Originally Posted by
joequimby
There is fine print that states if volunteers can still travel as originally booked, the offer is not applicable. I can see the business logic, but is very cheeky if the volunteer has already started making alternative arrangements.
That is fairly standard across the airline industry. BA will effectively put people on standby and remove the offer if there are a lot of no shows. There have been quite a few reports of this recently, and from what I can make out it is due to a shortage of aircraft at LHR, which means they are downgauging aircraft from A321 to A320 to A319, which can result in silly numbers oversold. As a result, if you can find out the aircraft type and the number of oversolds they are trying to identify, you can work out what sort of gamble is involved.
Two days seems silly to me though, a day's delay for a student on a 50€ HBO ticket would seem like a bit of a win for all concerned.