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Many will know that getting some of the prime BA long haul redemption routes can be really difficult. The standard wisdom is to book the outbound as soon as it becomes available, and then book the return segment when it becomes available. But if you are not careful, that can cost you many hundreds of pounds more than necessary.
Let’s imagine you are looking to book a flight to Los Angeles, out 10th of November 2017, returning on the 24th. BA initially opens up redemption flights 355 days out. So that flight on the 10th of November 2017 will become available to book on the 20th of November 2016. The return flight doesn’t become available to book until the 4th of December.
However if you wait until the 4th of December, you might find that all the redemption seats are already gone for your outbound flight. So on the 20th of Nov 2016, you should book the outbound redemption as a 1-way flight. On the 4th of December, you should ring up the BA call centre, and get the return flight added to your existing booking.
What you shouldn’t do, is book the return as a separate 1-way flight. You might well be tempted to do this, as you can do it online, whereas to add to your booking you have to ring the call centre. However, that convenience will cost you substantially more taxes and fees.
The example below demonstrates the issue. It shows the fees for a business return to LAX out 11th of Oct, back the 18th Oct. These redemption seats are still available, if anyone is interested.
Booking the outbound results in the following taxes and fees:-
Booking the inbound gives you the following:-
However booking them on one ticket gives the following:-
The important figure in each case is the bottom line. Book the flights separately, and you’ll be charged £383.47 and £385.60 in taxes and fees. Book the flights as one ticket, and the taxes and fees are £570.37. That’s virtually a £200 difference.
If you concentrate on the “carrier imposed charge” line, you’ll see that on the complete return ticket it is £329. On the two separate tickets, it is £164.50 on the outbound ticket but jumps to £363.20 on the inbound. How BA justifies that, I don’t know, and is beyond the scope of this article. The important thing to know is that the charge disparity exists.
Call centre fees
It needs to be remembered that getting the call centre to change your ticket will attract some fees. As far as I’m aware, you’ll be charged £35 per ticket, and also a flat £15 service charge. Some people have some joy in getting these fees waived, but I would not depend on it. Even taking the fees into account, it’s still a saving of £160.
What UK airport charges the least Taxes to fly out of ? is there one that is better for redemptions ? I’m sure someone told me Edinburgh was cheap but I don’t know if this is true as ive never looked into it
Scott – per my response to Ian, we ran an article on those airports where you can avoid Air Passenger Duty: https://insideflyer.co.uk/2016/10/air-passenger-duty-explained-secret-trick-avoid/
Jersey is uniquely placed as being determined to be outside UK from the point of view of APD, but inside UK from BA’s point of view.
Therefore you pay no APD, but you CAN use companion voucher (AKA 2-4-1).
As far as I know, Aberdeen has some special situation now as well, that means you don’t pay APD if your journey begins there.
The Scottish APD-avoidance wheeze is I understand limited to the Scottish Highlands and islands.
Inverness…my fading memory had it as Aberdeen.
If you ring to book your outbound flight and add the inbound later by phone the fees are waived as BA did not have the flight available yet as you say.
If you book the outbound on the web and add the inbound later by ringing you will be charged (unless you ask nicely).
The phone booking fees I’m referring to.
I need to add an in-bound in a couple of days time, so I’ll see how things pan out this time.
That’s what I was told directly from them. I booked my outbound on the web using a 2for1 but they waived the charges for calling to book inbound. Told me that if I rung originally for th outbound they note and make sure no fees are applied.
Good luck
I’m just off the phone 20mins ago, adding an inbound to my outbound. Taxes and fees were £173-ish each, So £346 for 2 people. Book as another 1-way, those would have been £770, a £424 difference.
Also the agent didn’t mention either a change fee or a service fee, so I certainly didn’t mention it. My initial booking was online. Think I just got lucky.
Excellent!