Legalbee

A rather long and drawn out saga but suffice to say we ended up with orphan miles from a flight cancellation in Dh's account that I knew we wouldn't use for a flight for some time so we decided to use them for hotel bookings. So I check and everything we read indicated they were cancellable for a fee of 35 pds or the equivalent . So we book the awards for 1 night for FLL and 1n night SXM. Our plans change slightly and we decide to change our dates, and connection pts. No biggie we think , we'll cancel and rebook. Our confirmation also indicates that as long as we are outside of 72 hours we can cancel as I indicated above ...no other fees mentioned other than a vague reference to suppliers fees as notified at time of booking(but we received no other confirmation advising us of suppliers fees)

When we try to cancel, the website wants to charge us more than the hotel booking would even be if we were booking direct. So I assume it's a glitch and call BA. I get shuffled around a tad and get a very nice agent who agrees that since we're within the appropriate time it must be a problem with the website. She reads through everything and runs into the same problem when she tries to cancel. Eventually she puts us on hold and is gone for quite awhile (I was on the phone for just over 45 minutes). She comes back and advises that we could cancel , but yes even though our confirmation provides no add'l fees we would have to pay the full nights rates for each property to do so, that it makes no sense to her either but somewhere it must have said this when we booked (it didn't). She cant do anything further but she strongly suggests that I use the web form to outline the issue. We follow her advice and do so, only to get the following response....

Dear Mr ...

Thank you for writing to the Club about your reservation query.

Unfortunately, we are unable to assist you with this query, as we do not have access to some of the systems used in our contact centres.

For assistance, please contact your dedicated Service Centre, where one of our agents will be able to assist you. Their contact details can be found at:

http://www.ba.com/servicecentres

Please let us know if you have any more questions.

I hope they resolve this swiftly for you.

Kind regards
M.......
British Airways Executive Club

This would send us back to the same phone number for the same agent(or another in the same dept) we eventually spoke with that said they cant do anything and that we should send this through the web site. Dh and I have resigned ourselves to writing off the roughly 40,000 pts but really one would think that BA would be interested in correcting the confirmations for others, but perhaps not. I get that they are now taking a position totally contrary to the confirmation they provided, but refusing to have anyone available that can at least explain why that would be the case is beyond my comprehension.
Can anyone suggest someone (anyone) at BA that we might correspond with?

Ldnn1

If you do a dummy booking for the same hotel, can you find the same terms as when you booked? What do they say - can you post a screenshot?

Legalbee

I tried doing a screen shot and wasn't having much success....lol

Here is what it says....copied and pasted...I couldn't go any further because on the next page it tells me that we don't have enough points



"Junior Studio, Garden Area - 1 king bed
1 King Bed 301-sq-foot (28-sq-meter) individually decorated room, furnished pati Show More

13,550 Avios

Total Hotel Price
Price includes: Taxes, fees and charges unless otherwise stated.
Junior Studio, Garden Area - 1 king bed



Studio, 1 King Bed, No View (Lower Semi-Basement) - 1 king bed
1 King Bed 377 sq feet (35 sq meters) Relax - In-room massage available Entertai Show More

15,150 Avios

Total Hotel Price
Price includes: Taxes, fees and charges unless otherwise stated.
Studio, 1 King Bed, No View (Lower Semi-Basement) - 1 king bed



Studio, 1 King Bed, No View (Lower Semi-Basement) - 1 king bed
1 King Bed 420 sq feet (39 sq meters) Relax - In-room massage available Entertai Show More

19,950 Avios

Total Hotel Price
Price includes: Taxes, fees and charges unless otherwise stated.
Studio, 1 King Bed, No View (Lower Semi-Basement) - 1 king bed



Room, 2 Bedrooms, No View (Lower Semi-Basement) - 1 king and 1 queen bed
1 King Bed and 1 Queen Bed 603 sq feet (56 sq meters) Relax - In-room massage av Show More

21,550 Avios

Total Hotel Price
Price includes: Taxes, fees and charges unless otherwise stated.
Room, 2 Bedrooms, No View (Lower Semi-Basement) - 1 king and 1 queen bed



Studio, 1 King Bed, Garden Area - 1 king bed
1 King Bed 484-sq-foot (45-sq-meter) individually decorated room, furnished pati Show More "

Under the show more it is just more detail on room description !

and this is the copy of the language in our confirmation

"Changing your booking
• You will not be able to change your booking when it has been confirmed.
• You will be able to cancel your booking, for a fee, and make a new booking. However, we cannot guarantee that the same hotel room or car rental option will still be available.
Cancelling your booking
• Cancellations made outside of 72 hours to travel will be charged a cancellation fee of Ł35 or local equivalent, plus any applicable Supplier Fees as advised at time of booking. Cancellation/Supplier fees are payable in CASH by credit/debit card only.
• Cancellations made within 72 hours to travel will be charged 100% of the booking value and no refund will be made.
• Failure to cancel prior to scheduled check-in time will be considered a no-show and will not be eligible for refund. There will be no refund for unused services or early check-out.
Cancellation fees
• In addition to the hotel cancellation policy described above, there will be an additional fee equivalent to Ł15 for any cancellations made by an agent over the phone.
Cancellations made online are only subject to applicable supplier cancellation fees"

corporate-wage-slave

I don't see a date or hotel name here but if this is Mary's Boon in Simpson Bay, the second screen shows this (for an August date):

Which implies no refund one month out, which is fairly standard in that neck of the woods.

