Amendment fees
 

I'm going LHR-HND-NRT-LHR in April for a week (Tue-Tue) and wouldn't mind extending it by 2 days so that it's (Tue-Thu). I booked it with a hotel so it's a BA holidays package. Now I've had the ordeal of calling BA customer services to upgrade from CW to F and it took almost an hour and the call cost me £30 on my mobile. So before I call them about this can anybody tell me if BA will be sensible and just move me to the Thursday flight and charge me two additional nights in the hotel or are they going to be ridiculous and quote me £1000+ because it's an amendment?

I imagine you'll have to pay the difference in fare between your current flight and the new one you want. I don't think there's any realistic chance you'll get to just move your flight by two days for free!

Oh I don't have a problem with that it's just whether BA are going to slap me with a £400-1000 amendment fee just because they can. Even when I upgraded to F they said oh normally there's an amendment fee but we'll waiver it this time as it's an upgrade.

Note that you can call BA CS for free on Skype, from anywhere in the world. Suggest looking at your booking conditions for change fees etc, generally there's a charge unless you booked fully flex.

Unfortunately, none of us could possibly guess based on the information that you provided. Every ticket has its fare rules and none of us could possibly know if yours allows free changes, changes for a fee (and what fee) or even (rarely nowadays) no changes at all although from the above it seems that it is not free changes and that they were already rather nice to waive that fee when you upgraded as it should have been charged.

When you booked, you will have seen those change conditions on the screen and it is always a good idea to print them, or if you booked over the phone, they will have been read to you (it's compulsory for agents to do so) and again, it is a good idea to write them down too.

In addition to the fare rules, there is obviously the question of whether the hotel you booked will be available or not. So in effect, you need to call and ask them, there is no way around that unless you know: 1) what you paid AND 2) what your fare conditions were in which case you can do a mock booking now, check the price, calculate the difference, and add the change fee.

If you have a UK Mobile’s you can also use a website saynoto0870.col to get 01/02/03 numbers that will be included in your minutes (*’clouding any roaming minutes you have), for BA you need to set your mobile to withhold your number if I remember rightly.

Thanks but I can't even get through. They are so busy it just gives a recorded message saying they can't take the call right now. What a disgrace their customer service is.

Are you calling the BA Holidays line or BAEC? The holidays team are pretty quick to pick up in my limited experience.

I'm calling this number 0344 493 0787. Pressed option 1 for making a change to an existing booking and then option 2 for "does your booking include a hire car or hotel".

Before you call anyone, either BA or BA Holidays:

1. Download either Skype or the VOIP app of your choosing. Depending on your situation and location, Skype will cost somewhere between zero and a pittance. Paying overseas roaming fees has not been necessary for at least 7 years.
2. Research your fare rules so that you know what your options are. Typically those will specify a change fee of some set amount plus a fare difference (if any). Knowing this before calling lets you know whether you are entitled to make the change and at what cost and also whether you are seeking a waiver as a courtesy (extraordinarily unlikely) or no fee as a matter of right.

All of this lets you call when you have down time. Set the phone on speaker + mute and multitask or have a drink.

So I got through just now after a short hold on the phone. They quoted around £820 explaining it included a £325 amendment fee and I said in the nicest way possible I couldn't justify paying £800+ for two nights in a hotel. She then said could I hold so she could have a look if anything could be done about the amendment fee. To my absolute delight and surprise she came back and said her manager had authorised the amendment fee to be completely waived.

For once common sense prevails. It makes perfect sense for BA to waive that charge and make a little bit more commission on the hotel rather than have me just walk away and say I'll stick with what I have.

A little bit off topic, but I need to change a booking and the new flights are cheaper than the original, despite being the same booking class.

Will the amendment fee be reduced to take account of the lower fare?

Your post #7:

"What a disgrace their customer service is."

Thus, if a vendor sticks to the rules one agreed to, they are a "disgrace" but lovely people if they do not?

Well that's a naughty misquote isn't it? :D I was clearly talking about the fact you couldn't even get through to somebody, nothing about their policy. And the fact that I've been trying to get through to an adviser all day is a disgrace! Their policy, on this particular occasion, is fantastic!

Well there's definitely wiggle room on amendment fees, I just got mine completely waived. But that had to be authorised by a manager and I imagine there has to be certain boxes that need to be ticked for them to do it. I don't know what the criteria is but I'm pretty sure the one criteria that must be met is that they make more money. As I was buying an additional two nights in a hotel which they make commission on and all they had to do was move me to the same flight 2 days later they would make money. I might be wrong but I don't think they would have completely waived the fee if it was flight only.