mario

I am aware that if you don't take a sector the remainder of your ticket should get cancelled.

However, there are so many things that can go wrong that I'm not sure if BA actually does this. Imagine that for some reason you weren't properly recorded as making the outbound flight and turn up at the airport for the return only to be told that your ticket had been cancelled. I'm sure we would hear a few cases like this on FT but I don't remember any!

I am planning to put this to the test. I have a non-changeable ticket that I have to throw away as the outbound no longer suits my plans. However I'd still take the return sector if I could. As a result, I booked a return on another airline whose flight leaves 15 minutes after BA. I'll try to check-in for the return BA flight and get on it. If I'm refused travel I'll then take the flight on the other airline.

I'll report back once I've tried to do this.

As anyone had the remainder of the ticket actually cancelled? Answers below please

Doc Savage

If you contact BA and cancel your flight, you may get some taxes back and at least salvage something.

Otherwise, yes, your subsequent flights will be cancelled when you miss the first leg and you will have nothing.

And yes, we regularly hear about FTers who have flights mistakenly cancelled when the computers show they have missed their earlier flights.

Cheers!

orbitmic

Yes, they really DO cancel (BA and other airlines alike). I'm sure there are exceptional cases when this is not done the way it should but the default is very definitely cancellation and very many of us have experienced it (myself certainly included).

Often1

It is not just a question of outbound/inbound, rather it is any failure to fly any segment in the order issued. Thus, on AAA-BBB-CCC-DDD, if you fail to fly BBB-CCC, your CCC-DDD will be cancelled as well.

There are indeed examples of situations where people have properly flown, the gate reader scanners or other aspects of the software have not properly recorded the flight as having been boarded and an individual's itinerary has been improperly cancelled.

The bottom line is that if your onward journey, whether it is a return or not, is not cancelled, that is due to an error at BA and does not form a particularly useful data point any more than various exceptions which BA has granted to individuals mean that it has a policy to that effect.

vibrex

In my experience - Yes the return gets cancelled.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes it does absolutely 101% happen and it's completely automatic. It even happens when BA cancel the service! Your next sector will not be available for check-in online or any other activity. Ditto at the gate, the whole show is stopped. The cancelled sectors can be reinstated, but you'll need an extremely good reason.

I once had a trip which was something like: NCL-LHR-HKG-MNL-SYD-AKL-CHC-HKK. The trip is a common one for me (I have Kiwi roots), so when fog cancelled the NCL-LHR sector I knew what was to happen. I took the train to London and then on to Heathrow, I was at LHR 3 hours before the HKG departure flight. I spent 2 hour 20 minutes as the staff desperately tried to reinstate all those sectors, which were on waitlist to other passengers. In the end I just made the HKG service, and had another 2 hours at HKG your trying to get the rest of the outbound together. It took many many phone calls to sort out the return leg too.

Fruitcake

An extreme case with such a big itinerary but most interesting. Presumably airlines do this to protect their revenue and rules but, in this case, at cost to a (knowledgeable) customer. Even worse if the customer didn't know the system!

Why do they cancel the booking when a flight is cancelled by them? Surely the system could be a bit more nimble than that?

Flying Doctor

You really want to run the gauntlet and try this? As CWS states the cancellation is automatic and it is the same for all airlines - not just BA. You will get taken completely off the system and additionally if you are on a very busy flight then a waitlisted passenger will get confirmed with your seat. If you want to risk it fine but this is one of the almost absolutes of air travel - sectors are issued to be travelled in the order stated only unless they are all fully flexible fares (and even then there can be some restriction!)

I would not try it to be honest....

FD.

Calchas

From my view, it seems that airlines see IT as a cost that must be absolutely minimized, not as an opportunity for efficiency investments.

LTN Phobia

It's not worth it. BA really DO cancel the booking on all subsequent sectors if a sector is not flown.

There are reasons why many of us sometimes make much more expensive one-way fares rather than booking a return and failing to fly the first sector, for instance.

worjackie14

When it's picked up that your boarding pass was not scanned at the gate an automatic no-show remark goes into Pegasus resulting in the remaining sectors of your flight being cancelled from your itinerary. You will receive no notification of this until you try to online check in.

BA6501

Don't you see the flights disappear from MMB?

Tobias-UK

When BMI were being merged in to BA I took a flight MAN-LHR-MAN to attend a GGL event. The MAN-LHR was a BA flight operated by BMI. All was fine until that evening when I noticed my flight back to MAN was showing as cancelled on the BA App.

I thought nothing of it assuming the LHR-MAN had gone tech and called the GGL line to rebook. I was told I'd no-showed for the MAN-LHR and therefor my booking had been cancelled. I had actually taken the MAN-LHR segment but it did not show on BA systems. It took over 30 minutes to get my return flight reinstated.

In the OP's shoes I wouldn't bother even trying, BA will have cancelled his booking as a no show and unless there are compelling or compassionate reasons to do so, I suspect there is no chance of the ticket being reinstated.

Fruitcake

Quite.

And you would think, given how prompt BA is about notifying re small-ish things such as seat reservation or meal changes, they could at least notify on this fairly straightforwardly? At least then, if there is some error, it can be sorted out more quickly.

LTN Phobia

I assume that is on the basis that in most cases, no-show is (or should be) known to the passenger without telling him/her, although you could say the same about self-imposed seat change or meal change.