Dambus

Who in their right mind would throw away $1800 by cancelling a ticket and then have to rebook the same routing??

At best the OP was poorly advised by a lazy or inept agent. IMHO the OP is guilty only of assuming he could rely on the agents' vaguely worded advice.

Of course the OP should have triple checked the booking conditions before cancelling. I am sure he will in future having learned the painful lesson not to trust the advice of representatives who don't necessarily have the best interests of customers at heart.

JAXBA

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSPeconomist

***Is there any chance that the OP indeed does have the usual exUSA style credit sitting in BA's computer system somewhere, attached to the ticket number perhaps?

No chance. If a USA style credit was permitted, it'd be the whole ticket value, and would have had to be requested from an agent at the time of cancellation. As it was, the booking was cancelled online and sent to refunds. When the ticket was refunded, all the coupons were closed off. Sadly, it's completely done and final, with no hidden value left.

The only way anything might come out of this is if BA decide to make a gesture, but that seems unlikely.

MSPeconomist

Suppose the ticket had had "USA style" fare rules permitting a credit (with a change fee). Would it be possible to cancel such a ticket on line? What would happen if one had tried to do this?

husseinbadr

Interesting to note, from a simple fairness and decency point of view, that the UK government doesn't feel it's right to simply pocket your APD if you cancel your trip, but BA thinks it's o.k. to keep your money.
Says a lot, doesn't it?

rocketship87

Why do you assume the agent knew that the ticket was non-changeable?


Per the OPs record of the conversation:
" I then called BA and was told they couldn’t do it either because I couldn’t spend AA miles on a BA flight. I later found out this was false. Nevertheless, I asked the agent how I could accomplish my goal. She said I would need to rebook on the AA version of the same flight and then they could upgrade me. Just so I understood correctly, I stated, “so what you are saying is that I should cancel my BA flight and rebook on AA?” Her reply was, “yes, you could do that.”"


Seems that the OP called to ask about using AA points to upgrade a BA flight. The agent advised the only way to achieve this. I'd guess that if the OP had asked her to proceed with the cancellation, she would have brought up his fare details and then advised him of the conditions.

Tobias-UK

I think you will find BA is certainly not alone in this regard, including all US and ME airlines. Air Passenger Duty is only payable to the Exchequer if the flight is taken, it is accounted for after departure. If a passenger doesn't travel no APD is paid.

Dave Noble

That it is ok to keep the money that has been taken with the stipulation that it is non refundable seems pretty reasonable to me. People can buy refundable tickets with/without penalty too

The taxes are just being collected on behalf of 3rd parties and were never due to be part of revenue for the airline

husseinbadr

No BA certainly isn't alone in this, but that doesn't in and of itself make it right. I wrote "simple fairness and decency", away from all legalistic considerations and what airlines figure they can and cannot get away with. The legalisms are simply the formal manifestation of the policy adopted and don't in and of themselves automatically make that policy fair and decent.

Tobias-UK

I simply make the point that this behaviour is not restricted to BA, many (most? all?) airlines behave in exactly the same way.

Says a lot, doesn't it?

rocketship87

And hotels!

Dave Noble

It simply says that the company is charging a lower rate if you are prepared to take the restrictions associated with it. Hotels (ime) tend to have either totally refundable ( until close to arrival ) or completely non refundable

Airlines tend to have a bigger range of fare types of differing penalties

Being able to get a PE return for $1800 with restrictions is surely better than only being able to purchase fully refundable tickets

orbitmic

DELETE (misread earlier post)

LondonElite

When you buy no n-refundable tickets on ba.com it is very clearly spelled out that they are non-refundable.

windowontheAside

Except that in the US non-refundable doesn't preclude your getting a credit against future travel. It means you can't get your money back. It's not the same thing.

I have had a credit from a US issued non-refundable BA ticket, so it can/does happen.

MSPeconomist

However, what makes this less obvious to an American is that the USA style fare rules that give you a nontransferable airline credit for the residual value of a cancelled ticket after a fee of about $250-400 are also called nonrefundable. Many people see the word nonrefundable and understand this to mean simply that there will be no refund to the original means of payment if the trip is cancelled, not that they cannot modify the ticket for a fee.