 Poster: A snowHead
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Is it possible to do this sort of thing from Leeds Bradford to Geneva via Heathrow ? I have had a look but a, not sure how you would find it?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@NickyJ
Thanks for your reply. I've now successfully bought my flight pass and bought the flights I wanted, thanks to all the help on this thread.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@ajc2260626
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that for BA at least, all the flights have to arrive and depart from a London airport. So I guess you could book the Heathrow to Geneva leg separately via Optiontown and then Leeds Bradford - Heathrow. But I'm guessing it may make it quite pricey and therefore not worth it.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| NickyJ wrote: |
| @schifoan, I did find it somewhere but struggling to now. I can guarantee that our booked flights are showing my baggage allowance (the standard 1 bag at 23kg) |
NickyJ, just checking when you registered passengers, did you register any children? The reason I ask is that all passengers needs a BA Exec Club membership, which my wife and I have byut the kids don't. Did you have a similar problem?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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No problems, you can set them up via the family thing, you have to have a unique email address for each child. I had previously set the girls up so that I got the point for them 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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this seems too good to be true !
looking to get to geneva in Feb half term (16-23) either via gatwick or heathrow 2 adults & 2 kids. according to BA website this would be near £1000 per person if booked via ba.com !
just tried a few options and I selected:
4 passengers Heathrow - Geneva, 16 flights, 60 days min advance booking, period 4 months starting 27 December 18 @ 1301 total OR
4 passengers Gatwick - Geneva, 16 flights, 14 days min advance booking (same price as 90!), period 4 months starting 27 December 18 @ 1061 total
whats the catch/risk ? is it limited to certain ticket rates only which will be all gone by now and Ill have 16 tickets with no compatible dates to go !? only economy plus showing when I check the BA site now. how fast can I redeem the 'pass' for an actual ticket ?
so I could just not use the other 8 flights or squeeze in an extra couple of long weekends offpeak myself 
getting excited now at the prospect of NOT driving the whole way !
thanks,
nick
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From purchasing pass to redeeming those half term flights it took me about 5-10mins IIRC before I was able to do so.
Then took another 5/10mins for the flights to become confirmed and a few hours later I was able to see the upcoming flight via the BA app.
You have availability upto last seat available in Economy. So if he BA app shows seats available for your party you will be able to book them.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@melandnick, quick read of those reviews and they are all people complaining about the flight upgrades stuff you can do through optioncity one several airlines (not BA).
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| Quote: |
@melandnick, quick read of those reviews and they are all people complaining about the flight upgrades stuff you can do through optioncity one several airlines (not BA).
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Thanks @NickyJ
now torn what to do. Facebook reviews also dire. Aside from yourself and @snowdave, has anyone else had success with this ?
I also went further in the registration process and saw the same as @FrediKanoute that all persons need a BA executive number or can the same one be re-used ??
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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This is what customer care told me:
"Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for writing to us.
We would like to advise you that you can purchase the Pass without adding BA Executive Club Membership as well.
Please be advised that you need to add the details of at least one of the passengers at the time of purchasing the Pass and you can add the remaining passengers within 24 hours from the purchase of the Flight Pass.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.
Regards,
Optiontown Customer Care"
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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My sister has used this under my guidance as we are traveling together at half term. In fact when she came to book she had an issue of her sons passport being expired but after calling customer services was able to achieve it. Also Sparklies has done so (again we are traveling together at half term)
Obviously we are yet to fly but given that I can see my redeemed flights via the BA app and website I am feeling comfortable.
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so did you go ahead then @FrediKanoute ? did you have success getting the flights you wanted ?
still not really clear from the customer care response - does that mean that you have 24 hours to get an executive number for the remaining passengers or they dont need one ? can I just re-use the my executive number for the kids ?
sorry for all the questions ! normally if it seems too good to be true...
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You know it makes sense.
