Originally Posted by
blue bear
BA will neither refund nor retain the funds for future use - they confiscate them unless you pay a hefty fee to rebook another time and pay the fare difference.
They don’t « confiscate » anything but yes like almost all non US airlines (I’m not sure where the Asian airlines doing the same comes from? Some might but many most definitely don’t), indeed, they won’t refund non refundable.
The « hefty fee » you are talking about is exactly 0 on many fares, around £50-70 per ticket for the least flexible short haul flights and £50-300 for the least flexible long haul ones. This allows you to change date/time as you rightly say but also departure and/or destination and/or route on most tickets.