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, 6:21 am
#76
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: East Anglia, England
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 2,056
But the thing you need to remember is that HBO fares are DIRT CHEAP.
I have just booked LHR-OSL HBO for £85 each. Used 18,000 Avios to knock £120 off the total price (really only 12,000-ish Avios because we will earn some back), and my family of 4 gets an extra holiday this year for only £220 plus 12,000 Avios. Compare that with £140 + 60,000 or £200 +120,000 for a redemption flight and you see that these fares are an absolute steal. Compared with Norwegian (of whom I am generally a fan) and BA still looks very good because Norwegian flies from the less convenient Gatwick and BA will give you a free beer and flatbread.
If these extra charges are the price to pay for such low fares then I honestly don't mind. And for people who do mind there are other fares, both redemption and non-redemption available.
So long as it is clear what you are getting when you book, I don't have a problem with this at all and if the side effect of this is that HBO travellers are allocated generally more towards to back of the cabin, then they will find that overhead space is much less of an issue.
I have just booked LHR-OSL HBO for £85 each. Used 18,000 Avios to knock £120 off the total price (really only 12,000-ish Avios because we will earn some back), and my family of 4 gets an extra holiday this year for only £220 plus 12,000 Avios. Compare that with £140 + 60,000 or £200 +120,000 for a redemption flight and you see that these fares are an absolute steal. Compared with Norwegian (of whom I am generally a fan) and BA still looks very good because Norwegian flies from the less convenient Gatwick and BA will give you a free beer and flatbread.
If these extra charges are the price to pay for such low fares then I honestly don't mind. And for people who do mind there are other fares, both redemption and non-redemption available.
So long as it is clear what you are getting when you book, I don't have a problem with this at all and if the side effect of this is that HBO travellers are allocated generally more towards to back of the cabin, then they will find that overhead space is much less of an issue.
My advice to BA: stop with the thousand cuts and just reform the bloody BAEC and get it done and over with (if that is the goal).
H
Mar 2, 2015, 6:22 am
#77
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: London
Programs: BA BLUE BADGE
Posts: 1,324
Before opening the email I was smiling...........you just know anything from these clowns at the moment is another enhancement.
Does anyone still doubt we are in the middle of a passenger onslaught from BA?
A spiteful act. They introduced these HBO fares to great fanfare a year or so ago. And have now used them to crowbar in another way to milk the existing customer base.
Does anyone still doubt we are in the middle of a passenger onslaught from BA?
A spiteful act. They introduced these HBO fares to great fanfare a year or so ago. And have now used them to crowbar in another way to milk the existing customer base.
Mar 2, 2015, 6:22 am
#78
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: London
Programs: BAEC
Posts: 2,644
Mar 2, 2015, 6:23 am
#79
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: glasgow, scotland
Programs: BA Executive Club Gold
Posts: 224
UUUURGH!!!!!
So they sold the HBO fares as, 'pay for what you use, if you don't need a bag don't pay for one' and now this?! The majority of HBO fares I book are GLA-LON daytrips and I obviously don't need a bag.
So effectively now I'm actually being told that I'm 'budget class' and don't deserve to select my seat either - which is a perk for all the other money I throw at the airline through the rest of the year.
PI**ED OFF
So they sold the HBO fares as, 'pay for what you use, if you don't need a bag don't pay for one' and now this?! The majority of HBO fares I book are GLA-LON daytrips and I obviously don't need a bag.
So effectively now I'm actually being told that I'm 'budget class' and don't deserve to select my seat either - which is a perk for all the other money I throw at the airline through the rest of the year.
PI**ED OFF
Mar 2, 2015, 6:24 am
#80
Community Director
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Norwich, UK
Programs: A3*G, BA Gold, BD Gold (in memoriam), IHG Diamond Ambassador
Posts: 8,481
My guess is it won't - many (most) of us travel HBO because it's more convenient for us, so even if we decide to fork out the extra for a non-HBO ticket we'll effectively be paying for a seat assignment rather than to put baggage in the hold, so the overheads will be as crowded as they are now.
Mar 2, 2015, 6:25 am
#81
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,860
Because of the slightly odd reference to baggage sizes, this email smacks to me of someone in BA management saying "do something - anything - about baggage overloading on these flights". The HBOs will be further towards the back, and presumably sizes enforced (not that many people actually go over the limits), and made less attractive to certain regular flyers.
