Originally Posted by
MPH1980
It really depends on the individual circumstance and your affordability.
The best thing you can do is know the alternatives and be aware what's likely to happen if the flight you are on is going to be cancelled.
E.g. if you're flying on a route with two flights a day, if your flight was the one that was cancelled - could you move yourself to the earlier one and if not - could you go a day earlier/later? Can you clear your plans a little so that if it is required, you could do it?
In my case - I've evaluated the situation and decided that even though the chances are very low - if it did happen that my flight was cancelled, it would be a problem - so I've cancelled my flight with BA (because I could - it was an Avios booking) and bought a non-refundable with another airline.
If I hadn't been able to cancel with BA - it would have entirely depended on how much money I'd spent with them in the first place.
And hey - if money is no object and you are happy to pay twice - then book a refundable flight with someone just in case and if the BA flight runs - then you can cancel the refundable flight.
Along the lines of contingency planning, during past strikes has BA known in advance which flights they won't be able to run, and if so, how long in advance? I'm booked on flights between LHR and PSA during the strike period which are MF (according to another thread). There aren't a lot of easy alternatives for me to get home should the PSA-LHR flight get cancelled, but with a day or more advance warning, I would have some options. Would I likely know a day or more in advance, or is it a matter of BA only figuring out on the day of travel (or even a few hours before travel) if they'll have enough crew for a given flight? Sorry if this is a silly question or has been answered many times before-- I haven't had any flight during the past strike periods, so haven't had to think about this before.