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No yet. I am getting all the docs in order and then doing it. Will hopefully have it done by the end of the week. Have registered the kids with BA Exec Club.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I don’t see why you wouldn’t want an exec club account for the kids. It’s free, and they earn avios which, if you put them into a household account with you, you can spend.
I agree it’s another thing to do when you want to buy the flights, but it’s pretty simple (at least it was when I registered my kids for BAEC).
There’s a long thread on Flyertalk where people report plenty of success and it’s a pretty tough crowd there when it comes to flight related stuff. I guess BAs tradeoff is that it locks in your business, even if it loses some super-peak premium seats as a result.
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Poster: A snowHead
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ok - after jumping through a lot of hoops I now have BA executive accounts for both kids. Indeed you have to apply via 'Household account' with their own email address.
So now sitting on the fence whether to risk this or not 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@melandnick, are you planning on paying by credit card? Which I did, I decided that if worst came to worst you have the section 75 protection by using credit card.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Quote: |
are you planning on paying by credit card? Which I did, I decided that if worst came to worst you have the section 75 protection by using credit card.
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@NickyJ yes - I would definitely pay by CC despite the extra charges. My main worry is that there wouldnt be tickets available for the flights/dates I want (16-23) due to some unforeseen booking conditions/restrictions in some small print somewhere and Id be left with 16 flights I couldnt use !
How exactly is the booking part of it handled once the flightpass is ordered ? The FAQ didnt have any details on this - does the website list the available flights for a given date or do you have to 'apply' for them and wait and see ?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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You are able to book seats until last economy seat available, so if BA.com is offering you those seats, then there are seats available.
You buy your flight pass once that is processed you click on the link to “Redeem / Book”. You login then (this from memory as I have redeemed all of mine now), you enter your dates and select your route it then offers you the available flights that match. I think I had to set up all the people I wanted to redeem flights for first and I know I needed their passport numbers before I could complete it all. The exact process / details are fussy but the same flight I was offered via BA.com came up when I went to redeem.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@melandnick, as with @NickyJ, it was a few hours for my first booking to switch to confirmed status, but thereafter subsequent bookings were instant.
Sounds like there will be a big queue of  at Gatwick on 16 Feb! I might auction off my spare luggage allowance...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I presume you still get credited the correct avios and tier points for the flights taken if booked this way?
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@5pike, yes you do. One of the threads I read about this elsewhere (may have been flyertalk) said you get them at a slightly higher rate as well?
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thanks all for your feedback.
I tried to get clarification regarding the fares from optiontown and their response was
"We would like to advise you that as per British Airways Flight Pass rules, you are eligible to book the flight till the last seat available. BA Flight Pass allows you to book flights for travel in economy only (UK Domestic and Euro Traveler cabins)."
so still not clear if "economy plus" (which is still Euro Traveller as far as I can tell) is included as there is no "economy basic" left.
I checked availability on 'expert flyer' which shows available classes such as
J1 C0 D0 R0 I0 Y9 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V0 N0 O0 Q0 S0 G0
my brief homework on this suggest the first character is the fare class and the 2nd the availability. In this example, J1 means one place left in business and Y9 means 9 (or more as 9 is the max shown) in economy. The rest of the fares/classes are either not applicable or full.
has anyone gone through with this with only 'economy plus' fares remaining on ba.com ?
as you can tell, Im a little risk averse
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@melandnick, I know from discussions I had with snowdave that they are classed as Y fare seat which we get via this route. Certainly when my sister booked her seats on the flight we are going on it was only reporting 6 or so seats left and they were are 450 per person seats. Curiosity the availability didn’t go down by the same number as the seats they purchased.
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I have just checked and the flight we are on to Salzburg is now not returning any availability (though later flights are)
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Has anyone else noticed that their prices seem to have nearly doubled since yesterday? I was getting a really good price 24 hours ago, but now it is way higher.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| koru wrote: |
| Has anyone else noticed that their prices seem to have nearly doubled since yesterday? I was getting a really good price 24 hours ago, but now it is way higher. |
The website is atrocious and it often keeps loosing g your settings every time you make a change.
