British Airways Long-Haul Business & First Award Success Combined With Space Release + Gold Upgrade

My British Airways Avios balance was creeping up this year, when I decided to pull the plug and get the last old Tier Points in, before the program change, to make it Lifetime Gold (Oneworld Emerald).

Due to how the membership year was structured to get everyone aligned from this year, I managed to obtain two sets of upgrade vouchers, reached a Gold Guest List, and secured two “jokers” that you can use to open up award inventory (books into paid fare class).

You can access BA here.

Preparing ex-GIG Redemption

The problem is that British Airways doesn’t publish award charts, and it is tough to check availability on its website for various itineraries, as there isn’t much redemption inventory on long-haul flights.

I priced GIG-LHR-DXB for World Traveler Plus, and it came at 92,500 Avios

The DXB-LHR-SCL would cost 97,500 Avios in World Traveler Plus.

I also checked ExpertFlyer to confirm that there would be D (business) and A (first) class availability for the dates I was considering.

To get an idea of how many Avios are needed for these Gold Upgrade Vouchers, I also checked the MyFlightPath website, which allows you to calculate the amounts using various vouchers.

Call 1: 13 Minutes

British Airways does an excellent job of hiding its Gold Guest List phone number, and unlike any other airline, you don’t get connected to this desk unless you dial the specific number.

There was an issue with the GIG-LHR-DXB flight availability in D based on the Point of Sale (POS) where my account was then based. The agent confirmed that there is availability using a US point of sale (POS), and I thanked her before logging into my online account to update the address.

Call 2: 35 Minutes

I changed the address and got an excellent agent who had been working for BA for several years.

(Notes that I made over the call.)

There was availability on the correct fare classes on the US POS, but if I used a “joker,” the POS would default to UK, and I had to move my GIG-LHR-DXB flights by a day, which was not an issue. The image above shows the US POS availability, and the one below is from the UK. The BA248 is available in D class in the US but not in the UK.

The agent couldn’t then see the “joker” in my account, but confirmed that I had earned more than 5,700 Tier Points in my previous membership year, but for some reason, they were not deposited to my account or the “pricing robot” (she used the word) couldn’t see them and my itinerary would have to be sent to manual release and tax calculation.

The required miles going to Dubai matched what I had calculated (92,500):

• GIG-LHR 50,000 Avios (WT+ with Upgrade to Business)
• LHR-DXB 42,500 Avios (WT+ with Upgrade to Business)

The Avios from Dubai to Santiago de Chile originally came at 152,500, which made little sense:

• DXB-LHR 42,500 Avios (WT+ with Upgrade to Business)
• LHR-SCL 110,000 Avios (Club with Upgrade to First)

Then she realized that they needed to use another redemption schedule for business to first upgrades, which would price the LHR-SCL segment at 87,500 Avios.

I said go ahead, and she told me that she would send this to tax calculations (those BA fuel/carrier surcharges are usually horrendous).

She said that she would be working on the following day (Saturday), and we agreed that she would call me back at 2 PM local time (I was in Buenos Aires).

Call 3: 17 Minutes

She called me at the agreed time the following day, and I was waiting for the call at a café.

The taxes and fees totaled $132.50 due to the trip beginning in Brazil, which has banned carrier and fuel surcharges. More countries should do this.

She asked if they could first deduct the 245,000 Avios from my account and then deposit the overage, or otherwise, the ticketing would take an additional day.

I said that this would not be an issue, as I had 800K Avios sitting on my account.

I received 20,000 Avios back, although my notes indicated that the price was 222,500, which should have yielded a 22,500 Avios refund. However, I decided that it was not worth making another call.

The e-ticket came to my email inbox shortly after.

Call 4:  4 Minutes

I’m not sure what went wrong with the ticketing, as the e-ticket receipt clearly displayed my BA number, and the itinerary was listed under my account.

BA’s website, however, attempted to charge me hundreds of pounds in seat selection fees and wouldn’t have allowed me to choose a window seat for the LHR-SCL first-class segment.

So, I had to call BA GGL again, and the agent on the phone fixed the frequent flier number issue.

I could then choose the window seat for the F segment, and all seat selection fees were waived..

Conclusion

It is practically impossible to create an itinerary like this unless you have access to these “jokers.” What saved on the carrier surcharges department was the origin (Brazil), which only allows actual taxes and no scam fees.

British Airways’ “award” flights with fees into the thousands are not worth the soft product and Heathrow “experience”, but are worth the on-board pain and suffering when you get only charged the actual government taxes/fees.

I know that many people book BA award flights when the schedule opens by calling Australia, but I cannot plan my travel a year in advance, so I tend to book a few weeks out.

BA should streamline the award booking process. I’m not sure how I would have achieved this redemption with the Gold line, which is quite frustrating based on my experience last year (read more here). However, the GGL line has pleasant agents.

I plan to use the last joker for another award, ex-Brazil, for next year, and I’m eyeing something along GIG/GRU-LHR-SIN-SYD and TYO/SIN/BKK-LHR-SCL that should bring my Avios balance down by another 250K to something more palatable before they are further devalued when BA eventually moves to a more dynamic award chart.

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