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Hi,
Hoping for some help from those with more experience on reward flights.
I was due to book a reward flight combining with points from Manchester to Orlando. The outbound flight is now available but inbound flight won’t be available until after the change.
We were hoping to book premium outbound and UC inbound. There is currently availability for the premium.
Previously I thought you could call up to lock in the one way and then add the return once available to make sure you don’t overpay in tax.
I don’t want to mess up voucher / points usage given the change but also don’t want to miss out on flight availability.
What would you do?
Thanks
“Hoping” is very much the word now. There will be no assurance of saver priced inbound UC seats. The good news is there will be seats at some price. If these are popular dates, like October half term, the pricing in points could be very high indeed.
How the voucher will work with one leg booked before the changes is anyone’s guess – how many of the maximum 75ks worth will deemed to have been used up with the first leg? You might want to do your own maths before calling.
“How the voucher will work with one leg booked before the changes is anyone’s guess – how many of the maximum 75ks worth will deemed to have been used up with the first leg? You might want to do your own maths before calling.
On the outbound, it would only be 22.5k of points, vs 70k when looking at the whole trip on current points but obviously that could change. Planned dates are off peak and don’t clash with school holidays but who knows what the point amount will be!!
I booked 3 return MAN to MCO reward flights yesterday. Luckily, for me they were for September so both outbound and inbound were available to book. I asked the operator about the ts & cs, wanting to make sure that because I was booking them under the ‘old rules’ these would still apply if I had to cancel them. He confirmed if I cancelled them over 24 hours before flights were due, I would be refunded my voucher, points and fees/taxes, and just have to pay the £30 cancellation fee per person. However, he was keen to point out that if I wanted to amend the date, although the amendment fee would be £30, the points required for the new date would be subject to dynamic pricing so extra points would probably be required to change the date. I’m not sure what would happen in your situation though? If inbound only available once new rules in place? I booked now due to forthcoming changes. In fact, I’m now also contemplating booking a MAN to JFK return before 30th October because I can only see the points required increasing, except for a small amount of saver seats which will probably be difficult to get and won’t be guaranteed. It cost me 165,000 points for 2 UC returns, 95k plus a CC and 70k for a UC/PE return (only 2 UCs were available on the inbound).
Book the outbound on the morning of the 29th, then if needed you can cancel within 24 hours without paying a fee and you should be able to see what sort of impact the oct 30th changes have have.
I’m not sure theres any up-side to not booking your outbound before oct 30.
Book the outbound on the morning of the 29th, then if needed you can cancel within 24 hours without paying a fee and you should be able to see what sort of impact the oct 30th changes have have.
I’m not sure theres any up-side to not booking your outbound before oct 30.
This is a great idea! If I’m using a CC reward, will there be any issue applying the 241 on return element?
I’m guessing phone lines are going to be very busy on 30th!
This is a great idea! If I’m using a CC reward, will there be any issue applying the 241 on return element?
There shouldnt be, when you book the outbound tell them that you will add the return later and they then use half of the voucher (not sure what that looks like on their side, but when booking the return I tell them I want to use the other half of the voucher and they dont have a problem with it).
Not sure if this is only applicable to open jaw bookings, but when booking the return sometimes they can try to charge higher fees compared to what they should be if the flight was being booked as outbound and inbound together, so ask them if the fees to be paid are correct based on it being the return leg of the booking rather than as a one way (if its a regular return, do a test booking on the site to find out what the total return fees should be beforehand).
I rang Flying Club last night and they were super helpful. They clarified that the 350k for a flight could happen but would be for last minute in peak season. For those looking to book off peak and 11 months in advance it would likely be better under the new scheme and it was implied I would get a better deal for my planned flights under the new scheme.
Though details haven’t been great so far, fingers crossed that it isn’t as bad as originally thought.
Anyone getting any joy? My flight showing as not available so maybe they haven’t loaded the new system in yet…
Soft advice is that 2pm is the expected release time
Been very impressed with Aer Lingus from Manchester. Booked 4 cash economy flights. Noticed when I logged in there was option to pay to for an upgrade. Got in touch about ability to use avios to upgrade. Was approved both legs for all 4 of us. Plus unlike BA get free seat selection. Called call center staff really polite and quick to answer. Managed to bag throne seats on both legs for the adults.
The reward seat availability checker is already showing interesting data for LHR-JFK. Nothing showing at the moment for most routes
The reward seat availability checker is already showing interesting data for LHR-JFK. Nothing showing at the moment for most routes
Interesting – quite wide availability on a saver fare of 29,000 one way compared with the previous off-peak rate of 47,500. If that’s replicated on other routes and doesn’t change over time (two big ‘ifs’, of course), things could turn out quite well for anyone who has flexibility to choose their own dates.
Looking at Manchester – MCO in December some dates (early) are 29K points one way in UC whereas late December is 86K
29K is a nice reduction compared to the previous chart interesting to see how high it goesBooked a P/E LHR-BOS this morning and called up to apply a Voucher to be told that they cannot apply it right now and to call back after 2pm when new scheme goes live.
Hoping that the delta between P/E and U/C isn’t more than 150K points but not that confident since flights are in Christmas/New Year window.
Outcome will likely prove a Test Case for whether I stick with Flying Club or dump Virgin entirely and buy a truckload of Greggs with my points 😁
Silly things going on.
https://ibb.co/jDgsMqnWow just seen MAN-MCO Sunday 13th April
Economy
92,000pts
Premium
No seats left
Upper Class
225,000ptsHow are taxes & fees looking like? Same as before or reduced?
How are taxes & fees looking like? Same as before or reduced?
It won’t pull through the taxes yet just seems to be the reward checker which is working cannot book a flight
I’m going to call after 2. If the site is currently correct, MAN MCO is the same amount of miles for my dates as it was, except it’s not available on the day I actually want it. So that would be a big bonus if it turns out that way.
Seems a lot better than before? Taxes seem a lot lower!
Seems a lot better than before? Taxes seem a lot lower!
What taxes are you seeing? I can’t see them yet
My taxes MAN-MCO are identical.
Just did a dummy booking of LHR – LAX, think I saw £360 tax for UC….although the points required were 18k for Economy, 360k for UC
Right, edit to all my messages. Just looked again and it’s jumped from 45000 return to 175000 return. Clearly hadn’t loaded properly!
Oooft.
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