Aug 7, 2015, 5:53 am
Last edit by: NWIFlyer
Hand Baggage Only fares (HBO) are available on domestic and EuroTraveller routes. They are offered at a lower price to those able to travel without checked baggage on point to point journeys only - they are not offered with connections, stopovers or with Club Europe. There isn't a special fare bucket for HBO, it's just a discount to all domestic/ET fare buckets, so even expensive flexible tickets offer HBO. The discount varies depending on route. For example, going HBO on LHR-DUB gives a £10 discount; £15 on LHR-PRG; and £20 on LHR-ATH. Online Travel Agents often book into these fares (including building stopovers) and are sometimes less than transparent about the baggage restrictions during the booking process. HBO fares do not earn OnBusiness credits.
BAEC status passengers from Bronze upwards get advance seat choice with these tickets.
How to get seat allocation if HBO and without status:
- Pay up. You can pay up at OLCI if you don't like the seat. Costs vary from £7 to £21 per sector as a minimum, with differential pricing employed for better seats (e.g. an exit row on LHR-DUB was £23 in June 2017). Usually, but not always, this invalidates the cost saving of HBO. You can also pay up in Manage My Booking (MMB) before OLCI.
- Cancel OLCI at the "confirm contact details" stage. Go in again and/or later and you may be offered another seat.
- Corporate travel bookings still offer seating to HBO in some cases. Sometimes this ability is temporary and doesn't stick.
- Ask check-in or the lounge agent for a better seat, so far this seems to be possible. Lounge agents won't be able to assist where they aren't part of the ground handling for BA (e.g. LBA).
- If your airport has a Self Service Check In (SSCI) machine AND you do not print your boarding pass (see below) then you can select another seat there provided check-in is still open, typically up to 46 minutes before take off. So if you are being allocated a rotten seat and you can see better seats available, you can take a risk and complete/commence check-in later.
SSCI machines are available at: LHR, LGW, LCY, MAN, EDI (on the general purpose airport machines, but only those by the BA check-in area), NCE, BRU, OSL, BLL, AAR, MUC, AMS.
They are NOT available at: ABZ, BHD, GLA, LBA, NCL, DUB, CDG, ORY, SVG, DUS, TXL, MAH, CFU, OLB, CTA, CAG, FDH, ANE, UIP, BIO, HER, SVQ, PMI, BRI.
You can also do this operation the night before at LGW and LHR, details here.
By "printing boarding pass" we mean not selecting that option at OLCI, or saving, emailing, faxing and/or downloading the boarding pass on the App.
HBO fares - Have to pay to select seat in advance [free for GCH/SCH/BCHs @ 14 Jun 17]
Mar 2, 2015, 11:24 pm
#421
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: MAN/BHX
Programs: ABBA
Posts: 6,027
I'm sorry but this talk of 'standard' fares is nonsense.
When I'm looking to buy a ticket, the standard fare is the cheapest fare available at the time. If HBO's available, that's the standard fare, and it may be cheap or it may be horribly expensive. If I want to check a bag (which I almost never do), I pay a fee on top of that fare. That's how the system works for me and many others here; it's just not how BA has chosen to present it.
This change now means that if I want to select my seats (which I always do), I also have to pay a fee for that on top of the standard fare. I didn't before. That's annoying.
When I'm looking to buy a ticket, the standard fare is the cheapest fare available at the time. If HBO's available, that's the standard fare, and it may be cheap or it may be horribly expensive. If I want to check a bag (which I almost never do), I pay a fee on top of that fare. That's how the system works for me and many others here; it's just not how BA has chosen to present it.
This change now means that if I want to select my seats (which I always do), I also have to pay a fee for that on top of the standard fare. I didn't before. That's annoying.
Mar 2, 2015, 11:49 pm
#422
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 3,839
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_1_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12B466 Safari/600.1.4)
A standard fare is one advertised in the GDS. Are HbO fares advertised in the GDS? Do they show up when looking at prices on ita? Or are they special fares you only book through ba?
Irrelevant. On the basis corporate travel agents have access to HBO fares (as evidenced upthread) your point is moot.
GDS and published fares are an increasing anachronism, caused by incentivisation of direct channels and.......unbundling like this!
Originally Posted by paulwuk
I'm sorry but this talk of 'standard' fares is nonsense.
