The British Airways Travel Together Ticket is among the finest methods to maximise your Avios. It can be utilized to e book two passengers on the identical British Airways flight for the Avios required for one particular person (although you’ll have to pay the charges, taxes and surcharges for each passengers), or you should use it to get a 50% low cost on the Avios price of a ticket if touring solo.
This is legitimate for anyplace British Airways flies, as long as you are on a round-trip ticket going to or from the U.S. Better but, you should use it in any class of service and on any date when there are two Avios redemption seats accessible.
There are some essential guidelines, in addition to some ideas you must know to maximise your journey.
Related: Maximizing British Airways Avios: Travel Together companion ticket
There’s just one technique to earn a Travel Together Ticket
The solely technique to earn a Travel Together Ticket within the U.S. is to spend $30,000 in a single calendar yr on the British Airways Visa Signature Card.
All Travel Together certificates are legitimate for twenty-four months from the date they’re issued.
You should e book and journey earlier than the expiration date
Be conscious that you need to e book and journey at the very least the outbound leg earlier than your voucher expires. For instance, when you earn a voucher in January 2023, you need to fly the outbound leg earlier than January 2025. Thankfully, your return ticket will be after the expiration date.
You should e book a round-trip ticket, however open jaws are OK
While you need to e book round-trip tickets that originate in and return to the U.S. with the Travel Together Ticket, you can even e book an open-jaw return redemption, the place you fly into one metropolis and out of one other. This means you would use your Travel Together Ticket to e book a flight from O’Hare International Airport (ORD) to Heathrow Airport (LHR) and return from LHR to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). Or, you may fly from ORD to Frankfurt Airport (FRA) by way of LHR and return to ORD from Prague Airport (PRG) by way of LHR.
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Related: Maximizing the British Airways distance-based award chart
You can solely use it for British Airways-operated flights
As a lot as you would possibly love to make use of a Travel Together Ticket for BA’s accomplice airways, corresponding to flying Qatar Airways’ wonderful Qsuite enterprise class, you may solely use it for flights operated by British Airways. Even if you’ll find a codeshare flight operated by a accomplice airline with a BA flight quantity, you may’t use your Travel Together Ticket except British Airways operates the flight.
You can solely earn 1 Travel Together Ticket per card per yr
You can solely earn one Travel Together Ticket per yr with the British Airways Visa Signature Card. So even when you spend 5 instances the required quantity to set off the voucher, you’ll solely earn one.
You may, nevertheless, have two Travel Together tickets in your Executive Club account without delay when you earned one towards the top of the yr and the opposite initially of the subsequent yr. In flip, you would use each for a similar journey for a household of 4, offered they have been each nonetheless legitimate once you commenced journey.
You can solely begin and finish your journey within the US
As mentioned, you may solely begin and finish your Travel Together Ticket journey within the U.S. However, this may be anyplace within the U.S. that British Airways serves. The airline serves a number of smaller U.S. airports, together with Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) and Nashville International Airport (BNA).
Related: How to keep away from British taxes and costs on award journeys
Some routes are simpler than others
There’s no blanket rule for locating award house; nevertheless, it is simpler to discover availability for utilizing a Travel Together Ticket on some routes than others, particularly in Club World/Club Suite and First. This will be as a result of there are extra frequencies on some routes (like JFK to LHR) so there are many seats every day, or as a result of the route is much less standard than these from close by cities (for instance, BWI to LHR).
You’ll nonetheless have to pay the charges, taxes and surcharges for each passengers
A Travel Together Ticket means that you can e book two passengers on the identical flight for the Avios wanted for just one particular person. In that sense, it’s a 2-for-1 voucher. However, you need to pay each passengers’ full charges, taxes and surcharges. This will be costly relying on the category of service you are reserving, however you could possibly decrease the associated fee by paying extra Avios to e book a long-haul Reward Flight Saver ticket that lowers the value of gasoline surcharges.
As effectively as incomes sufficient Avios on your Travel Together Ticket, keep in mind to consider the price of the charges, taxes and surcharges additionally, you will be required to pay.
It not often is sensible to make use of it for a long-haul economic system redemption
Because of the charges, taxes and surcharges, it received’t normally be an important deal to make use of a Travel Together Ticket on a long-haul economic system redemption.
Using the JFK-to-LHR instance, on a normal date, you would e book two round-trip tickets in World Traveller utilizing a companion voucher for 60,000 Avios plus $200 plus $200 (the charges, taxes and surcharges for each folks). Note that that is the Reward Flight Saver pricing.
The downside with this worth proposition is that whilst you’re not paying any Avios for the second traveler, you’re nonetheless paying $200 in charges, taxes and surcharges for every particular person — $400 whole. We commonly see economic system sale fares to New York for $400 or much less, that means you’re paying as a lot as a money ticket simply in charges, taxes and surcharges on your “free” seat.
In this occasion, it might be higher to purchase an affordable money fare for each passengers and save the Avios for a extra precious use.
You can now redeem it for solo journey
While the title suggests it’s designed for 2 folks touring collectively, solo vacationers may also redeem a Travel Together Ticket to avoid wasting Avios.
Rather than a second particular person not paying any Avios, as with two folks touring collectively, a solo traveler would solely want half the Avios required when redeeming the Travel Together Ticket.
So, with a redemption costing 100,000 Avios, utilizing the voucher for solo journey would solely require 50,000 Avios. The full charges, taxes and surcharges for the solo traveler are nonetheless payable.
Related: When does it make sense to make use of the British Airways Travel Together Ticket?
It will be extraordinarily precious when used correctly
So, with loads of guidelines and warnings, what’s the massive deal about this factor? We adore it as a result of you will get a lot worth from it when you use it correctly.
Yes, chances are you’ll be shocked at having to pay $1,000-plus in charges, taxes and surcharges for the second passenger for a first-class, long-haul return flight, however a money fare on that very same flight may simply price over $5,000, saving you over hundreds of {dollars} by redeeming a Travel Together Ticket.
Bottom line
We are huge followers of the British Airways Travel Together Ticket as a result of we all know how a lot worth you may receive from it. Do your homework, keep in mind the principles and the advantages, work out when and the way it’s most advantageous to make use of it and maximize your journey. And when you’re considering incomes a Travel Together Ticket, contemplate making use of for the British Airways Visa Signature Card.
Additional reporting by Andrew Kunesh.