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 3, 2015, 4:26 am
#496
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 935
Taking away the ability to pre-book seats does not allow BA " continue to provide the lowest and most competitive fares". There is no cost to BA in providing this. You could actually say that there is more cost in automating seat selection as you have to deal with all everyone who is unhappy with their seat selection.
Mar 3, 2015, 4:28 am
#497
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: where lions are led by donkeys...
Programs: Lifetime Gold, Global Entry, Hertz PC, and my wallet
Posts: 20,350
I don't understand the correlation either. I can only assume that for every person they have calculated they will lose, they will have people lining up to replace them. I truly don't understand pissing off loyalty in such a blatant way. And I couldn't give a toss whether it is OPM, or yours, or a TP run, mileage run, whatever it is it is a lean towards BA. I just cannot even think about doing something like this to my loyal customers. But perhaps I am from a generation where your word meant something.
Mar 3, 2015, 4:29 am
#498
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Londinium
Programs: BAEC
Posts: 930
I see it time and time again with comments about "cheapskates" who take up lounge seats with ex-EU J fares, etc.
As one firmly ensconsed in the first camp, I don't see why how much I pay for my ticket and how much value I try to extract from are is any of your concern.
However, to this point, BA don't market this as a CHEAPSKATE fare. They market it as "Don't need to check a bag? Want to save a tenner?"
If they'd been telling us all along this was the bargain fare and priced it accordingly this would be slightly better received. But they've not done that. They continue to try to position themself as somehow better and classier than EZ while copying their business model.
Mar 3, 2015, 4:29 am
#499
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Tyrone,EU
Programs: Avios Hunter
Posts: 2,812
I still don't buy the connection between "providing the most competitive fares" and seat selection though. Lounge access, catering, airport check-in yes - those things cost money. But choosing a seat doesn't. Forcing people to pay might make them more money, but that's actually a different argument...
However, don't hold your breath waiting for the BA PR department to spell it out like that.....
Mar 3, 2015, 4:30 am
#500
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Glasgow
Programs: BAEC Silver, Sixt Platinum, HHons Diamond
Posts: 927
Why don't they just remove HBO fares altogether? Would keep the frequent flyers booking through corporate travel agents happy and discourage leisure/occasional pax from taking too much into the cabin. Seems much simpler than this nonsense.
Mar 3, 2015, 4:37 am
#502
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: NYC
Programs: BA Silver, UA 1K, DL Platinum
Posts: 696
With respect to corporate TAs we have had to deal with this in the US for a while. Delta offer a really nasty fare called Basic or something that won't let you pay for a seat at all! I think it books into a specific bucket which makes it easier to exclude. BA had better sort something out here - seat selection is one thing but the product is going to be further downgraded we can safely assume.
Mar 3, 2015, 4:39 am
#503
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: London
Programs: BAEC Silver, M&M, HHonors Gold
Posts: 1,223
They seem to have mis-implemented it. They said "For bookings made from 26 March".
I am now being asked to pay seat changes for my HBO to Dublin on 3 April, which I booked last week.
I thought at first it was related to my temporary demotion to Bronze (now reversed). At least it's kept the seat assignments I have.
I am now being asked to pay seat changes for my HBO to Dublin on 3 April, which I booked last week.
I thought at first it was related to my temporary demotion to Bronze (now reversed). At least it's kept the seat assignments I have.
I will check availability of seats again when the checkin opens.
And yes, I don't like the changes. I will reconsider my travel plans for future and either fly on rewards tickets on SH or other airline if much cheaper. I definitely don't want to end up in middle seat. If system keeps assigning me my usual seat that's fine, as it's usually 7F. I must say that EasyJet was quite comfortable last time I used them, however I have to drive/take train to Gatwick which adds cost. Luton is 1h drive so it's even worse choice for me.
Last edited by Richmond_Surrey; Mar 3, 2015 at 4:44 am
Mar 3, 2015, 4:43 am
#504
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Peak District
Programs: BAEC / Hilton Honors / Accor
Posts: 552
The part I still can't get my head round is the lack of free seat selection once OLCI opens.
