BA Avios redemption fees (almost) overcharged

Ballard

I'm not sure whether I'm posting this to get it off my chest or a warning to others but I booked an Avios return flight to South America yesterday. Ideally I wanted to fly in and out of Buenos Aires but there wasn't availability to get to Buenos Aires. I looked at Montevideo instead which was around 75,000 Avios and £550 (I can't remember exactly). I then learned that it's possible to book open-jaw tickets if you telephone.

I spoke with a very helpful guy at BA who booked me into MVD and back out of EZE. I've had to go for 3 weeks rather than my intended 2 1/2 but I can live with that. He then said that the fees came to £1,350-ish. Being as I knew that the fees in and out of MVD were much lower I queried it and he put me on hold for 10 minutes. Whilst waiting I came to the conclusion that it must be different for open-jaw and I'd simply book in and out of MVD and save quite a lot of cash.

When he came back, the fees were now calculated at £478 with the same number of Avios. I should probably point out that I booked business with Iberia using an Amex  2-4-1 voucher (although paying half rather than getting one free) and economy cash fares are in the region of £1,300, I believe so I'm pretty happy with the outcome but I could quite easily have paid c£900 extra.