50pp rather than £8.50pp.
So 100k Avios and £575 (for the return) in lieu of the 75k and £317 he wasn’t happy with.
Sorry care to explain more? I only cancelled the inbound one but the seats didn’t come back. Hence I’ll have to rebook the new one with the most points and lowest tax, is there any problem with that?
Please help as I’m in a total mess and confusion now.
@peterz – when you add a return trip you have two options:-
1) add that return to your existing outbound booking the fare for which is then recalculated as a return journey which means that for this route you lose the benefit of low/no taxes ex Brazil. The ‘base’ off peak Avios fare is 100k each way + £287.50pp each way.
2) you make a separate online booking for the return and then contact BA as you did to get 50% back. This concession theoretically only applies when you couldn’t book the return at the same time as the outbound because seats hadn’t been released as earlier than T-355 and you book those returns at the earliest opportunity.
@peterz – when you add a return trip you have two options:-
1) add that return to your existing outbound booking the fare for which is then recalculated as a return journey which means that for this route you lose the benefit of low/no taxes ex Brazil. The ‘base’ off peak Avios fare is 100k each way + £287.50pp each way.
2) you make a separate online booking for the return and then contact BA as you did to get 50% back. This concession theoretically only applies when you couldn’t book the return at the same time as the outbound because seats hadn’t been released as earlier than T-355 and you book those returns at the earliest opportunity.
thanks again. I understand the T-355 roles but didn’t know about the refund Avois rule, as was thinking the 100K would be refunded by whatever payment method after combining the two journey by 2-4-1. I will change the plan accordingly rebook again later.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/03/11/how-to-use-ba-amex-241-voucher/
This is the most recent version of the guide to the companion voucher; it makes it quite clear that you’ll get back half the avios you paid. The 100k figure isn’t even mentioned in any of the examples. As @JDB notes, though, it’s not a “rule” – it’s a goodwill gesture from BA which they could decide to withdraw at any time!
now I only care when the seats are going to be back, so many lessons to learn and I shouldn’t have posted it here tbh…
Sorry to say that the mistake you made wasn’t that you posted here but that you misunderstood how the voucher worked and what refund you would get and as a result of that made some bad decisions.
It’s possible the seats you released will go back into inventory but it looks like that’s not happened so far and all you can do is keep checking and jump in when they do.
Thanks. Just wondering if the different payment were choosen between outbound and inbound, as my outbound flight was not paid by most points plus lowest tax, will it make trouble if I choose inbound with most Avois points plus lowest tax when combining them by 2-4-1? Or do I have to book same level points+payment?
Sorry just don’t want to make another mistake.
As I said above, normally you need to have the same ratio on both legs for BA to agree to refund the 50%, though you may get an inexperienced or amenable agent – I wouldn’t bank on this though.
But your main issue may be that which was also pointed out earlier – if you’re not cancelling the whole trip, in which case you could rebook the whole thing online (but with the standard surcharges), you need to book your inbound at T-355 to be guaranteed getting half the avios back.
What’s your rebooking plan?
As I said above, normally you need to have the same ratio on both legs for BA to agree to refund the 50%, though you may get an inexperienced or amenable agent – I wouldn’t bank on this though.
I recently did this to Brazil, GRU, to save a shed load of tax and fees on the inbound, and the agent was very careful to check I had picked the same option for both outbound and inbound flights, particularly as one was off-peak and the other peak. Initially he said 100k and I had to remind him it was 110K refund. It was bang on T-335 as said.
I’m soon going to be trying to book flights for next Xmas. I’m most worried about the returns, as need to be back for school. I will try and get flights back several days before necessary, but is there any reason I can’t book multiple flights back, then cancel the ones I don’t want, and finally link the correct ones to my 241s? Would only hold unwanted flights for 24hrs.
Sorry to ask more questions.. so BA are refusing to budge on the taxes & fees back from Mexico & are saying it’s definitely £1,477 for Iberia Mexico City to London via Madrid.
However I can book the same flight online for £300 taxes & fees. If I book that flight & then call up for them to refund the Avios, will they then recalculate my taxes & fees or simply refund the Avios?
I currently have a reservation for the trip back but haven’t paid (they have taken the Avios), so I assume this wouldn’t count as a cancellation of I told them I didn’t want them anymore so they can release them?
Just book it separately and ask for the 50% avios back. Don’t even mention the taxes. You’ll be left with 2 PNRs but that doesn’t have to be a problem.
BA may well say you have to pay a cancellation fee on the initial booking if you don’t want it any more.
Don’t leave it much longer though, as they can get a bit funny if you wait more than a few days to claim half the avios back.
@tontoro, there’s nothing to stop you doing this id you have enough avios, but it would obviously be helpful if you cancelled the unwanted seats asap and posted here as and when they reappear!I just called BA for a similar issue. I want to fly WTP/Iberia Business between LHR and MEX, and the combined cost is coming to £633.22 when it would be £329.80 for two one-way flights.
The lady I spoke to said it’s not possible to apply the voucher to multiple tickets and that whatever I had read on the internet was “wrong”. Should I just book the one way flights myself anyway and keep calling until I can find an agent who can help?
Edit: Also to be clear, I should book the outbound journey with the voucher, and the inbound without, and ask for a 50% refund on the inbound?
The issue you may have here is that if both your sectors are now available to book, BA is likely to say that the journey must be booked as a single trip for you to fully use the 241. The policy is normally to only refund the 50% avios when you booked the outbound before the inbound seats were released.
Possibly this is what the agent you spoke to was getting at.
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