Ok so you want to strip away the free advance seat selection but come on BA let us all fight it our for free once OLCI opens.
Ok so you want to strip away the free advance seat selection but come on BA let us all fight it our for free once OLCI opens.
Mar 3, 2015, 4:48 am
#505
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Near Edinburgh
Programs: BA Silver
Posts: 9,034
If this affected me, and I felt I was now forced to choose a non-HBO fare in order to get the seat pre-selection that my status previously afforded me, I'd look to send a message to BA.
If I wasn't intending to checkin a bag, I would check in something ridiculous, like a box containing 30KG of stones and a letter addressed to Willie Walsh, and just not pick it up at the other end.
I wonder how much money BA would have wasted by such a protest before they took note.
If I wasn't intending to checkin a bag, I would check in something ridiculous, like a box containing 30KG of stones and a letter addressed to Willie Walsh, and just not pick it up at the other end.
I wonder how much money BA would have wasted by such a protest before they took note.
Mar 3, 2015, 4:48 am
#506
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: GLA
Programs: BD (in memoriam), BA
Posts: 1,359
According to the travel policy, the lowest fare has to be selected.
So I'm not physically stopped from booking the non-HBO fare, but the booking will go on the naughty list and I'll need to provide justification for ignoring the policy. And it sounds like this system is better than many.
A lot of the time I need a checked bag, even for a short trip, because I'm carrying cabin-prohibited items. It's a bit tiresome to always get marked as out of policy for this.
By way of comparison, when I book an LCC flight, I select the lowest fare and then it will happily allow me to add an additional service (ie luggage) at extra cost while staying in policy. Now, this could be regarded as bad implementation in the TA's system, or a stupid travel policy, but ultimately that's the difference between "cheap fare + added services" [in policy] and "cheap fare, or more expensive fare with added services included" [out of policy]
Mar 3, 2015, 4:54 am
#507
Join Date: Mar 2007
Programs: BAEC Gold, M&M Sen, Delta Skymiles Gold
Posts: 866
Actually, my neighbour, whom I'd consider errant and somewhat devious - suggested this:
Check in something worthless (like a pile of old newspapers) every time on a non-HBO and just walk out the airport on arrival, leaving it behind...
I'd have to admit the thought crossed my mind too....
Check in something worthless (like a pile of old newspapers) every time on a non-HBO and just walk out the airport on arrival, leaving it behind...
I'd have to admit the thought crossed my mind too....
Mar 3, 2015, 4:57 am
#508
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: MAN/BHX
Programs: ABBA
Posts: 6,027
Those here who say that GCHs/SCHs would not normally buy HBOs really don't have a clue about what people that travel for work really have to go through.
- if anything, this is the sort of fare that very frequent fliers would buy - do you really think someone who travels 200 segments a year wants to wait 66 hours per year for bags (avg. 200 sectors, 20 minutes on average wait)? Also, a frequent traveler knows that bags make it more difficult to move to a different flight if you are already checked in...
- if anything, this is the sort of fare that very frequent fliers would buy - do you really think someone who travels 200 segments a year wants to wait 66 hours per year for bags (avg. 200 sectors, 20 minutes on average wait)? Also, a frequent traveler knows that bags make it more difficult to move to a different flight if you are already checked in...
A colleague had 3 bags of stuff with him so we ended up waiting anyway, but I wasn't forced to check a bag because I didn't have a HBO fare.
Perhaps if BA renamed "HBO" to "No Frills", it would be clearer. I wish they would hurry up and get rid of other things like lounge access and priority boarding for these fares. Don't want to pay for luggage? Fine, book a no-frills fare and pay for lounge access. Don't want to pay for lounge access, fine, do the same but pay for a bag. Want a traditional experience? Pay the non-budget-airline fare.
P.S. When is the BA Forum merging with the Budget Airlines forum?
Mar 3, 2015, 5:00 am
#510
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: MAN/BHX
Programs: ABBA
Posts: 6,027
The practice is more likely that people will ignore potential frequent flyer benefits and no longer "just book BA" or "just book KLM", and instead fly whatever's cheapest