BA booking via charter operator

[bizflyer]

Any advice welcome!

Just about to book a trip to Orlando for me & family via travel city direct, i've decide that it might be best to take scheduled flights instead of the offered charter and to my surprise TCD have come up with an astonishingly good price for BA W/T seats.

Assuming I go ahead with the booking, does anyone know if I can;

Still collect points on my exec card? (and so check in online) THE ANSWER IS YES

I'd like to make the trip extra special for all, so could I arrange upgrades to W/T+/Business via BA instead of TCD? THE ANSWER IS NO BECAUSE TCD WOULD BOOK ON BA THE CHEAPEST ECON TICKET WHICH YOU MAY NOT UPGRADE (I chose to book BA WT+ instead via TCD)

What the flexibility of travel is going to be if we stick with the econ travel tickets currently on offer - as there is a possibility I may need to fly home at very short notice. NONE

Is this likley to be a 'busy flight' at the start of March? YES

Appreciate some of these may be hard to answer without sight of the T&C's on the TCD tickets but any help is very welcome.

[surely not]

Why don't you ask TCD and BA, they would know for certain?

[bizflyer]

I often wondered how certain ppruner's managed to run up such high posts since registered and per day ratios, now I know!. TCD didn't seem to know the answer and BA won't deal with a query until the flight is booked, hence posting a question on here. Thanks for your reply anyway

[Hartington]

If TCD don't know the answer then either they don't sell the upgrades or they don't deserve your business. If you go direct to BA they will do one of two things, either send you back to TCD (Catch 22) or charge you a fortune because the normal reservations departments only sell "public" fares while people like TCD sell "consolidator" or "tour" fares (same thing in the end) and (as you've found) the difference between public and tour fares is considerable.

As for points it's not the easiest read but try paragraph 10
here: (http://www.britishairways.com/travel/ba6.jsp/ectermsenglish/public/en_gb)

[san diego]

TCD are not BA preferred partners for seat only sales so it is likley you will be sold either a seat only ticket bought elsewhere and marked up or a group or IT fare which they have. IT fares can only be sold with something else, usually accommodation but car hire would be adequate. However you cannot make any changes to a booking once ticketed and so they are not suitable if there is any possibility of you needing to change plans. ( no different from a resticted BA ticket bought on ba.com)

Your contract will be with TCD, you will not be able to make any changes by contacting BA at all, you may be able to import the booking onto BA.com before departure and use Exec Club privileges to check in but these tickets are unlikley to carry any points themselves. As regards how full the flights are, remember BA use 777 on MCO operations and since the events of Dec. 26, bookings to Florida have boomed from those put off the thought of going East

[surely not]

bizflyer just perhaps if you'd mentioned that you had already contacted TCD and BA I wouldn't have suggested it as an option ..... Doh!!!

I would also suggest that if TCD and BA cannot answer the question, it is highly unlikely that anyone on here will be able to do more than offer conjecture.



My high post count is mainly down to a weak willed addiction to Tobzalps endless sentence thread, sorry if that offends you.

[bealine]

To answer your question bizflyer, your seat on the aeroplane and the service you receive will be no different whether you book with Travel City Direct or with British Airways (or through a travel agent or consolidator).

You can certainly register your BA Executive Club card at check in, but whether you receive any BA mileage points or not depends upon the fare basis. If the fare is that good, then I suspect you won't receive any miles or tier points.

Similarly, low-yield tickets are non-changeable or non-refundable - even for upgrade. You would probably need to buy new tickets in order to purchase an upgrade. ("J" class, (Club World) for a family, is beyond the range of most mere mortals unless "Camelot's Golden Finger" has declared "It's You!" or you're like "Goldenballs" Beckham and every retailer or manufacturer wants your mugshot on their advertising billboards! - but WT Plus can sometimes be an affordable option)

However, for reasons detailed in www.flyertalk.com (Airline Programs then British Airways) you should still ensure your BA card details are entered at check-in. (Basically, if the flight is cancelled or seriously delayed, passengers are usually re-booked or dealt with in a certain priority order, low yield ticket holders being near the bottom. Ensuring a frequent flyer card has been registered at check-in ups your priority a notch or two!)

Certainly (and I work for Auntie BA!) if I had the readies to spare, I would rather pay extra and upgrade my accommodation - you enjoy that for the entire holiday - rather than for the 9 hour flight duration!

Whatever you decide, keep us up to date on PPRUNE and let us know what this special fare of TCD is!

[bizflyer]

Thanks for the replies, I have now got answers to all my questions either from PPruner's or BA and will edit my original post to show the answers - just in case anybody else is in a similar situation and reads the thread at some future date.

[apaddyinuk]

Interesting this thread.
Im BA LGW crew and regularly work that route and suddenly I know realise why some people tell me they didnt realise the flight was a full scheduled flight...they mainly say this to me after offering to pay for their drinks!!! Haha.
BEALINE...If you get this, I was just wondering if you know if pax booked through a travel agent in this way can use the Online Checkin the evening before? Would be good to know for next time I get a seperated family on one of these flights...a lot of passengers still now nothing about the online facilities or otherwise think they are not entitled to it as they dont hold ffp cards!