sharplea

Hi,

Apologies if this has been answered already somewhere but I am useless at searching. I did look but couldn't find anything.

I have a return flight booked from MAN with a change at LHR to an airport in the US, booked directly with BA using Avios to get some cash off. Since I booked that flight my personal circumstances have changed and I no longer need to return to MAN as I will be living closer to LHR. I have a HBO fare.

Can I just exit LHR after the return flight and travel home as I have no checked bags to carry through to MAN or do I need to contact BA and change my return routing?

highpeaklad

NWIFlyer

It might be worth contacting BA after you've flown to the US to ask for a revised cost, because then any re-price should be at historical levels (if you ring before it'll be at current prices). (Caveat: this is generally true for the majority of tickets, not necessarily all.)

With an ex-UK starting and finishing point there's a chance a MAN-LHR-US-LHR-MAN routing is more expensive than a MAN-LHR-US-LHR one, so you might even recover a small amount by removing the LHR-MAN flight.

If there is no cost difference to recover, with HBO you just walk out of LHR.

Globaliser

I'm not sure about this, given that the OP wants to change only the inbound half. Typically, BA fare rules include this:-I would have thought that making the change sooner rather than later is, in general, more likely to secure new space in a lower booking class than if the change is made at the last minute.

If the original MAN-USA-MAN fare was non-refundable, I would have thought that changing to a cheaper MAN-USA-LHR fare wouldn't secure any refund of either the fare difference ("WHEN CHANGE RESULTS IN LOWER FARE IGNORE RESIDUAL THEN ADD-COLLECT") or any YQ differential. There might be a small amount of taxes, fees and (third party) charges to refund, but that could easily get eaten up by the change fee that would be payable.

However, on the assumptions that MAN-USA-MAN and LHR-USA-LHR fares are likely to be broadly similar, and that this is a one-off occurrence for an HBO passenger, it's hard to see why BA would get upset about the OP simply throwing away the last sector of the existing ticket without making a change. It's not the same as throwing away the last sector of an ex-EU, which involves the passenger getting more valuable (because shorter) travel for the price of a ticket for less valuable (because more time-consuming) travel.

Often1

OP should simply exit at LHR and be done with it. Any call or profile-raising activity simply increases risk.

There is no evidence that BA has taken action against individuals for one-off hidden city ticketing and this is unlikely to be an itinerary where it was to OP's substantial benefit to have done so, as it might be in the xEU hidden city maneuver.