Originally Posted by
KARFA
You always pay the cancellation fee and it is always taken from the taxes/fees/charges cash component. If the TFC component of your booking is less than the cancellation fee of €42.50, then you just lose whatever you paid in cash but get your avios back. They do no try and charge you the remainder of the cancellation fee, or if you like ask you to cure the difference.
If you make a reward booking for €0.50 and 22,500 avios, I would expect you would get a refund of the avios and lose the €0.50.
If you make a reward booking for €30 and 15,750 avios, again I would expect you would get a refund of the avios and lose the €30.
As one more example, if you had made a reward booking for say €70 and 20,000 avios, I would expect you would get a refund of €27.50 and all the avios.
I am not aware of any ability to take avios in lieu of the remainder of the cancellation fee, and I don't recall any reports about that happening before.
Thanks
KARFA. Not that I would expect the Avios in lieu of the cancellation fee, but the actual cash component of the booking is only €0.50. When booking this flight as a connection from a long-haul flight, for example, BA add the 22,500 Avios to the long-haul redemption amount and still charge full TFC for the sector on top. Cakeism, I suspect.
In any case, I took yet another FTV for the booking which makes the issue academic in this case as I can recover the value elsewhere.