mickeypops

My wife and I have a holiday booked to California in January, We've booked club world GLA-LHR-LAX returning LAX-LHR-GLA. Since we made the booking in May, we've relocated to England and no longer require the GLA-LHR and LHR-GLA. I called BA and ask them to drop these flights from the itinery but was shocked to be told this is technically a cancellation and re-book exercise and would cost me upwards of £4,000! Makes no sense as I;m giving them back the flights which they can presumably resell to other passengers.

I've hit a brick wall with the contact centre so would appreciate any advice as to how I can escalate this within BA.

Also, if I really can't do anything about this, and do indeed travel to Glasgow to make the outbound flights, upon the return leg can I simply leave at Heathrow? To do so would require the staff at LAX to ticket our luggage to LHR only Would they do that?

Many thanks

MP

ptr120

On the outbound you will need to travel from GLA otherwise the rest of your flights will be cancelled. For the return, could you travel HBO? If not, there are two real options. 1) rebook the final LHR - GLA leg to the following day but less than 24 hours later (or the same day from LCY or LGW) 2) On landing at LHR go to baggage services in the baggage hall and explain that you won't be travelling on the final flight due to a last minute change in plans and that you want your bags back. It might take an hour to get your bags back, but you'll get them back.

shuly

Airlines often charge more to fly less. Direct flights are attractive, and come with a premium, whereas connecting flights may face a larger competition and hence sell for less. I very frequently find that flying AAA-BBB-CCC is cheaper than BBB-CCC, sometimes much much cheaper. I guess that's your situation here, and you will have to depart from GLA if you don't wish to pay the change fees. As for the last segment, there are many posts about this, most recently here.

Shuly

corporate-wage-slave

I can see this is frustrating for you, but I'm afraid this is the very essence of non flexible tickets. And on a non flexible ticket you need to start your trip from GLA, otherwise there is no logic in selling flexible tickets. Now, to modify this a little, if the GLA or LAX timings change significantly, then you may get a waiver to start in London, but that is your only chance that I can see here. The other alternative is if there are weather irrops at the time of travel there may be some flexibility, but normally you would be in the wrong place to do anything. If you don't start from GLA then the rest of the booking is likely to be cancelled. So awkward though it must be, you need to work a way to get to Glasgow. You may be able to pay to move the domestic flights - that's not a cancellation - but there would be a cost to do this and it may not be cheap. But it would allow you to go to GLA and back separately from the LAX trip.

You can leave the service on the return, but your bags will be labelled to GLA, LAX will not give flexibility on that unless there is an overnight stay involved. However you can recover your bags in LHR, it may take 30 to 90 minutes for it to happen, but if you go to Customer Service desk in baggage area they can arrange for the bag to get to you eventually.

KARFA

You are effectively changing your booking and changing the start and end point so at the very least you were going to have to pay the change fees and any fare difference between what you paid originally and what those long haul flights cost now. I am not sure what the point of escalating this is? BA don't appear to have done anything wrong.

In terms of checking bags if you plan to do a b2b at GLA on the outbound you can check the bags at LHR for the LHR-LAX flight before you do your LHR-GLA-LHR bit. Coming back aagents in the US in particular are not supposed to short check bags so you may meet some resistance there. The alternative would be to try and retrieve them at LHR after you land which should be possible.

KeaneJohn

is it a BA holiday if so you can cancel this up to 5 weeks before and lose the deposit maybe £300 or £450 and assuming there is good availability in the Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals rebook.

if not you will have to start from Glasgow. A back to back checking in luggage a Heathrow then flying to/from Glasgow has its own risks so why not poodle up the night before get a cheap room at the airport Holiday Inn and stroll across to the airport on day of departure.

As others have said LAX won’t check bags to GLA but ask for them in the baggage hall.

mickeypops

Many thanks everyone. At least I understand BA's position a little better.

Looks like we will need to start our trip from Glasgow, which isn't such a hardship as we can visit friends/family. On the way back we can simply leave at Heathrow and ask the baggage services people in the baggage hall to get our bags for us?? Even if it takes a while it's worthwhile.

Thanks again

MP

subject2load

mickeypops - I can understand your sense of shock / bemusement at being quoted upwards of £4K to make the desired changes - not least when such changes would actually result in less travel than you originally booked ; but as others have correctly pointed out (and however unreasonable it might appear), this is the nature of restricted ticket types, and the T&C’s would have spelt it out in the small print at the time of reservation.


So your objective is naturally to identify a cost-effective solution. As already made clear in previous posts, you simply must NOT drop the initial sector from GLA by attempting to begin your main journey at LHR. All subsequent sectors will be automatically cancelled if you do.


My own advice is to 1) travel exactly as ticketed on the outward journey (which now necessitates you booking a separate flight / train up to Glasgow, and then 2) for the return, travel with hand baggage only, after arranging to ‘ship’ your main suitcases direct to your UK home address using one of the specialist baggage / courier companies. That way, you have peace of mind, without facing any debate of the baggage dilemma when checking-in at LAX.

Upon arrival back at LHR, you can explain to BA staff that you are ‘unable’ to fly up to GLA. What reason you choose to give is entirely up to you (but of course I imagine you will want to avoid saying that you can’t be bothered / it’s too much hassle / you are looking to save money ......)

Sending the baggage back separately will certainly be a LOT more cost-effective (and stress-free !) than any change fees and many companies offer such a service ; this one (no personal experience) appears to be well-established, judging purely from their website https://www.mybaggage.com/

Safe travels ^

Often1

BA's practice is roughly the same as most global carriers' for inflexible tickets. You are changing your ticket and that new ticket costs more than the old ticket. That is all.

If you do not fancy sitting around for 90 mins - 2 hours for your bags at LHR, ship them home. Rough cost is $125 bag and that is to your home, so no lugging bags around either.

SeattleDavid

You should call and ask about the cost of deleting the LHR-GLA flight now, as that may be change fee only. The rules on changing return tickets are very different than those for changing outbound tickets - they often refare at fares available when you originally booked, rather than at fares available today.

You may also benefit from trying to cancel the last segment after you have flown to California, because the rules are sometimes more lenient after the first flight is flown.

aacharya

Agree with the poster above - re deleting the last leg after first half of trip. Else, also consider just buying LHR-GLA-LHR as a nesting trip around your main flight.
Many of us position well further away from home for a good flight.

It's $86 to have that nesting trip, on BA. They might even check your bags all the way through since on the same carrier.

UKtravelbear

BA won't check in bags LAX-LHR-GLA-LHR.

They don't check bags through on separate tickets.

Also you can't have the same airport twice on the same bag tag

aacharya

Good to know, so it's just an issue of picking up in GLA, retagging to LHR, and waiting for the flight.

As for not having the same airport - I've done it (United). But every airline runs differently.

msm2000uk

What BA have told you is correct, as they're re-pricing it direct from LHR.

Call BA, change the return to an LCY/LGW flight, and your bags will then be rolling round the carousel for you to collect on the way back; albeit you will need to take the outbound GLA-LHR leg

M

subject2load

I’m interested (in this case, purely as a bystander !) to know what sort of change fee that would involve .... ?