Keystone

BA have notified me of the cancellation of the first leg of an ABZ>LHR>TATL booking next March and rebooked me on a flight 1hr 50mins earlier. The booking is a BA Holiday(with car) and I've UUA'd the inbound.

The MMB screen states "you may obtain a full refund by cancelling your entire booking". Now in the current sale I can rebook the entire trip some Ł400 (for the two of us) cheaper, and amazingly there's plenty of Club award availability. So I could take up BA's cancellation and save a useful amount of cash.

But upthread there's lots of suggestions that changes under 2 hrs don't allow cancellation and full refund - and would I really get my Avios back for the original inbound UUA. I suppose I'm really asking can I trust what BA says in MMB. (and yes I would be taking a screen shot). Any thoughts folks?

BA6501

Schedule changes don't allow a refund under two hours, but cancellations do.

Keystone

Many thanks.

Jpsartre

It's weird, following this thread I've managed to change two upcoming bookings that had minor schedule changes without any problems. This morning I called to change another one and was told by the agent that only changes of 2 hours+ could be rebooked free-of-charge. Hung up, called again, and was then told that only changes of 90 minutes+ could be changed free-of-charge.

MsCapricorn

I spent 30 minutes on the phone to Germany (ex EU holiday booking) being told the change had to be more than 2 hours

BA6501

Ask them to check the policy, it is clearly written there.

skippythelizard

I guess I got lucky today, as I was able to use a minor schedule change to shift flights by 2 days.

This was the GGL line...and the agent had to put me on hold for a few minutes to check if it was allowed.

I posed it as a query...explaining that I had a booking with a minor schedule change, and that I had heard that there was a policy that this would allow me to make changes +/- 2 days. He asked what changes I'd like to make, and put me on hold a few minutes to check if it would be allowed.

Positive result.

I wouldn't be surprised if changes to this policy were taking place...and maybe I got a GGL favor today. (And maybe it helped that my request was simple...same routing...same flights, different dates.)

But for the others who didn't have success today...you might want to try again with the approach I took. Acknowledge that it is a minor scheduling change, and explain that you are looking to use a policy that allows for changes within a +/- 2 day time window. Otherwise, they might think you are trying to use the more general schedule change policy.

MsCapricorn

I did but both the agent and supervisor said that as the change was only 25 minutes I would have to pay. Is there a clause I can quote?

Jpsartre

I did question it with the first agent and mentioned that I believed the 2 hour rule applied only if I wanted to cancel my booking. He looked it up and then told me it applied to same-day rebookings as well. Might give it another go tomorrow morning.

Jpsartre

Just tried again and got the same line about changes needing to be 2 hour+ for free same-day changes to be allowed.

hearingdouble

Quick question: I understand that BA wouldn’t be able to help with a re-route if there’s a schedule change on a Travel Agent booking. Does anyone know whether tickets booked through Avios.com are treated by BA as travel agent tickets (i.e. untouchable) or not? I assume that Avios is treated the same as any other TA, but wondered since it’s owned by IAG. I imagine that Avios would be less likely to be able to re-route you onto non-reward inventory if your redemption flight gets cancelled....

BA6501

They are treated as a travel agency indeed.

hearingdouble

That's a shame. Do you know what options are open to Avios.com if your flight gets cancelled or rescheduled -- do they only have access to reward inventory? If so, it strikes me that you're much better off booking rewards via BA.com (and the only reason not to do so is if you have a Lloyds voucher).

BA6501

They should have access to the standard BA policies in case of disruption.

JAXBA

Quote:

Originally Posted by MsCapricorn

Is there a clause I can quote?

It's the 'Standard Customer Guidelines for Schedule Changes' that would apply - I can't access the internal version but the version posted for travel agents (on batraveltrade.com) does have options for 'Schedule change less than 120 minute from the original departure time'

Ask them to check the 'Standard Customer Guidelines for Schedule Changes' on the 'Global Customer Contact Intranet'