WRAF137

Hi. Yesterday I phoned BA to see if I could change the date and destination of an Avios booking for next year, which I made in August. From the wiki and BA's website I understood this was possible with no change fee. However, I didn't have enough Avios for the new route so had to do Avios+Money. Because of this the agent said it had to be a cancellation, incurring the £35 fee, and rebook. Which I did. She said she tried to get the fee waived but without success. It isn't a problem, it was my choice not to fly the original route/date and under normal circumstances it would incur the fee. I'm just wondering whether it was correct under the current policy?

KARFA

for a voluntary change the change fee would normally be paid, and it’s a bit unclear whether waiving the change fee applies under BWC for reward bookings - although they don’t seem to be excluded. One route that may have worked would be to take a FTV for the booking and use the FTV to make the new booking. There definitely would be no change fees that way.

WRAF137

I did think about the FTV but was concerned about losing the reward availability while it was being processed. It would have been good to save the £35 but it was better to get the booking.

firstlight

Today (thanks to rewardflightfinder) I upgraded a January 21 avios long haul booking from W to J and was told by the first agent that 'book with confidence' didn't apply and so a £35pp change fee would be charged. Fair enough I'm not GGL. Because the ticket was in Mrs Firstlight's name using a companion voucher we had to call again when she was available to go through security. For the second agent 'book with confidence' did apply and the change fee of £70 wasn't charged just a small increase in fees and the extra avios. Just to show that there seems to be different application of the rules. BTW both agents were very polite and efficient 5* but clearly we lucked out with agent number 2.

lots@LHR

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, can one change the inbound dates, after the outbound is flown?

ISTFlyer

Yes

BAeuro

I am looking to book a special holiday to NYC for next September. There are some good BA Holiday deals atm which I want to jump on BUT I know Book with Confidence ends on 31st August.

What are people’s opinions? Go for it and hope the USA is open, or wait till nearer the time and pay more?

corporate-wage-slave

I'm usually offering caution, and trying - without much success - to steer people away from "maybe" bookings. However I personally think September 2021 is a reasonable call to make. SYD or BKK would not be reasonable calls, according to my crystal ball, but I think you would be OK for the USA. If you don't do risk, don't make the booking, there will always be other opportunities, the airlines have long got under our skin to persuade us that somehow their latest bargain is never going to appear again, but that can be firmly discounted as a notion.

BAeuro

Thanks for your view!

Normally, I wouldn’t partake in BA’s ‘sales’ but I have been following the prices for NYC for a long time now and they’re coming up pretty good. I think it has something to do with the notes offering Black Friday deals too. So I am not being blindly misled by the word sale.

Of course I am a bit concerned that I won’t get the BWC protection, but I’m just hoping travel to NYC will be relatively easy by next autumn. If it isn’t, I fear things will be a lot worse than we thought for aviation. Plus I am only paying a deposit now, which reduces the risk somewhat.

ISTFlyer

BAeuro , if you are looking for NYC itself in Y,

- There is a huge competition on that route so for ex-LON GBP329 r/t fares and for ex-NYC $499 r/t fares are quite common on all 3 alliances. When one carrier does a sale, the other one's price match, and some other carriers like Air Europa and TAP goes further down in terms of price to compete with the non-stop travel.

Unless you have specific plans for next September in NYC go for it.
By the way, I am assuming that this is not a premium cabin deal integrated into a BA holidays package.

BAeuro

Yes I’m looking at WT or WTP (rare for this forum!).

I think I’m trying to play it safe and lock in at a price which I think is good. Of course things could swing the other way and BA be flogging cheaper fares come Feb if demand is still way off what’s hoped. JetBlue’s entry may also lead to a price war. On the other hand, if vaccines go ahead as planned, demand could be so high for next summer that prices are eye watering. Add to that the fact that Norwegian/Virgin may not make it through the winter, which would lead to BA increasing their prices.

Im currently getting about £1400 for 3 people and 4 nights in Hilton NYC Midtown (World Traveller).

ISTFlyer

GBP1400 is a good deal for 4 nights and 3 people to NYC.
I don't think BA would increase their prices in case VS or DY doesn't make it to the summer as there is still UA & DL on the other hand which is strong competitors against BA.
By the way, from 25ish August till June, the USA goes back to low season in terms of demand.

BAeuro

I think I’ll commit to something with BA. The Holiday packages are very good atm and I’ve just realised 5 nights is the same price as 4! Plus, Holiday fares give you checked baggage so I think the price for the flights is at the lower end of the scale.

I just hope BA doesn’t extend their BWC scheme just after I book. Now that would be a kick in the teeth. I imagine if the USA isn’t open though, my flights will get cancelled and I’ll get a refund anyway.

scoonee

Hi All. I just tried to book tickets on ba.com for return flights from LHR to JFK in January, paying for WTP and using Avios to upgrade to CW. To my surprise, the site asked me to agree to "normal" fare conditions, like a change fee. I then tried booking the WTP ticket without the upgrade, and got the Book With Confidence conditions instead. So I know that the booking normally would qualify. Do you think this is just an IT glitch?
Thanks! (Sorry if this has been answered before -- I couldn't find it.)

corporate-wage-slave

No it's not been asked before!

This is a glitch, you've ended up on some old screens that give you unupdated information. You should be under the scope with BWC on this, and what isn't new is that plenty of UUA cases are iout there where BWC had to be invoked. The only thing I would do is make sure you do some sums to ensure that you are not paying over the odds. The Avios amount is probably correct, but double check that. Then on the taxes, fees and charges, make sure that this is no more than the TFC for a CW dummy booking. It's more of a problem with WT to WTP bookings but the old screens sometimes give the wrong figures. If you prefer, just make the WTP booking online and then within 24 hours ring up to amend it with the UuA via an agent, there is no service fee on that and the agent will be pleased not to be dealing with yet another cancellation.