On the other hand they don't want to lose the ability to advertise an attractive HBO fare due to the various "cost comparison" websites out there which are perceived to play a big role in semi occasional travellers' planning.
That said, a number of routes appear to have lost HBO fares in recent weeks - the ones with less LCC competition where the comparison websites won't be so problematic.
BA will have to be careful about this one. From what I can make out some corporate travel websites automatically put people into HBO on BA, and therefore the choice to these relatively important travellers (to BA strategically) is indeed to go elsewhere if their FF status counts for little.
On the other hand they don't want to lose the ability to advertise an attractive HBO fare due to the various "cost comparison" websites out there which are perceived to play a big role in semi occasional travellers' planning.
That said, a number of routes appear to have lost HBO fares in recent weeks - the ones with less LCC competition where the comparison websites won't be so problematic.
BA will have to be careful about this one. From what I can make out some corporate travel websites automatically put people into HBO on BA, and therefore the choice to these relatively important travellers (to BA strategically) is indeed to go elsewhere if their FF status counts for little.
Mar 2, 2015, 6:25 am
#82
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: UK
Programs: I go wherever the content takes me.
Posts: 5,698
The italicised sentence reads like a BA email - in plain English it reads "for people who do mind, there is the option of paying a more expensive fare and giving us more money".
BA have forsaken the back of the bus and are shooting themselves in the foot. The changes are unlikely to affect me but they would have done in the past. It's rather nonsensical to remove a very basic benefit such as seat selection from status passengers. Even the GGLs are affected. Bizarre. I can understand the BAEC gutting but I don't get this.
Mar 2, 2015, 6:29 am
#86
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: UK
Programs: BA, U2+, SK, AF/KL, IHG, Hilton, others gathering dust...
Posts: 2,552
I was toying with keeping GGL for another year. But do I really want to keep chasing status with an airline that is becoming ever more customer unfriendly? Not really.
In itself this step isn't a big deal. Viewed in the round and in the absence of any coherent strategy BA really are losing the plot.
In itself this step isn't a big deal. Viewed in the round and in the absence of any coherent strategy BA really are losing the plot.
If this is correct, I'd be inclined to move a load of flights to U2 anyway, and the HBO change on BA makes that decision easier, as it makes BA less price competitive.
Last edited by Oaxaca; Mar 2, 2015 at 6:34 am
Mar 2, 2015, 6:30 am
#87
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Wedged somewhere between BTS and VIE ✈
Programs: Star Alliance Gold (A3 Gold), Oneworld Emerald (BA Gold), Hilton Diamond
Posts: 6,338
Why didn't anybody from Executive Club announce this change here?
I haven't received an e-mail from them, and I find it quite annoying that I've found out about it like this.
BA management are really pi**ing people off, in a drastic measure possibly to try and resolve other issues (i.e. the baggage fiasco on SH flights).
I haven't received an e-mail from them, and I find it quite annoying that I've found out about it like this.
BA management are really pi**ing people off, in a drastic measure possibly to try and resolve other issues (i.e. the baggage fiasco on SH flights).
Mar 2, 2015, 6:31 am
#88
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 3,846
The optics certainly would've been a lot better for those with status if they had introduced HBO fares with these constraints from the start.
People don't like having anything taken away that they had, even if they didn't have it for that long and it also ends up get brought into all the other cuts recently announced.
Its really spectacularly poor customer management, something that BA seem to have as a USP at the minute.
People don't like having anything taken away that they had, even if they didn't have it for that long and it also ends up get brought into all the other cuts recently announced.
Its really spectacularly poor customer management, something that BA seem to have as a USP at the minute.
Mar 2, 2015, 6:33 am
#89
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Manchester, United Kingdom
Programs: Hilton Gold, Priority Club Blue, SPG Gold, Sofitel Gold, FB Ivory, BA Blue
Posts: 8,479
Mar 2, 2015, 6:33 am
#90
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 8,774
Could one of the mods please amend the thread title to reflect the fact we'll now have to pay not just in advance but at OLCI too, i.e. there will be no free seat selection for SCH/GCH at all on HBO fares.
This is a crucial element of the change and one I find absolutely ridiculous. It will massively discourage me from choosing BA over the competition on shorthaul.
This is a crucial element of the change and one I find absolutely ridiculous. It will massively discourage me from choosing BA over the competition on shorthaul.