September 24, 2016

Using a British Airways Travel Together Ticket One-Way

The British Airways Chase Credit Card offers a 'Travel Together" ticket upon spending $30,000 in a calendar year.  This means you can book two people in any class of service for the price of one.  There are a couple of catches.  First, travel must originate in the US.  Second, the ticket is good for two years.  Third, the cardmember earning the ticket must be one of the passengers.  And the biggest catch is the you must pay the taxes/fuel surcharges on both tickets.

So you're essentially booking an award ticket for two for half the miles.  I earned a travel together ticket back in late 2014 which was slated to expire in early December.  If you do it right and book a first class ticket, the benefit is worth 200,000+ British Airways Avios.  Not a bad deal for putting $30K in spend on one card.


One of the biggest complaints about the ticket is finding roundtrip award availability.  I probably would have had no trouble had I booked further out but just started looking for a November trip a couple of weeks ago.  While I wasn't able to found roundtrip availability that matched dates we could travel, I was able to find a day that worked for us on the outbound.  

I actually had no idea that you could book the travel together ticket as a one-way!  I found availability on the direct BA flight from Denver to London (which is great so we don't have to position anywhere) and from London to Dubai.  I was able to search, book, and ticket everything online!  

The total price for both first class tickets was 153,000 Avios and ~$1,550 in taxes.  Even better, American Express is currently running a transfer bonus for Avios.  With the bonus, I transferred 90,000 Membership Rewards points which became 108,000 Avios.  Combined with my Avios balance, that was enough to book the ticket.  So the actual ticket cost 135,000 Avios/MR points - not a bad deal for 2 in the pointy end of a 747 all the way to Dubai.  


Especially considering the cash cost is running north of $12,000 per ticket!

Obviously we need to find a way home but with more options and less restrictions, that shouldn't be a problem.  Stay tuned as the trip comes together!

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