Reader Question: How to Book BA Club World to Mauritius with Infants Using Avios and a Companion Voucher

A reader recently asked us about booking a special trip to Mauritius for his fiancée's 41st birthday - with twin one-year-olds in tow, talk about a challenge! Mauritius was our first "big" holiday coming out of covid, and it's somewhere we'd like to go back to.

This conversation had so many good little nuggets of information that I felt I had to bring it to you. You may know some of this, you may not. Hopefully you'll gain an insight into how I think when I'm trying to book a "tricky" redemption.

What a strange time this was

The challenge

A reader wrote to us with what he called a "slightly mad" plan: taking his fiancée and twin one-year-olds to Mauritius in Club World for Easter 2027. This would be on the BA flight departing Gatwick. He has more than enough points, in both Avios and Membership Rewards, and a BA companion voucher expiring at the end of 2027, so using all of these should make it easy enough to book, right?

Slightly mad plans are our favourite sort of plans, and this one is absolutely doable. But to pull it off, it does require some timing and a bit of strategy.

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Flying with infants on award tickets

First, the good news about travelling with under-twos on BA award tickets: infants cost only 10% of the required Avios if they're sitting on your lap. If you want them to have their own seat, you'll pay 100% of the Avios cost.

For most parents of twins, having two lap infants on a long-haul flight sounds exhausting. Hopefully they'd manage to pick the bulkhead seats with bassinets for the twins, but even if they don't manage that, being in Club World with the extra space and lie-flat seats, it'll be far more manageable than in economy. We've written a detailed guide on booking infant tickets with Avios that covers all the specifics.

Why booking Avios seats to Mauritius is so competitive

Mauritius is one of the most popular destinations on the BA network to use Avios, and the route isn't even daily, operating 3x weekly. Club World award seats get snapped up incredibly quickly.

BA releases flights 355 days in advance at midnight GMT (that's important, as they don't change times with daylight saving, so during BST they're released at 1am), and they only guarantee on releasing a minimum amount of seats to purchase with Avios, these are:

• Four Club World seats

• Two Premium Economy seats

• Eight economy seats

On a route like Mauritius, those four Club seats can disappear within hours, if not minutes.

C Mauritius, just fantastic! If anyone from C Mauritius is reading, we're happy to talk sponsorships...

How to book BA Avios seats 355 days in advance

To give yourself the best chance of securing these seats, you need to be ready at midnight, 355 days before your outbound flight.

But don't book online. Call the BA call centre instead.

Why? Call centre agents can put flights on hold during the booking process, meaning this seat becomes unavailable to anyone else. If you were to do it by booking online, that seat is only taken off the booking system once your payment details have been processed. Those precious seconds matter when seats are this competitive.

The catch? The UK call centre is closed at midnight. Most people call the US call centre instead, and the agents there are well-versed in handling exactly this type of request. They've heard it a thousand times before.

One important tip: Test that the US call centre number works on your phone ahead of time. Some UK mobile networks have issues with US numbers. If you run into problems, consider using a VOIP service to make the call.

Now, you do not have to do this for every Avios redemption. We will cover the most popular destination to use Avios to in the coming weeks, and where you might need to employ this strategy.

The return flight complication

Because the return journey will be more than 355 days away when the outbound opens up, you'll need to book the two legs separately.

This creates a bit of risk. You might secure the outbound with your companion voucher, then find no Club availability for the return when it opens up 355 days later if you're a little bit late to mark.

When you book the return (again, calling at midnight 355 days before), explain to the agent that you have an existing outbound booking using a companion voucher that you'd like to link up. They'll handle this regularly and know exactly what to do.

Building your backup plan

Given the risk, you need backup options before you commit to booking the outbound. Consider:

• Would Premium Economy work for the return if Club is gone?

• Alternative routings: Could you fly via Johannesburg or Nairobi on BA, and pay cash for the flight from Mauritius to Johannesburg/Nairobi?

• Cash backup: Could you book a cash fare on Emirates or another carrier for the return?

• Flexible dates: Could you return a couple of days later to increase your options?

None of these are ideal, but they're the hoops we all jump through when playing the points game. The key is having the backup plan ready before you book the outbound, so you're not caught out.

My email can be found at the top *hint hint*

My assessment

If you're on the ball with calling the call centre at midnight 355 days out, there's no reason these seats can't be yours. Mauritius is competitive, but it's not impossible, plenty of people get the seats they want.

The combination of Avios, the companion voucher, and infant pricing makes this trip remarkably affordable from a points to person perspective. The real cost is staying up until midnight, and the stress of securing the seats.

But for a birthday celebration with twins in tow? That sounds like a memory worth a bit of lost sleep. Not like you'll be sleeping much with new-born twins anyway!

Sam

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