aeroflott

I took advantage of the recent BA fares "Sale" which expired on the 21st July, and on the last day of the sale, decided to take advantage and book tickets for a multi city journey LHR/BOS - MIA/LHR in November. The total cash price I paid for 3 tickets was Ł1450.08.

The day after the sale ended on 22nd July, the price for the same flights, same dates would have been Ł75 cheaper, at Ł1,375.68. Looking today, the same flights are Ł1,231.08, some Ł220 cheaper.

Is this really acceptable? I was driven to book on the 21st as quite rightly, I expected the price I was paying to be competitive compared to "regular" pricing.

Now I totally understand that flight pricing does change for various reasons - you pays your money and takes your chances; but I am at a loss to understand how the price could decrease on the first day after a "Sale", and then even further a week later.

I wrote an email on the 22nd July to BA Executive Club explaining the situation looking for some clarity as to why this happened. They wrote back today on the 23rd July and told me to contact customer services.

So I rang customer services, to be greeted by a message telling me I would be waiting for over 45 minutes to speak to someone. I hung up as I was at work. I got home, and rang again. I got through to someone after 40 minutes. They took my details, and said they would speak to their line manager. 10 minutes later after being left on hold, I was advised that it may have been possible to extend a "cooling off" period to 48 hours and cancel my booking, but as we were now beyond 48 hours, by some 4 hours, there was nothing that could be done. This despite the agent I spoke to having some sympathy for my situation.

Appreciate I'm whining a bit - but Ł220 is Ł220 - it's not the end of the world, and frankly, this isn't about the money. I guess more than anything, I just have a sour taste in my mouth having been sucked in by the big red banners on BA's homepage, encouraging me to book at "sale" prices, only to find the same fare reduced by 15% a week later.

If this was a simple case of the fare going down after a booking, I'd take it on the chin. The fact that the tickets were booked during a "Sale" however, feels like shenanigans.

Any insight on this would be appreciated.

nux

Are you sure you actually booked a sale fare though?

Although a sale may be advertised, it does not mean it applies to all routes on all dates. You may not have actually booked a sales fare that ended on the 21st, either because there was no availability in the applicable fare buckets, you did not meet the fare rules, or there was no sales fare for those routes.

Subsequently BA may release additional availability in lower fare buckets which may allow booking a lower fare, or may have published a lower fare.

SteveF

It is annoying; I have a rule never to check prices once I've booked and paid for an inflexible flight or hotel room on the basis that it will almost certainly be cheaper and ruin my day

Are the booking classes and fare conditions exactly the same in this case?

paul4040

If you find this occurs less than 24 hours after you've booked, call BA and use the no-quibble cancellation clause to cancel.

Then rebook at the lower price.

orbitmic

Well, that's life. Once upon a time, "sales" were a very strictly controlled event - fixed dates, rules, etc. It is still the case in some countries like France, but in most - UK included, any shop can have any sort of sale most of the time and they can mean whatever they want by it too.

It is therefore not unusual to have a second sale entered after a sale (official or not) or a sale which includes some fares that are more expensive than the fares that existed before. For instance, in April, I booked a trip to MEL during a QR sale, the fare was excellent. However, a few days later, QR launched another sale fare on the same route that was even better!

The question is what you booked. If your ticket is in economy, then I am absolutely certain that yours is not a sale fare. If it is in business, it is an excellent fare and whether it became cheaper afterwards or not, you should feel happy to have got it.

golfmad

Or perhaps book the lower price first and then cancel the original. This avoids the worse case scenario where you cancel the price you originally thought was good and then cannot book the price you thought was better.

chris1979

What are the T &Cs of the price guarantee or whatever it's called?

OP, is the cheaper price for 3 pax as well? If you are just looking at 1 pax, it's possible that your 3 would have booked into a higher fare class I'd only 1 or 2 were available in a lower fare bucket which you might now be seeing?

aeroflott

I emailed within 24 hours. They took a day to reply referring me to customer services. Customer services couldn't answer the phone within 45 minutes when I rang. By the time I got through they wouldn't entertain a refund as I was four hours over the cutoff.

The price I paid was the total for 3 economy tickets.

Kgmm77

Really? I thought there were very specific requirements to disclose the duration of the sale, previous price & price in the intervening period?

Globaliser

To get a full refund in the cooling-off period, you have to phone.

The first piece of useful information would be the booking class that your actual flights are booked in. To see this, go to MMB, and in the panel for each flight click the link for "More flight information". The last row in the pop-up box will be the booking (or selling) class for each flight.