murgatroid

Hi all. I'm a total noob on here so please be gentle.

I recently booked some flights to a popular holiday destination in school holidays, directly via ba.com, which I suspect were mispriced (they were briefly available at a 90% discount to normal). In the wake of the recent BA TLV fare cancellation saga, I keep half expecting an email from BA to say my booking has been cancelled, but so far none has arrived. I'm wondering how long I should realistically wait before booking things like hotels, car hire etc? BA cancelled the TLV bookings roughly a week later.

Thanks in advance!

deboyzoned

fruitcage

masmadrid

I think you want to book refundable car hire/hotels etc.

Deltus

Have you checked your booking on MMB or Check My Trip? There's a possibility that your booking has already been cancelled, and nobody's bothered telling you.

If all still looks good there, then I'd say that a couple of weeks is reasonable, at least to pursue BA for consequential costs if they do try anything. From media reports, it sounds like BA are covering some hotel costs in TLV...

madfish

PETER01

Hello murgatriod and please allow me to welcome you to Flyertalk and thanks for joining this little community over here on the BA Forum. I hope you enjoy it and you sound like you have been lurking for a while which many do including myself and which lasted a couple of years if I remember right!

If you got a very good bargain/mistake fare I would keep that to yourself. Period. I'm assuming you've been ticketed and have an e-mail regarding this?

In this case I'd personally book refundable hotels etc which in a lot of cases doesn't cost that much more and is a wise insurance policy.

Prospero

The first step to check whether a fare has been correctly filed is to establish the fare code. If I see a fare that is wildly inconsistent with the usual price for the corresponding bucket/routing/market, then I would immediately raise a red flag. If I discover the fare on FT where others have identified it as a likely mis-price, I would treat it with great caution as a unilateral error which basically means booking will be done on the understanding the fare is erroneous and could potentially be recalled. So under these circumstances I would wait until the airline confirms it will honour the booking before committing myself to any irreversible hotel/car bookings.

dsf

I kept quiet about my Tequila until I got home

murgatroid

Thanks all!

I've definitely had a booking confirmation email, and I can see my booking in the BA app on my phone. I've entered Advance Passenger Information and got a "booking updated" email about that. I definitely didn't use avios by mistake (I didn't have any to use). I searched FT for the route in question and it seems nobody else has said anything about it. I'm not sure how to establish the fare code, but as far as I can tell it's just a normal economy class ticket.

All that said, I wouldn't be heartbroken if BA cancelled my booking. I was resigned to paying through the nose as it's in the school holidays, so if I end up having to do so after all, I haven't lost anything. If nothing else, it would be rather amusing given the bad press they got after the TLV cancellations and their public pronouncements about this sort of thing being "exceptionally rare". I guess if they are going to do so I'd just like to know about it now rather than in a week or two weeks or three weeks!

As a couple of people have suggested, booking a hotel with free cancellation is probably the wisest thing to do. Booking.com here I come...

craigthemif

You are only 100% safe when you've flown both legs of your ticket.

As others have mentioned, book everything on a refundable basis and keep quiet about your "great deal".

murgatroid

Thanks. I found the fare code on my booking. It's 'O' for both legs, which apparently means "Discount Economy". If you try to book the same flight now, it's 'Y' for both legs, which apparently means "Full Fare Economy". Makes sense I guess...

HIDDY

I've only ever booked two mistake fares.
One a J fare to LAX with Delta IIRC plus a J ARN-EZE one with AZ.
They were obviously mistake fares especially the AZ one which was laughingly cheap. The AZ one had a flight change a few months down the line so when I agreed to the change and it was confirmed I knew it was going to be okay which it was. As for the DL one....a week after booking they told me to go whistle which I was happy to do as I didn't really want to go to LAX.

nufnuf77

BERbound

It's a shame customers are made to feel like this due to recent behaviour by BA .....