Confiscation of what exactly? « Full stop » or not, confiscation means that you are taking something which is mine, and I’m genuinely at a loss to understand what you think ba are taking from the passenger, and which is the passenger’s at the time of taking. By definition ba can’t confiscate the money since the money is ba’s at the time of the cancellation (it’s not as though clients only deposited money when they buy a service) and I’m just not sure what else?

I agree with your second point certainly. I too would much prefer not losing money if I cancel. In fact, if ba gave me credit for every flight I cancel, I’d save a lot of money as I would never pay more to buy refundable tickets since I use them regularly anyway - which I guess is precisely why they don’t, but as a customer there is no question I would prefer the free insurance policy. Two nuances though;

- if you buy your ticket from the us, ba then have the same policy as aa and as. As mentioned, that’s a us idiosyncrasy so ba adapt and march competitors in that particular market.

- there is a flip side to the us airlines aligned apparent generosity. If you book a basic fare with a, as, or I believe now any of the us majors, you can’t change anything - not the date, not the time, etc. These days as far as I know, ba do not sell any non changeable tickets, not even on basic fares. Would you agree that on that front then, ba is « better » than aa and as since you can change all tickets whilst with aa and as there is a significant category you can’t? I’d add that on ba, the difference between non ref and ref tickets is often less than the difference between basic and classic on us airlines (for which that gap has increased quite a lot in recent years).