When I had similar it was down to it reverting period to 6months or even 12 months for example, or the notice needed on the flights back to 4hrs!
Also depending on route is that the same, I have been looking just at the flights to Geneva thinking of the following season, and noticed the London all airports to GVA is significantly more than LGW to GVA
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I've just checked again and it has now flipped back to the lower price. Must have been a short term glitch.
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You know it makes sense.
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@melandnick, I’m pretty sure mine were only open for Y fares, and I had no problem booking. Y availability won’t always drop by the number of seats booked as it's such a high fare class that BA will likely overbook it in the expectation that a good proportion of Y ticket holders will either change flights or cancel (it’s a fully flexible bucket in general, tho not for the optiontown fares). If not, they will bribe some people (likely lower fare codes) off the flight.
Which specific flight(s) are you looking at?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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OMG it worked !! we are now booked on LGW-GVA tickets over half term for less than 1/3rd what BA were quoting on their website. In addition have 4 'spare' returns we can try and use sometime else in the season - xmas, easter or somewhere in between !
Indeed its a lot of hoops to jump through needing email addresses and BA executive accounts for the kids and the nerve-wracking moment when the spinning 'wait' wheel is searching for flights or confirming the booking.
I also just talked through the other group we are travelling with to do exactly the same
Many thanks to @snowdave and @nickyj for all their advice. Will make sure we get there early in case flight is really overbooked and they try and bump some people !
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Poster: A snowHead
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@melandnick, great, glad it worked out for you!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@melandnick, glad you are sorted
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Mine did too. Optiontown were pretty good. I stuffed up the 1st pass by putting in my wife's maiden name so they had to cancel it. Bought the pass yesterday and then the flights this morning. BA price for half term flights from Gatwick to Geneva = £4,457; we paid £1,277.
We also have spare flights if we wanted to do another trip. Its does feel almost too good to be true!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@FrediKanoute, if you look at the price compared to normal days, it doesn’t feel unreasonable on price it is the fact there are no blackout periods make a such a fantastic deal.
The flights we have booked for our easter break (our second set), if we had bought them direct were less significantly less than half the price of our Flightpass. The half term flights for the family of 4 were more than 3 times the price I paid for both return sets for the family.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Just to feedback. We flew out on our outbound flights with BA on Saturday morning. All worked smoothly.
Not sure if it was to do with purchasing flights via same route (Flightpass) or just pure serendipity but all our 3 families who had bought our tickets via Flightpass ended up being allocated seats in adjacent rows! Which was really nice.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Ours worked too. No problems flying out last Saturday
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Same here, third flights on these so used to them now.
Interesting re the seating - I wonder if BA allocates seats by booking class?
Next seasons flight passes are already on sale, I’ll be buying early!
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| snowdave wrote: |
Same here, third flights on these so used to them now.
Interesting re the seating - I wonder if BA allocates seats by booking class?
Next seasons flight passes are already on sale, I’ll be buying early! |
Any advantage in doing so?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| NickyJ wrote: |
| snowdave wrote: |
Same here, third flights on these so used to them now.
Interesting re the seating - I wonder if BA allocates seats by booking class?
Next seasons flight passes are already on sale, I’ll be buying early! |
Any advantage in doing so? |
Last years feb halfterm flights sold out relatively fast, and in addition, by buying now I reduce the risk that BA decides this isn’t an economic proposition to keep offering!
I’ve just bought next years pass. 24 flights (3 returns for 4 people) for £68 per flight. That’s Xmas, Feb and Easter flights all covered. The marginal cost for 24 flights vs 16 was about £400, I.e about £100 return per person.
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i've just bought a pass and am now finding that the site is"experiencing heavy volumes" and not working
does this happen a lot? I'm trying to book HT 2020
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FAQ