When I'm looking to buy a ticket, the standard fare is the cheapest fare available at the time. If HBO's available, that's the standard fare, and it may be cheap or it may be horribly expensive. If I want to check a bag (which I almost never do), I pay a fee on top of that fare. That's how the system works for me and many others here; it's just not how BA has chosen to present it.
This change now means that if I want to select my seats (which I always do), I also have to pay a fee for that on top of the standard fare. I didn't before. That's annoying.
When I'm looking to buy a ticket, the standard fare is the cheapest fare available at the time. If HBO's available, that's the standard fare, and it may be cheap or it may be horribly expensive. If I want to check a bag (which I almost never do), I pay a fee on top of that fare. That's how the system works for me and many others here; it's just not how BA has chosen to present it.
This change now means that if I want to select my seats (which I always do), I also have to pay a fee for that on top of the standard fare. I didn't before. That's annoying.
GDS and published fares are an increasing anachronism, caused by incentivisation of direct channels and.......unbundling like this!
Mar 2, 2015, 11:57 pm
#423
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: UK
Programs: BA Gold / Hilton Diamond / IHG Diamond Ambassador / Marriot Bonvoy Gold
Posts: 2,533
I wrote to BA yesterday to complain about this change and their cut 'n paste department were clearly working overtime to reply at 2.30am with the following irrelevant drivel that failed to address my specific issue of status holders being banned from changing seats with a charge.
Would be interesting to see if others got the same email reply.
I am sorry to hear that this change of seat selection when travelling on our Hand Baggage Only fares is making you reconsider your travelling future with British Airways.
We believe that these fares continue to offer our customers who choose them excellent value for money, however in order to offer such low fares we have to restrict the terms and conditions on them.
Of course everyone on our short-haul flights, regardless of the fare purchased, is offered benefits such as:
- an allocated seat number before boarding their aircraft
- a generous two-bag cabin baggage allowance (http://www.britishairways.com/inform...age-allowances)
- free online, mobile or airport check-in and boarding pass issuance
- parties travelling with infants get free seat choice at time of booking, and families are allocated seats together (where possible) a few days before departure
- infants and children on Hand Baggage Only fares may still check in a fully-collapsible pushchair and a car seat.
- semi-flexible and fully flexible fare choices, offering extra benefits
- Executive Club benefits including earning Avios points that can be redeemed for flights
- a unique London proposition - British Airways is the only short-haul airline to fly from London Heathrow, London Gatwick and London City with fares that can combine choice of airports
Please be assured that we will share your feedback with our Executive Club team.
I hope that this will not come as too much of a disappointment.
Would be interesting to see if others got the same email reply.
I am sorry to hear that this change of seat selection when travelling on our Hand Baggage Only fares is making you reconsider your travelling future with British Airways.
We believe that these fares continue to offer our customers who choose them excellent value for money, however in order to offer such low fares we have to restrict the terms and conditions on them.
Of course everyone on our short-haul flights, regardless of the fare purchased, is offered benefits such as:
- an allocated seat number before boarding their aircraft
- a generous two-bag cabin baggage allowance (http://www.britishairways.com/inform...age-allowances)
- free online, mobile or airport check-in and boarding pass issuance
- parties travelling with infants get free seat choice at time of booking, and families are allocated seats together (where possible) a few days before departure
- infants and children on Hand Baggage Only fares may still check in a fully-collapsible pushchair and a car seat.
- semi-flexible and fully flexible fare choices, offering extra benefits
- Executive Club benefits including earning Avios points that can be redeemed for flights
- a unique London proposition - British Airways is the only short-haul airline to fly from London Heathrow, London Gatwick and London City with fares that can combine choice of airports
Please be assured that we will share your feedback with our Executive Club team.
I hope that this will not come as too much of a disappointment.
Mar 3, 2015, 12:19 am
#424
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: not far from MUC
Posts: 6,620
Mar 3, 2015, 12:19 am
#425
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: LHR
Programs: BA GGL/GfL, A3 Gold, HH Diamond, IHG Gold
Posts: 320
HBO fares - Have to pay to select seat in advance [even for GCH/SCH/BCHs]
I'll add my voice to the chorus of GGLs who often travel on HBO fares. Of the 150 or so sectors a year I fly, around 50 of those are SH with BA. HBO is the ideal fare for me, as all my SH travel involves being away from home for a relatively short amount of time. In the past I've often POUGed up to CE, although since the new cabins arrived I've been less inclined to do so - plus the fact that fewer POUGs seem to be available these days, and when they do appear they're often significantly more expensive than they used to be. I'm struggling to understand the potential gain for BA in this utterly miserable development. Asking a GGL/CCR to pay for seat selection on a full Y (minus £20) fare is staggeringly crass move - but for me, as others have said, the general direction in which the scheme appears to be heading is the bigger issue here.
