Ryanfozzie

Evening all!

I haven't found a clear answer to this. Can I cancel a BA Avios RFS flight within 24 hours of booking FOC? What I mean is that will I get my Avios and RFS back?

My flight was was booked at 3pm today and isn't until 9am Saturday.

Thanks in advanced!

Mike P

Yes, you can cancel an Avios RFS booking within 24 hours at no penalty. I have done so myself (before I was GGL).

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, it's 24 hours, provided that at the point of cancellation it is still 24 hours from departure too. So in this case you're OK but obviously if you booked close in the period could be much shorter or even zero.

cbagent

Call to cancel..24hr cooling off cancellations can only be actioned by calling.

Schultzois

I'm having trouble figuring if this same policy is still in effect as above (can cancel Avios redemption within 24 hours of making booking, as long as not canceling within 24 hours of flying).

I am having much harder time finding language about this on ba.com, but did run across language (seemingly oriented to revenue tickets) that allowed cancelation within 24 hours of making the booking, but excluded bookings for travel within the next week from this policy. I'd never seen that language before, so wondering whether it's new, and whether it applies to revenue tickets, Avios tickets, or both.

If this has been discussed in another thread, please also let me know that, as I've done a few searches but can't turn anything up.

KARFA

This? https://www.britishairways.com/trave.../public/en_gb/ I don't think it has changed.

Foltan

So could somebody, in theory, make a cash booking 25hrs before a flight, and then cancel it at any point in the next 24hrs, taking you up to an hour before the flight? Thus making a last-minute cheap cash booking into a 'flexible' booking? As long as you haven't checked-in of course!

KARFA

No. The cooling off period only last until 24 hours before the flight I believe so you would have one hour to cancel in your example.

Schultzois

Thanks.

I am now a bit concerned that perhaps they only changed it for US customers, as the language here is different:
https://www.britishairways.com/trave.../public/en_us/
Most times I've used this in the past it's been for bookings within less than a week of travel, so I know I've never had a problem before, but also never seen different language for this on different country versions of the website.

Any US-based members have any experience here?

Lobengula

Are you sure? I managed to do it on ba.com a few weeks back.

KARFA

It excplicity says on the linked page, you need to call so I wouldn't recommend trying to do it online. Doing it on ba.com is likely to incur the normal non-cooling off cancellation fees.

Lobengula

I was very doubtful when I did this, and it was also because of long telephone queue. I went to ba.com, manage my booking and clicked on the cancellation options.

There it was explained that I will get a full refund so I clicked yes and money was in my account a week later. Now, I can't be sure if this was a cash ticket or a redemption so maybe it's different. I 100% sure though that this wasn't a flexible ticket.

Schultzois

It was on this page (which I only found doing an outside google search) that I saw language suggesting it could be canceled on ba.com as well:
https://www.britishairways.com/trave...s?p_faqid=4073
As such, I went through the steps to see what it quoted me if I chose to cancel immediately (it came back refunding Avios but not the RFS cash component).
Then I clicked on the Terms and Conditions link, which, in my case, brought up the page referencing one week where I remembered it being 24 hours.
In my case I did this to get the last seat on a flight next Tuesday, but as it was the middle of night last night, I still have to wait for my travel arranger to get back to me about a hotel in order to see if I can go Tuesday or instead need to book Monday. Naturally had impression I'd be able to cancel without penalty within 24 hours if I had to, but hopefully won't have to.

Strawb

Just thought I'd update my own experience of this today. Yesterday (Thursday) at 19:30 I made a booking for a day return flight to VIE leaving this Saturday at 08:05, total cost £98. I knew I had 24hrs to cancel the booking so deadline would be 19:30 this evening (Friday). I changed my destination for BCN and have just booked a day trip for tomorrow instead. I just cancelled my booking for VIE, online, at 11:00 this morning, less than 24hrs before departure, for a full refund.

hedgehopper

I booked an one-way RFS on the app in the early hours of xmas day (could not sleep - did not want the opportunity to disappear...lol.) Knew I could cancel so slept on it. Decided the one-way cash for the return (specific flight to join the OH) was too much and part pay with similar amount of avios on a return fare a better deal overall. In website MMB, in all the links at the bottom of the booking, is "cancellation options..." and in one or two clicks you are done. Avios and cash refunded pretty much immediately or by the time I got round to checking - transactions all same day and to all accounts in Household Acct.