Family booking using 241 and Upgrade

[alastairharding]

Hello,

I’m about to make my first booking using accumulated points and vouchers and am looking for a bit of advice.

We will be travelling as a family and I’ll want to book two of us using an Amex 241 voucher and another two using 2x Barclays cabin upgrade vouchers, to end up with 4 of us (2 adults, 1 young adult and 1 child) in Club World (London to Toronto return).

I don’t think I can book online as a single booking, am I best to just do two bookings online or call (and if so which number works best)?

Any other hints and tips I should be aware of?

Many thanks!

[aq.1988]

You won’t be able to combine Amex/Barclaycard voucher bookings, so they’ll have to be done separately.

I’d suggest booking the parent that earned the Amex voucher with the younger child on one booking, and the other parent and older child using the Barclaycard vouchers.

You might have to call anyway, as it’s sometimes tricky getting the website to let you use 2x upgrade vouchers together. And, I’m not sure if you can even use 2 vouchers together, where one of the pax is still a child (I think ‘young adult’ is still a child, essentially), so that might require a call, in any case.

If it’s not one of the routes that require a midnight booking 355 days in advance, and if you can’t do it online, just call the UK line during their opening hours.

[NorthernLass]

Also – if you don’t have status and don’t want to pay BA’s outrageous prices to select seats prior to check-in, apparently BA can put a note in your bookings so it’s more likely you’ll all be seated together.

[BB8]

NorthernLass wrote:

Also – if you don’t have status and don’t want to pay BA’s outrageous prices to select seats prior to check-in, apparently BA can put a note in your bookings so it’s more likely you’ll all be seated together.

We book using a 241 and Barclays upgrade voucher. No status.
I’ve called to ‘link’ bookings many times and every time we’ve ended up being split up. I guess we’ve fallen foul of busy routes and seats already being booked before we checked in. On a number of occasions one of us hasn’t even been next to our son (who has been 3-6 years old on these occasions) and we’ve had to ask for help on board, at that age he really can’t be left sat on his own in club!

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Notes and links mean nothing! Not that a booking can be formally linked.

An agent may put a note in the booking but no one will see it unless they actively look and need a reason to look.

The rebooking bots won’t see it either.

[NorthernLass]

I deliberately avoid the term “link” because it causes so much confusion. But plenty of people have reported being seated together after contacting BA, which is why I mentioned it. Obviously it’s not guaranteed, though it beggars belief that BA would split up parents and children on the same booking – but this has also been reported a couple of times here!

[jsto]

Just piggybacking on this post as I’m in a similar situation, will be looking to book 4x CW tickets to Tokyo using an Amex 241 (in my name) and a Barclays upgrade voucher (in my wife’s name). I’m v aware I will need some good fortune to pull this off – I assume we’ll both need to call up ahead of midnight?

I have an added complication in that we have 3 kids, so I’ll have to book a separate ticket in a different cabin for the 5th passenger. Will this be feasible to do, i.e separately booking a single child avios ticket? In practice either myself or my wife will take the 5th seat, but booking it as a child ticket will presumably be the only way to do it given each of us will need to be attached to the 2 voucher bookings?

[NorthernLass]

This is going to be a tough one, but you can actually use the Barclays voucher for someone who isn’t the voucher holder, which might help you juggle things a bit better. You’d need to call to book a child on a separate ticket (and the child might have to be a minimum age), but if you’re going to be on the phone anyway, this might be feasible.

For lots of great advice on the midnight call, head over to the “Booking the return at T-355” thread.

You’ll need a plan B as well if you don’t manage to pull this off when you come to book the return! Iberia also flies to Tokyo, though you’re not guarantees 4 J seats.

[jsto]

Thanks, yes I’m not too confident of securing all 4 CW seats but you never know. If we only get 2 it’s not the end of the world. Good to know re the upgrade voucher, will investigate and have a play around. Yeah am looking into alternatives too!