Originally Posted by
FruJu
This is an old thread, but just did a search and found it mentioned here previously.
I got burned by this when I wanted to change the passenger name on an award booking. The policy is "no name change without full cancellation". I asked the agent whether she could immediately rebook the two seats in my and the alternate passenger's name, and she said no - she'd have to do the cancellation, but that the rebooking was the responsibility of the Sales Dept, but that she'd transfer me immediately after the cancellation.
Of course, I get transferred to the sales office, and they do *not* see the returned availability (although the Avios have now credited back to my account).
This is frustrating, and honestly, somewhat of a cheap shot by BA. In total, I'd spent many hours researching and booking these tickets 9-10 months ahead - then due to a pregnancy, one of the original passengers had to bow out.
Suddenly both tickets disappear and are no longer available for booking as an award?
Not a very nice customer experience at all.
Absolutely nothing BA-specific and nothing new. The problem in your analysis above is that it misses one key point: award buckets are not "separate", they are simply part of the whole bucket structure and as it happens at the very bottom of it. Often, people assume that an airline will open x award seats on each flight but this is not really what happens. You just have the bucket at the bottom of the fare pyramid and this can mean either more or fewer seats opening. If by the time you released your seats were cancelled, there was already no availability in O, N, S, etc. in Y or in R, I, D in J, then it is most likely that releasing those seats will not trigger any new availability in the award bucket.
By the way, this is exactly the reason why even when you have had no availability in award buckets for months, a few days before the flight, you sometimes see I, R AND U availability appearing even if noone cancelled award tickets.
So no, it is not a 'cheap shot' from BA, it is simply inbuilt in the very nature of the buckets system which is used to determine award availability.
Finally, I find the point on the 'rules on name change' a bit unfair. I am not aware of any ticket, paid or award on any airline, that allows name change on the same PNR or ticket number. Even though some very expensive tickets may allow name change, that would mean that a new ticket is issued with no prejudice and would only be for tickets in a travel class so expensive that the airline is happy to generate the needed availability if it is required, not what you would expect of award tickets.