Last edit by: corporate-wage-slave
BA Covid-19 Rebooking / Cancellation / Refund Help & Advice
If your flight is cancelled by BA:
Commercial booking: Your options are: cash refund OR Future Travel Voucher (FTV) OR rebooking OR Avios credit
Redemption booking: Your options are: full refund of cash and Avios OR FTV OR rebooking.
BA Holidays booking: You should be given a refund pro-actively.
If your flight is cancelled by BA - any flight in the PNR - you can get a full refund so long as you booked directly with BA. You can only get a refund by telephoning BA. Refunds are taking between a few hours to a few weeks to be repaid, depending on the sort of booking made. If you don't wish to travel you can opt for an FTV or eVoucher valid for travel until 30 April 2022, though flights more than 355 days away are not currently bookable - flights are enabled at 355 days before departure. Vouchers such as 2-4-1 are also thereby extended. You can do this even if the flight is operating. The best advice we can give is to delay opting for an eVoucher options until the last moment, since if BA cancel your flight you have more options. BA have also adjusted the Standard Customer Guidelines so that if BA cancel the flight you can be rebooked to anytime in 12 months after you originally bought the ticket, so long as there is space in the cabin - there is no need to have a fare bucket available or Avios availability. If you choose the Avios credit you will get between 108 to 126 Avios per GBP of your fare. Note older posts in this thread may now be inaccuarate since the current policy has been amended several times.
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If your flight is not cancelled but you don't wish to travel
Commercial booking: If you are eligible for Buy with Confidence, you can have an FTV valid until April 2022. Rebooking may lead to a fare recalculation but no change fee.
Redemption booking: Your can do the normal Avios refund, with the redeposit fee capped at GBP 35 per person. Alternatively for the same fee you can rebook to new dates subject to availability. Alternatively you can have an FTV.
BA Holidays booking: You may be get a refund proactively, otherwise you are looking at an FTV for at least the flight component of your trip, maybe for all components.
If all of the flights in your booking are still scheduled and you don't wish to travel then you best wait until a few days before departure in case there is a cancellation. As you can see above, a cancellation gives you better options. You are in scope with Buy with Confidence if you are flying between now and completing travel before 31 August 2021, also if you bought your ticket after 3 March and due to complete all flights before September 2021. The BA web page on this is:
ba.com/confidence
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Below are some of the options / workarounds being suggested in order to obtain a refund as opposed to a Future Travel Voucher, but they probably no longer work:
Refund of Cancelled Flights:
Paid Seating Refund:
Bookings made using Lloyds Upgrade Voucher
You should expect to receive:
Lloyds Upgrade Voucher Notes
If your flight is cancelled by BA:
Commercial booking: Your options are: cash refund OR Future Travel Voucher (FTV) OR rebooking OR Avios credit
Redemption booking: Your options are: full refund of cash and Avios OR FTV OR rebooking.
BA Holidays booking: You should be given a refund pro-actively.
If your flight is cancelled by BA - any flight in the PNR - you can get a full refund so long as you booked directly with BA. You can only get a refund by telephoning BA. Refunds are taking between a few hours to a few weeks to be repaid, depending on the sort of booking made. If you don't wish to travel you can opt for an FTV or eVoucher valid for travel until 30 April 2022, though flights more than 355 days away are not currently bookable - flights are enabled at 355 days before departure. Vouchers such as 2-4-1 are also thereby extended. You can do this even if the flight is operating. The best advice we can give is to delay opting for an eVoucher options until the last moment, since if BA cancel your flight you have more options. BA have also adjusted the Standard Customer Guidelines so that if BA cancel the flight you can be rebooked to anytime in 12 months after you originally bought the ticket, so long as there is space in the cabin - there is no need to have a fare bucket available or Avios availability. If you choose the Avios credit you will get between 108 to 126 Avios per GBP of your fare. Note older posts in this thread may now be inaccuarate since the current policy has been amended several times.
===
If your flight is not cancelled but you don't wish to travel
Commercial booking: If you are eligible for Buy with Confidence, you can have an FTV valid until April 2022. Rebooking may lead to a fare recalculation but no change fee.
Redemption booking: Your can do the normal Avios refund, with the redeposit fee capped at GBP 35 per person. Alternatively for the same fee you can rebook to new dates subject to availability. Alternatively you can have an FTV.
BA Holidays booking: You may be get a refund proactively, otherwise you are looking at an FTV for at least the flight component of your trip, maybe for all components.
If all of the flights in your booking are still scheduled and you don't wish to travel then you best wait until a few days before departure in case there is a cancellation. As you can see above, a cancellation gives you better options. You are in scope with Buy with Confidence if you are flying between now and completing travel before 31 August 2021, also if you bought your ticket after 3 March and due to complete all flights before September 2021. The BA web page on this is:
ba.com/confidence
===
Below are some of the options / workarounds being suggested in order to obtain a refund as opposed to a Future Travel Voucher, but they probably no longer work:
Refund of Cancelled Flights:
- Call BA (no longer a requirement to be travelling in the next 72 hours, you may need to make repeated calls to get through). Telephone numbers are in this thread, but you can also find them on BA.com at the bottom left of the website, under Help and Contacts.