Next month I'll qualify for LTG, after which I'm seriously tempted to just leave it there where BA is concerned. I know the grass isn't necessarily greener - I'd expect most of them are just varying shades of brown - but this clumsy move seems particularly hostile to the type of BA customer who, even if they might be on a cheap fare every so often, must help to generate some profit in the bigger picture.
Next month I'll qualify for LTG, after which I'm seriously tempted to just leave it there where BA is concerned. I know the grass isn't necessarily greener - I'd expect most of them are just varying shades of brown - but this clumsy move seems particularly hostile to the type of BA customer who, even if they might be on a cheap fare every so often, must help to generate some profit in the bigger picture.
Mar 3, 2015, 12:26 am
#426
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: LHR
Programs: BA GGL/GfL, A3 Gold, HH Diamond, IHG Gold
Posts: 320
Mar 3, 2015, 12:26 am
#427
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: UK
Programs: I go wherever the content takes me.
Posts: 5,698
The idea of going HBO is supposed to give the airline an advantage by having fewer bags to process. HBO isn't a more restrictive fare and was never advertised as such. It's simply a discount - a thank you - for not checking a bag. It's counterintuitive that passengers should be penalised for this.
Mar 3, 2015, 12:28 am
#428
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Glasgow
Programs: BAEC Silver, Sixt Platinum, HHons Diamond
Posts: 927
One assumes it must only be a matter of time before catering becomes chargeable on SH.....
"We've listened to our customers, who have told us they would much rather pay for catering appropriate to the time of day"
"We've listened to our customers, who have told us they would much rather pay for catering appropriate to the time of day"
Mar 3, 2015, 12:33 am
#429
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Brighton, UK
Programs: BA Gold, IC Ambassador, HH Gold, SPG Gold, Fairmont Platinum
Posts: 3,166
I'm sorry but this talk of 'standard' fares is nonsense.
When I'm looking to buy a ticket, the standard fare is the cheapest fare available at the time. If HBO's available, that's the standard fare, and it may be cheap or it may be horribly expensive. If I want to check a bag (which I almost never do), I pay a fee on top of that fare. That's how the system works for me and many others here; it's just not how BA has chosen to present it.
This change now means that if I want to select my seats (which I always do), I also have to pay a fee for that on top of the standard fare. I didn't before. That's annoying.
When I'm looking to buy a ticket, the standard fare is the cheapest fare available at the time. If HBO's available, that's the standard fare, and it may be cheap or it may be horribly expensive. If I want to check a bag (which I almost never do), I pay a fee on top of that fare. That's how the system works for me and many others here; it's just not how BA has chosen to present it.
This change now means that if I want to select my seats (which I always do), I also have to pay a fee for that on top of the standard fare. I didn't before. That's annoying.
HBO fares are a lesser product. If people choose to see them as the standard product and then get upset when they lack the features that they require, that is not BA's fault (they described the product correctly), but the passenger's, who has placed their own incorrect interpretation on the product.
What BA is doing is hardly unusual. With computer software there are frequently lite versions, offered for a low price or even free. They may suit many people's requirements. Would it be right to complain however if you found you needed the full product and couldn't make do with the lite version?
I am afraid those that saw HBO fares as the standard fare seem to have caused their own misfortune.
Mar 3, 2015, 12:34 am
#430
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,797
I'll add my voice to the chorus of GGLs who often travel on HBO fares. Of the 150 or so sectors a year I fly, around 50 of those are SH with BA. HBO is the ideal fare for me, as all my SH travel involves being away from home for a relatively short amount of time. In the past I've often POUGed up to CE, although since the new cabins arrived I've been less inclined to do so - plus the fact that fewer POUGs seem to be available these days, and when they do appear they're often significantly more expensive than they used to be. I'm struggling to understand the potential gain for BA in this utterly miserable development. Asking a GGL/CCR to pay for seat selection on a full Y (minus £20) fare is staggeringly crass move - but for me, as others have said, the general direction in which the scheme appears to be heading is the bigger issue here.