Legalbee

Except that we are more than 2 months out !

And the confirmation we did get tells us that we can cancel and the agent thought so as well. Which is why she suggested I write in...which is what I was trying to do

In addition, the agent while I was on the phone went in to do a booking, and she indicated she saw nothing that would have prevented us from getting a refund.

Understand at this point I've written off the points (even though it was only 2 days after we booked that we were trying to refund). I would be happy with BA simply clarifying, and more importantly perhaps correcting their confirmations.

corporate-wage-slave

It may be there is a different cancellation period at different times of the year, I used a random date, I would need more information to be sure about this (I'm not sure I've got the right hotel / right location) and in any case I guess it's possible it said something different at the time of your booking, to further complicate things.

As for the reply, what I think happened there is that it ended up at the Delhi Contact Centre which gets the webforms, and though the reply is wrongly worded (no surprise there!) what they really mean is that it needs to be looked after by BA Holidays rather than BA itself, I bet they aren't trained to look at BA Holidays bookings. So what I would do is contact BA Holidays directly, either on the number showing on your booking, or choosing the appropriate option on the main number, and see if you can either discuss it more fully or get a direct contact email address from them.

Legalbee

I'll try to track down a number for them here in Canada but that said, our booking does not mention BA holidays rather, "Thank you for booking with Avios Group (AGL) Limited and British Airways Plc". The phone number on the confirmation is for the Exec Club. (perhaps that's because we're in Canada?)

In any event I'll see if there is a number locally and if not Im giving up(Ive wasted enough time on this already and it has become an exercise in frustration) with a sharp reminder to self to only use Aeroplan points for hotel bookings(easily cancellable online without fees) in the future and to never transfer to Avios unless we are 150% certain we will fly on x dates.

I was just provided with an email via PM.....think I'll try that....thanks again

Thanks all

Legalbee

Just an fyi for those who were interested in the outcome and it saves me from sending pm's too

Heard back from the email I sent by getting an email asking me to call since they cant respond by email(rather bizarre but in any event...).

While they realize that the confirmations we received is unclear and wrong, in the fine print (which I could have found so I was told) it says non cancellable. The fact that I relied on the confirmations and changed flights because we believed we could change dates of no consequence to them.

I would, esp for those used to dealing with Aeroplan, Membership Rewards , through Amex and other NA programs be very careful transferring points to BA for hotel/car bookings. Unlike the North American programs they are Im told non cancellable for the most part (unlike AP which is just like booking a regular hotel and if one cancels far enough in advance ie 24/48/72 hours usually the points are completely refundable. In our case we've lost 40000+ points , in another case if they don't chg the confirmations it could be a whole lot more.

navylad

Sorry to hear the outcome OP but thanks for sharing. You still have the option to pursue this further if the information they provided you is unclear, but I get the impression you just wish to forget about it and move on now rather than have further stress.

Legalbee

Quite frankly you're right, I cant be bothered going 'round and round with their inefficiency. But I would very much like to see them tweak those confirmations . We only lose 40,000 pts which is a drop in the bucket compared to our other Amex points but I can imagine to others it could be significant.

Nic P

This exact same thing - from literally start to finish - has happened to me. Booked a hotel in Malta for 20 October using Avios only (50000 avios) however due to Covid travel restrictions one of my travel colleagues couldn't make the trip and we've had to change it. On attempting to cancel the hotel, I have been informed that the cancellation charge (suppliers fees) are Ł211...!! I have tried to contact Avios and British Airways and have been on a merry-go-round of numerous phone calls to a premium charge phone number and have managed to get to exactly one person (after waiting on hold for hours) who told me they can't help me as they work on a different system - on transferring me the call was disconnected. Attempting to use the webchat is totally useless too. Eventually I raised a complaint online about the issue and got an email response 2 weeks later with the exact same wording as above, asking me to phone the same number that had me going around in circles. There is no mention of these "supplier fees" in the confirmation email, nor were they made clear when I made the booking. I too am going to have to give up and lose the Avios on this booking which I am not happy about however I am more outraged at the fact that I can't reach anyone to explain these fees to me and the complete lack of appropriate customer service from British Airways - clearly their systems and departments are a complete shambles and they don't care about their customers. I can't believe that in the 4 years since this original post that this issue is still an issue. In terms of my next steps, I am cancelling my Amex (which is where I accumulated my Avios) and, once I have used up my flight vouchers from other covid cancellations, I will never use British Airways again.

dougzz

Could you do a chargeback/S75 against the (hopefully) credit card you paid on and provide your confirmation without any mention of the cancellation fee.