BA companion voucher for people any advice?

i have a 2 for 1 voucher via Amex but there is 3 of us so we will have to pay for one flight plus 2 x taxes. Was going to use it on a business class flight to Asia but with those costs added together I may get a sale flight with another airline and save my avios reward flights via the voucher. Has anyone had experience with getting Long haul reward flights x 2 and a paid ticket at a reasonable price all on one booking?

 

You can't mix paid and redemption on the same booking, annoyingly, no airline will let you. So, whatever happens, you'll need to make one booking for 2 people for the 2-for-1 redemption, and a separate one for the final person for their cash ticket

One thing to consider is to start your journey in Inverness or Jersey. That will let you dodge the UK Air Passenger Duty taxes, which make up a fair slug of the taxes & fees on a long haul premium redemption from the UK. It does mean needing to position to one of those to airports first though...

 

If you have sufficient Avios, you can book 3 redemption flights along with a 2-for-1 voucher. You'll need the Avios for 2 flights, and to pay taxes and fees for all (with *any* Amex card). This gives the advantage of one booking. You can also link bookings by calling BA, so if you book one seat with cash, that booking can link to the redemption booking for seat allocation purposes (and perhaps online check in). I've done both types of booking in the past and they both worked well at the time.

 

I suspect that 2x BA taxes/surcharges plus a paid J ticket on BA (without travel hacking an ex-EU itinerary or similar) - and let's not forget the value of those Avios - is going to be far more expensive than just paying attention to fare deals and buying 3 Business Class tickets on Qatar, Turkish, Finnair, Air France etc. whenever a good sale comes along.

You might want to consider whether you can do 3 tickets "Upgrading Using Avios" - buying Premium Economy and using Avios to upgrade to Business. The problem will be finding 3 award seats in Business Class, as the standard for BA is to release 2 per flight.

 

Thanks for all the replies. That's what I was thinking that business class may work out cheaper elsewhere without the voucher. I hadn't thought of the PE option though, that may work out better. I will have a look at that plus also flying from Scotland see how it looks as I can't imagine I will have enough Avios for all 3 redemptions even if I could find them.
It's annoying to find out that you can't book a paid flight and a redemption on the same ticket, thanks for the tip off.

 

Apologies for hijacking your thread but I also need some advice on a 2-4-1 BA voucher redemption!

I currently have 98k miles and 2-4-1 voucher. My partner and I are planning on flying to HKG next summer and since we are yet to try the Club World product, are keen to use our voucher.

Is it cost-effective/good use of miles to use the voucher on a one way 90k mile redemption (+£362 taxes each) and then pay for the return separately in one of the flight sales later in the year? One way flights are pretty pricey!

 

Norwegian are set to start flying to Singapore fairly soon, and their flights are sensibly priced for one-ways. Have a look at the news archive for more on what their flights are like and the Singapore details

You could always do BA to Hong Kong on avios, Cathay to Singapore with avios (but no 2-for-1) and cash with Norwegian to get home

 

(I should probably know this, but..) can can you mix classes using the 241? So maybe book Biz one way and Economy back - even if it means buying some of the Avios through Iberia/groupon etc or whatever.

If not, you can just book Economy Points + Cash for 6,850 Avios +£128 one-way from Hong Kong to London on BA (off peak) anyway.

If you can, I'd probably book Economy outbound and Biz back as no APD or surcharges from HKG.

Alos potentially worth considering earning/buying Alaska Miles (if there's a decent SPG Starpoints sale for example) to fly Cathay Biz Class one of the ways - 42,500 Miles one-way

 

You can mix classes on a 2-for-1 redemption, and also do open jaws, but you may not be able to do all of that on the website, I always seem to have to ring up BA for anything complex redemption wise

 

Cheers! - Any idea if you can do Avios + cash with a 241 and how that would be applied for mixed cabins?

 

Thanks for the options guys. I really like the idea of flying back from SIN on a cheap Norwegian flight. Will check those out when the flights are released. Have only flown Norwegian to Europe, can you recommend their long haul product? Is Premium Economy worth the uplift?

 

Just tried calling Executive Club to ask this. 25 mins later and I was still on hold so gave up!

 

For the future, why don't you consider non-BA Avios redemptions? They have a pretty good chart for some of their partners, and crucially, much lower taxes

 

Yes, agreed but unfortunately the 2-4-1 Amex voucher can only be used on BA redemptions. If I can get two business class flights for the price of one, I think that's a pretty good deal!

 

Absolutely, you have the voucher now and need to use it. My suggestion was for the future.

With other airlines, when you factor in lower taxes, (sometimes) lower Avios and far better business class product, you may find it better value than a 2-4-1 BA redemption

At this point, I will not use my Avios for BA again

 

Took me about 40 minutes to get through the other day - but was worth it in the end.

 

I've ended up having to call both BA and Qatar several times in the last week or so, always got through to BA much quicker than Qatar, and BA were more helpful too!

 

I've not flown Premium with them myself, but have heard it's actually pretty good. I did fly transatlantic Economy (overnight) with them a while ago and it was absolutely fine - well, for Economy anyway!

 

Amazing - I think my average wait with BA must be at least 40 minutes. They are usually quite good once you do get through though, if I'm being fair.

 

Just called to book my 241 redemption to MIA next year so asked this also.

Avios + miles can't be used in conjunction with the voucher, the booking has to be paid using full Avios. You can use the voucher to book mixed cabins to and from different airports (we're flying business out to MIA and WTP back from JFK). Currently open jaw as the return isn't available yet.