BA Business - can I fly ahead if early?

[ronicat]

I am looking at transiting through LHR on two separate award bookings later this year - not yet booked. Etihad J into LHR in the morning(VFF Gold) and BA J in the evening to Barcelona using QFF points (no status). We need to pick up an item 40 minutes from LHR and check it in on our next flight (it cannot be freighted to Spain for us to pick up there and this ends up being a suitable connection for us).

My question is, if we book BA J on points and don't check in prior to arriving at the airport will we be able to fly ahead of time if there is seat availability? and would there be a cost to this? I thought when booking I should allow the longest time between flights to allow for hiccups and know we will have lounge access at LHR but arriving earlier at the hotel in Barcelona would be preferable.

 

[Anna]

I think you need to start a dummy booking so that you can see what the T&Cs are about changing the booking.

IME the usual problem with changing an award flight is that there needs to be available award seats on the flight you want to change to. At short notice this would seem unlikely.

And yes, I would expect some sort of change fee whether it was payable as points or $$.

However you might strike it lucky if you get a nice agent (oh sorry, you said it was BA didn't you) or if BA is trying to fly people forward for some reason. But you couldn't rely on either of those happening.

 

[TonyHancock]

I have done it once, but also failed a couple of times. I got lucky at DUB with a super helpful agent. It probably helped that I was GCH. It will come down to availability and the agent. Status always helps.

 

[ronicat]

Thank you both for your advice

 

[Mal]

I did it many years ago (LHR-JFK in J), but not sure what the current situation is.