Massive Avios tax hike or gremlins with BA IT?
As someone who has routinely flown with BA usually on avios redemption in first and CW from EDI to BOS over the last couple of years (mixture of one-ways or returns that either begin in UK or US) due to my wife currently based in Boston on a work assignment, the tax element of these bookings would normally come in around £600 for a return.
Now due to a family wedding in Scotland this April, I have tried to book a CW return trip for my wife (Outbound 8th April from Bos to EDI via LHR returning Monday 13th April) and when I priced this on BA site the tax came in at just under £1,300 on top of the 120,000 avios.
I called BA to ask ... and was reassured when I was told that there were current problems with their system resulting in higher than usual tax charges being displayed and was told not to worry as she sent the fare off to their booking department for the tax to be manually calculated holding onto the booking in the meantime.
Yesterday, I received a call from BA to say that they have now heard back from this department but delivered the exact same figure as I got online. She has now sent this off again for further investigation.
Has BA increased tax on long haul redemptions by > 100% in the last few months or am I indeed fighting with IT gremlins. Was surprised that the team who manually calculated the tax reached the same figure.