UAFlyer01

Just booked a reservation a few minutes agao and want to cancel it

HIDDY

I know in the UK they don't have such a policy with online cash bookings but they may do in the States.
With a miles booking no problem.

jplondon

If I remember correctly not if you book online (because you see exactly what you book) but yes if on the phone (because there could be a misunderstanding.

SK and others do have this for any booking and is really good.

I however did once book on ba.com and made a mistake in the date, called them and they changed, but was made clear that it was an exception.

My comment are for UK bookings.

PointsMeanPrizes

There is an agreement that some airlines do indeed allow 24hr cancellations FOC but BA is not one of them IIRC. Sometimes they are god and will move dates if there was an error but you'll be lucky to get a refund on a non-refundable ticket.

Gumbieben

When I booked my last ticket over the phone I was told I had 24 hours grace to cancel... but not sure about ba.com.

Alvador

I recall reading that BA would allow cancellations or changes to telephone bookings free of charge within 24 hours. According to a report from the Air Transport Users Council BA also have a "24-hour rule as internal policy" for online reservations.
http://www.auc.org.uk/docs/306/An%20...s%20online.pdf

I've never tried doing this with BA but had no problem when I needed to change a restricted bmi ticket within 24 hours.

JAXBA

Over the phone bookings in the UK do seem to have a cooling off period (haven't experienced it, only heard second hand) which I think is something to do with UK credit card consumer laws? I don't believe it applies to online bookings but I may be wrong (somebody please correct me if so).

In the US, there is no cooling off - bookings are immediately subject to the cancellation and change rules attached to the fare.

If your fare rules allow it, you may want to consider changing your booking online through Manage My Booking - change it to a future date that you might need. You can then change it again to another useful date closer to the time if necessary.

On the other hand, if the booking is of no use to you at all, you can probably process your own refund through MMB and get the maximum refund due back on your credit card as soon as possible

ba273

I did a booking on the phone the other day and was surprised when the guy said I had 24 hours in which I could cancel it.

I don't know about on-line though.

Sixth Freedom

I asked about this once over the phone.

There is a 24 hour grace period for telephone bookings but for online bookings if you make your purchase then that is that - no refunds.

UAFlyer01

Quick update. They did not allow me to cancel the reservation, but they did offer to change the reservation if there is any mistake.

The reservation was made using miles for flights operated by partner airlines, LAN. One of the agents even told me that she can not do anything, but if you made the reservation and made a mistake, you can correct it for free.

HIDDY

Duff info...

You can cancel all redemption bookings and receive a full refund if you cancel one day before departure. I take it this is for a flight in the future?

JAXBA

Quote:

Originally Posted by UAFlyer01

They did not allow me to cancel the reservation...

Quote:

Originally Posted by HIDDY

Duff info... You can cancel all redemption bookings and receive a full refund if you cancel one day before departure.

I think UAFlyer01 means they weren't allowed to cancel the reservation for free as they were probably hoping. As it's a mileage booking, there would be a redeposit fee to pay to get the miles back but of course the booking can be cancelled if still prior to departure.

Schultzois

IIRC these costs depend very much on the country in which one holds EC membership. Cancellation online at ba.com also tends to be less costly (I think free under at least certain circumstances) whereas over the phone there is almost always a charge (unless a GCH, and even this may depend again on country of registration).

As for the general lack of a 24-hour (or even somewhat shorter) policy to deal with obviously unexpected fumbles, I find it very Ryanair-esque that BA chooses to take the hard line that no errors can be corrected, in contrast to so many airlines who encourage use of their websites by publishing a "risk-free" booking policy, which usually means you can do anything to change/cancel in the first 24 hours, regardless of circumstances. Add to this that BA.com doesn't even allow you to place a reservation on hold (as virtually every carrier does that does NOT have a 24-hour cancellation policy) and one has a rather hard time concluding anything other than that BA have missed the plot on how to ensure that the occasional mishap doesn't leave some stains in rather too many customers' experiences of online booking. I wouldn't be surprised of this behavior from Ryanair, but I don't expect it of British Airways. Do forgive me for holding a higher opinion of them than that...

Thankfully, has never happened to me on a BA booking, but has once or maybe even twice in the last 10-15 years with some other carriers.

Lastly, when confronted with a customer-hostile policy from another country's equivalent of Ryanair - and I was making a correction literally minutes after an initially botched booking, I called my credit card issuer, explained what happened, and they canceled the charge - in spite of the airline not being willing to deal with it. So that is sometimes an option, albeit a slightly extreme one.

Happy

http://www.britishairways.com/travel...l/public/en_us

Though not until OP clarified, I like others, thought he was talking about revenue ticket due to the misleading title.

gcuk

bmi offer a no penalty 24-hour cancellation option for web bookings. Really useful for the odd 'mistake'.