Next month I'll qualify for LTG, after which I'm seriously tempted to just leave it there where BA is concerned. I know the grass isn't necessarily greener - I'd expect most of them are just varying shades of brown - but this clumsy move seems particularly hostile to the type of BA customer who, even if they might be on a cheap fare every so often, must help to generate some profit in the bigger picture.
Next month I'll qualify for LTG, after which I'm seriously tempted to just leave it there where BA is concerned. I know the grass isn't necessarily greener - I'd expect most of them are just varying shades of brown - but this clumsy move seems particularly hostile to the type of BA customer who, even if they might be on a cheap fare every so often, must help to generate some profit in the bigger picture.
(I usually book the HKG-LHR and domestic connection separately), it makes it extremely tempted to shift those last 4 flights onto CX or QR, or even *A.
Mar 3, 2015, 12:35 am
#431
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2005
Location: TLV/LHR
Programs: BA GGL, IHG Diamond Elite Amb, HH Diamond, Avis PC, Hertz PC, Sixt Platinum
Posts: 12,948
Mar 3, 2015, 12:38 am
#432
Join Date: Mar 2007
Programs: BAEC Gold, M&M Sen, Delta Skymiles Gold
Posts: 866
I wrote to BA yesterday to complain about this change and their cut 'n paste department were clearly working overtime to reply at 2.30am with the following irrelevant drivel that failed to address my specific issue of status holders being banned from changing seats with a charge.
Would be interesting to see if others got the same email reply.
I am sorry to hear that this change of seat selection when travelling on our Hand Baggage Only fares is making you reconsider your travelling future with British Airways.
We believe that these fares continue to offer our customers who choose them excellent value for money, however in order to offer such low fares we have to restrict the terms and conditions on them.
Of course everyone on our short-haul flights, regardless of the fare purchased, is offered benefits such as:
- an allocated seat number before boarding their aircraft
- a generous two-bag cabin baggage allowance (http://www.britishairways.com/inform...age-allowances)
-free online, mobile or airport check-in and boarding pass issuance
- parties travelling with infants get free seat choice at time of booking, and families are allocated seats together (where possible) a few days before departure
- infants and children on Hand Baggage Only fares may still check in a fully-collapsible pushchair and a car seat.
- semi-flexible and fully flexible fare choices, offering extra benefits
- Executive Club benefits including earning Avios points that can be redeemed for flights
- a unique London proposition - British Airways is the only short-haul airline to fly from London Heathrow, London Gatwick and London City with fares that can combine choice of airports
Please be assured that we will share your feedback with our Executive Club team.
I hope that this will not come as too much of a disappointment.
Would be interesting to see if others got the same email reply.
I am sorry to hear that this change of seat selection when travelling on our Hand Baggage Only fares is making you reconsider your travelling future with British Airways.
We believe that these fares continue to offer our customers who choose them excellent value for money, however in order to offer such low fares we have to restrict the terms and conditions on them.
Of course everyone on our short-haul flights, regardless of the fare purchased, is offered benefits such as:
- an allocated seat number before boarding their aircraft
- a generous two-bag cabin baggage allowance (http://www.britishairways.com/inform...age-allowances)
-free online, mobile or airport check-in and boarding pass issuance
- parties travelling with infants get free seat choice at time of booking, and families are allocated seats together (where possible) a few days before departure
- infants and children on Hand Baggage Only fares may still check in a fully-collapsible pushchair and a car seat.
- semi-flexible and fully flexible fare choices, offering extra benefits
- Executive Club benefits including earning Avios points that can be redeemed for flights
- a unique London proposition - British Airways is the only short-haul airline to fly from London Heathrow, London Gatwick and London City with fares that can combine choice of airports
Please be assured that we will share your feedback with our Executive Club team.
I hope that this will not come as too much of a disappointment.
Mar 3, 2015, 12:44 am
#433
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: not far from MUC
Posts: 6,620
Mar 3, 2015, 12:48 am
#435
Join Date: Dec 2009
Programs: BA Gold Guest List, Concorde Room Card, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 728
BA created a situation where there are two ticket prices for a given fare class - one if you want to check a bag, one if you don't.
It seems to me (and is) perverse to pay for a bag to obtain the status-based seat selection I've always enjoyed.
Bonkers. Absolute bonkers.