jp-mco

So this is a generic 'why do airline cancellation fees exist' discussion? If so, you've posted it in the wrong forum.
I'm sorry but as a frequent flyer you are showing an incredible lack of basic understanding. A passenger can complete online check-in for a flight and put down that they are not checking any bags however, as soon as it becomes apparent that the passenger is not at the airport (remember that scan of your boarding pass before you enter security?) they know you're not going to take the flight. The seat might fly empty as they do all the time on many airlines or it might be filled either way your whole approach sounds like cutting your nose off to spite your face.

armouredant

The spirit of a capitalism is that you'll be charged whatever they can get away with charging you. The idea being that you can vote with your wallet.

Cancellation fees exist because if there was no penalty for cancelling, there'd be no mechanism to dissuade passengers from booking every flight they might want to take, and then electing not to fly (or pay) at your leisure. Basic revenue protection requires something to stop that from happening.

navylad

mikeyfly

If it's months away - don't cancel it.

Wait and see if the schedules change / weird weather patterns nearer the time / industrial action etc

You may get a full refund or a free re-book. I certainly would never cancel a non refundable booking months away

Prospero

Why are we charges these fees? I suppose to a large extent its a consequence of the travelling public's insatiable appetite for low fares set against the cost of running the business.

rapidex

If BA oversell a flight, the last few seats are very expensive and they make loads of money. This more than covers the few passengers inconvenienced if there is no seat available for them. If you are not checked in at close of check in then your seat will simply be used to accommodate a further passenger, be it an oversell or a staff member on standby. If BA does not need the seat then you have cost yourself money for no gain.
I would take the small refund and have a drink somewhere, whilst plotting my revenge through EU261 or some other plan.

Enigma368

I don't really understand this thread. A £15 fee to cancel a flight and receive a refund is a bargain. Most flights are completely non refundable.

Anyway just because he can do it all online, does not mean the service does not require administration. Someone had to build that online system, there is likely considerable administration involved in maintaining and supporting this online functionality. Also, aside from all this, companies will charge whatever fees they feel they can get away with legally and from a PR point of view. Fees are just a way of generating revenue.

I really don't understand what the OP is upset at here.

Sam Bee

What if they don't sell the seat? Not all flights go out 100% - i'm guessing most don't.

I had s similar situation, despite knowing what i'd signed up for, I was still annoyed that they charged me (of all people) exactly what they stipulated they would. They wouldn't let me change to the dates I wanted, as per their fare rules. So I was going to hold off and cancel at the last moment to minimise the chances of them reselling.

Then I remembered i'd paid something like £39 to fly from Heathrow to Krakow, about a 2 hour flight - and I still got a G&T (just before the changes). And in fact, if I cancelled asap, and they resold the seat, it meant I was helping create more £39 seats in the future, as ultimately I want to fly as cheaply as possible, and if in Europe, on BA. And realistically lead in flights, which I often fly on, are incredibly good value, far more so than when I first started flying on BA in 1989

So I realised I was being petty, so cancelled the flight and rebooked (with Avios) the dates I needed. I then got a weather diversion to Warsaw, and BA put me and my family up at an airport hotel (a good one too), fed us dinner, breakfast and flew us the short hop the next day (crew were out of hours at Warsaw - they happily chatted to passengers at dinner and breakfast). All for about £15.00 + some Avios each. WizzAir wouldn't have been so excellent at looking after us i'm sure.

lhrsfo

This is the key point - they charge it because they can. They probably reckon most people won't notice or care until it's too late, and their FFs won't change airline because of just this, when they are locked in to BA.

This is simply not true. I regularly fly UA who don't charge cancellation fees, however, their software prevents overlapping bookings.

Oaxaca

I could be wrong, but I don't think the OP is getting a refund of the fare, or questioning the cancellation conditions attached to the fare itself. The question appears to be around airlines, in this case BA, using "admin fees" to avoid refunding some/all of the govt/airport taxes and fees which they are legally obliged to refund on any cancelled booking, at least in the EU.

More generally than BA, this practice started / increased when airlines, primarily LCCs, were forced to return the govt/airport taxes and fees, which at one point they also retained on top of cancellation fees attached to the fare. The "admin fee" was cooked up as a naming convention to find way around this. BA simply jumped on the bandwagon as a wannabe LCC, though has its own form in this direction with the renaming of fuel surcharges...

The systems development point is a convenient reason, but not real or relevant IMO. That system would have been developed anyway, unless you want to say that the additional cost of developing the ability to charge the admin fee itself needs to be recouped, a nice irony. The answer is as above, simply because they can get away with it legally, and it goes into the overall profitability. One can make the argument about opportunity cost, but airlines are pretty skilled at predicting overbooking rates.

Irritating, but commonplace.

MiraculousM

Thank you. You are right. I wont.

Enigma368

Your argument makes some sense but I don't fully agree.

I think most people would accept that there is an additional admin cost in processing these tax refunds that would not exist if they could just keep the taxes. Ofc, one could reasonably argue that the fact that they get to keep the base fare and re-sell the seat more than makes up for this admin cost of refunding taxes. And one could also argue that the airline should just be obliged to eat the admin cost of refunding taxes because those taxes do not belong to them. Another argument - is this admin cost really 15 pounds per cancellation?

Ultimately many businesses charge fees to cover things that do not always or often seem that justified, e.g. some Banks charge 25 pound overdraft fees when they let you go as little as 1 pound into overdraft. That does not make all these fees right and I would argue that a lot of the time these fees are completely unreasonable. But in this case a 15 pound fee to cover the admin cost of refunding the taxes on an otherwise non refundable flight does not seem that unreasonable to me.

Often1

Fees and penalties are simply a revenue source which the market will bear.

Presumably OP looked at all of the costs associated with his ticket when he made his purchase and found that the BA ticket he chose to purchase was the best value on offer at the time.

Marketing study after study shows that consumers want the cheapest fare possible. That is accomplished by cutting ticket prices and then selling a la carte services on the side, e.g., seat assignment, meals, baggage, and cancellation.

DYKWIA

This is BA we are talking about... their IT is not known for being top-of-class

Dave Noble

No it isn't a bargain; the GBP15 is in addition to any cancellation penalty

On most airlines, cancel a booking and the airline will charge any cancellation penalty that applies - on a fully refundable ticket, a full refund is received

Book with BA and not only will it take any cancellation penalty, but it will charge GBP15 for the privilege of giving you the money back. Even a fully refundable ticket incurs the additional fee

With a non refundable ticket, it is moot, since there is no refund - but I cannot see any reason for it to charge a fee on top of the penalties that apply.