- Online forms (Post #435 - corporate-wage-slave) - manual process which may take many weeks
Paid Seating Refund:
- https://www.britishairways.com/trave...ing_claim_form (Post #765 - travelhappypair)
Bookings made using Lloyds Upgrade Voucher
You should expect to receive:
- Full refund of Avios and money paid
- A new voucher issued, which has validity for 6 months (from the date of issue, i.e. when you request the 'refund')
Lloyds Upgrade Voucher Notes
- Flights can be used within 12 months, so it will be good for travel up until the end 6 months plus 12 months if you book just before the new expiry
- It's been advised to take the voucher instead of rebooking as it gives me more flexibility.
- The original expiry date of the voucher was irrelevant because the booking was cancelled.
- You must book within 6 months of the voucher being issued and the ticket has 12 months validity so you can change flights after, provided the new flights are within the 12 month window.
- You won't receive any email, only the refund and the miles.
- Use the Qantas website and look back to your original PNR. Step by step guide in post 954
Covid-19 BA Rebooking/Cancellation/Refund HELP & ADVICE *No Speculation etc*
#1996
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 491
I rebooked a canceled trip and it was canceled again, now they're saying I have to call up (on both the website and Twitter). So frustrating.
#1997
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,847
i booked for several people under 1 reservation for upcoming travel that hasn't been cancelled yet. regardless if the trip goes on or not, 1 person cannot make it. can i get a voucher from now for their ticket on the reservation, but leave the rest of the reservation untouched?
#1998
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 5,398
Yes, see here for a link https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/32336942-post2.html
I'm probably going to be able to answer my own question by end of next week but if anyone can prior, that would be helpful.
#1999
Ambassador, British Airways; FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Leeds, UK
Programs: BA GGL/CCR, GfL, HH Diamond
Posts: 42,990
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. My question relates to whether this is now doable online rather than calling up. -3/+14 day free rebooks have always worked perfectly online for simple revenue bookings that have a flight cancelled, I'm wondering if this has now been extended to ticket validity or whether one has to call up to use the Covid-3 policy.
I'm probably going to be able to answer my own question by end of next week but if anyone can prior, that would be helpful.
I'm probably going to be able to answer my own question by end of next week but if anyone can prior, that would be helpful.
#2000
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,847
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. My question relates to whether this is now doable online rather than calling up. -3/+14 day free rebooks have always worked perfectly online for simple revenue bookings that have a flight cancelled, I'm wondering if this has now been extended to ticket validity or whether one has to call up to use the Covid-3 policy.
I'm probably going to be able to answer my own question by end of next week but if anyone can prior, that would be helpful.
I'm probably going to be able to answer my own question by end of next week but if anyone can prior, that would be helpful.
#2001
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 5,398
Yes, it appears to allow it, there is now a different screen for rebooking windows - which uses the new GUI - and that shows flights from different fare buckets. However if you have any further complexities such as connecting flights I wouldn't give you much hope of it working. It's not a big issue, Contact Centre queuing time is now fairly short at off peak times.
#2002
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,847
Well, I would always advocate people researching their options via BA.com / ExpertFlyer / ITA / Google / KVS / etc anyway, then calling up when you have 2 or 3 options ranked. Since you can only make a single change, at least on paper, it is best to be well organised. The online screen isn't as big a help as the other tools, but it may save a call if your booking is straightforward.
#2003
Join Date: Nov 2005
Programs: BA Exec
Posts: 647
Mine is a simple cash booking.
#2004
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 447
Yes, it appears to allow it, there is now a different screen for rebooking windows - which uses the new GUI - and that shows flights from different fare buckets. However if you have any further complexities such as connecting flights I wouldn't give you much hope of it working. It's not a big issue, Contact Centre queuing time is now fairly short at off peak times.
EDIT: Yep, it's still just showing me the flights that have the same fare bucket available. But I've just realised that you were probably talking about flights in the -3/+14 window and I wasn't...
#2005
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: YYC
Posts: 2,075
I have an Avios booking that's had cancelled flights a couple of times - this time I think I would like to call in and re-book for an alternate date when there are still flights available since award seat availability is not needed now. My question is, say if that flight again gets cancelled, think there is any chance BA would allow me to route to an alternate origin that's more than 300 miles away at the same time waiving the award seat availability requirement?
My itinerary is YYC-LHR-PRG, which is ideal. But if the YYC route gets cancelled for the whole summer, which I think is extremely likely at this point, would they allow me to switch to a route that is still running (YVR - 427 miles away, or even YYZ)?
My itinerary is YYC-LHR-PRG, which is ideal. But if the YYC route gets cancelled for the whole summer, which I think is extremely likely at this point, would they allow me to switch to a route that is still running (YVR - 427 miles away, or even YYZ)?
#2006
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,847
No, I've got some options for diffferent fare buckets outside that period. These are revenue tickets generally in CE or CW.
#2007
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 5,398
Perhaps there is a normal tolerance of one or two fare buckets higher than booked which on a CE/CW ticket would provide a lot more flexibility than a discount economy where there are so many more codes?
#2008
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,847
They have relaxed the gateway rules given the very thin schedule at the moment. So essentially any North America to Europe route would do, for example Vancouver to Vienna, Toromto to Budapest. This is for flights which are cancelled.
#2009
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,847
No, not really, either the policy is relaxed to all buckets in the cabin or not. But these are trade rather than retail tickets. I still see it as a non issue, since it's easy enough to research alternative flights and reasonably easy to call up.
#2010
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 10
Morning. I opted for the voucher option 6 weeks ago (Event was cancelled to no point travelling), since then the original flights were cancelled by BA. Is there any legal right to have a refund now?