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Hi I’ve booked a multi-award partner booking with BA from EU to APAC with a number of legs but it seems as though they’ve tightened the rules on booking! I used to be able to book up to 8 legs – and they would generally be fine as long as there wasn’t any backtracking. They now seem to be giving vague rules that the agent isn’t clear on – where they’re saying ” you can’t have a layover of more than 72 hours” or “you have to take the most convenient return”. The agent was saying i basically needed to butcher my booking and book an open jaw cutting out the middle segment! My final destination was australia and they were counting that as a layover? I fear that noone knows what to do with these and they seem to be going to another team for validation which don’t give clear feedback – it sounded like the notes said something to effect of “invalid booking – no layeovers of more than 72 hours”. Don’t really want to post my itinerary here but PM me if you know what might be the new rules so I can figure out how to get a valid booking! Thanks!
I’ve just had the same experience. For one world multicarrier award BA now seem to want either a one way routing or a return. I also had to cut out a middle leg on my booking which saved me zero Avios but resulted in it getting ticketed.
Big shame.
You really need to give the full routing to get the best advice. There is obviously something that BA don’t like about yours but we won’t know that in an information vacuum.
There is no private message function on HfP
Weird, as of course RTW bookings are quite normsl things without those kins of rules.
Over the yesrs this wouldn’t be the first report whete BA made some rule change and enforcibg it long before it got announced (eg 1-2 months). Flyertalk might have other reports.
If you can’t share your itinerary that mskea it sticky but in BA’s never ending quest for deliveribg less could you just confirm is the first flight on your ticket operated by BA or by another airline?
Weird, as of course RTW bookings are quite normsl things without those kind of rules agents are now telling you? Have you called more than once, and in usual working hours?
Over the years this wouldn’t be the first report where BA made some rule change and enforcing it long before it got announced (eg 1-2 months). Flyertalk might have other reports.
If you can’t share your itinerary that makes it sticky but in BA’s never ending quest for delivering less could you just confirm is the first flight on your ticket operated by BA or by another airline? If another airline the change might be coming from somewhere else, or apply to tickets BA might have to pay more for.
@akkiri – have the rules actually changed? The aspects you mention sound like the rules that have been in place for ten years plus. No backtracking, most direct routes, minimum/maximum stopovers etc.
I think the issue you are perhaps experiencing is where multi-carrier fares unintentionally effectively become either RTW fares or circle Pacific fares and the flexibility of multi-carrier fares can’t be used to circumvent these fare rules.
Thanks the answers so far – I’ve been researching on Flyterfalk and it seems the rules have tightened over the last year or so. My routing at the moment is LHR-HEL-ICN (5 day stay) ICN-HKG (3 day stay) HKG-PER (20 day stay) MEL-DOH-LHR. I’ve booked journeys like this multiple times without issue, just was always sent off for pricing of taxes as long as segments were OK. BA are suggesting it would be accepted if I changed the routing to open jaw LHR-HEL-ICN-MEL-DOH-LHR. I could cope with this but I plan to be in Perth for Christmas, and can always drop HKG but there’s no avios flights from Korea to Australia without stopping in HKG so I’m trying to figure out how to setup the routing to get to Oz and back while having a few days in Korea. They are counting Australia as a ‘layover’ which doesnt make sense to me as I am saying it’s the destination. Any tips to achieve this would be welcomed!
Do you have a gap in your ticket from PER to MEL or is PER to MEL actually a flight on your ticket.
Pretty sure MEL is your furthest point from origin not PER. This affects lots of things including how many stopovers (ie gap between 2 flights of > 23 hours 59 minutes) you can have on the outward to the end of your outward, on the return or perhaps on the whole ticket.
So you could try ending outward at PER then return starts at MEL ie open jaw type return, by making the PER-MEL an “overland” link on your ticket ie you will do this by some other means not on this ticket.
If that doesn’t work to get it ticketed total up the distance in miles of every flight on outward (gcmap has them), and on return (with and without that PER MEL gap). MPM rules may be coming into play which can allow more, but might only allow extra mileage over and above the most direct route by as little as 5%.
Award tickets are overlaid on cash price ticket and fare structures, so taking JDB’s comment into account is making me wonder about these 2 points.
PS Last choice would be to drop HKG or perhaps reduce to below 24h between flight in and flight out (though might have to be on same carrier potentially) but try the above first. Looks like putting HKG on the return leg as a stopover (for possible use if you had a stopover left on the underlying ticket structure that you could use on the return) is not going to work if you decided to route the return via DOH.
PPS Geography is not my strong suit but if the above 3 ideas do mot eork wondering if there’s a One World starting point in Europe for which MEL would be closer than Perth. Thinking vaguely about the effect of trying to make Perth the furthest point.
Thanks Lady London. Yeah the current flight is in to Perth and overland to Mel and then return from there. Planned to go to Brisbane and then Mel before returning and booking those separately. Sounds like if I make the return from Perth and drop the Hong Kong layover that might help as the only way to get to Perth from Seoul is via hkg. We wanted a couple of days there but can lose it if it means we can have some time in Korea. What I’m wondering is if they’ll let me have 4-5 days in Seoul while still continuing there from hkg or whether I’ll have to drop that completely to avoid the stopover rule. So thinking LHR-HEL-ICN (4 DAY LAYOVER) THEN HKG-PER. then return is PER-DOH-LHR
@akkiri – I believe @LadyLondon is right about this. You refer to Australia as being your ‘destination’ rather than a ‘layover’ but for RTW or circle fares there isn’t the same concept of a ‘destination’ that applies to OW, RT or OJ fares.
The rules haven’t changed for many years, but as not too many people at BA are particularly skilled at fares and ticketing, stuff has slipped through in the past and created issues so more experienced staff look at these complex itineraries now.
As an agent who used to used to calculate fares, my firm was on the hook for the additional fare if we got it wrong, so we took great care!
I was told up to 72 hours would be OK for a stopover, it is not limited to 24 hours. I think the agent also mentioned a maximum of two stopovers — so in the @akkiri’s case if the ICN and HKG stops were shortened this might be OK. YMMV of course! 72 hours didn’t work for my proposed itinerary so I didn’t put this to the test.
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