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Covid-19 BA Rebooking/Cancellation/Refund HELP & ADVICE *No Speculation etc*

Old Mar 14, 20, 4:58 pm
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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.
===
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.

Paid Seating Refund:
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.
How to find out the status of your voucher and the amount it contains Future Travel Vouchers versus eVouchers
  • See posts 3052 and 3151 to understand the difference. FTVs cannot be used online (and are not really vouchers), whereas eVouchers, issued for simple bookings, can be used online.
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Covid-19 BA Rebooking/Cancellation/Refund HELP & ADVICE *No Speculation etc*

Old May 20, 20, 12:30 pm
  #2401  
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Originally Posted by windowontheAside
Ok, thanks corporate-wage-slave and jerry a. laska.

Apologies for not reading back first. I'll do that now.

It's a shame they haven't managed to update MMB or the help links they sent out with the change in policy. I will set a new reminder for 23 days.
Check the FAQs here on the coronavirus info page:
https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...formation#make
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Old May 20, 20, 12:32 pm
  #2402  
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Originally Posted by slice
Is this still the case? I canceled a redemption online and it automatically generated a voucher (which I don't want).
there is no online cancellation & full refund for cancelled flights since about late March, if you click cancel on MMB it sends you to the form for a future travel voucher - is that what you filled in?

EDIT: this is what the FTV form looks like btw https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/32375796-post2212.html
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Old May 20, 20, 1:43 pm
  #2403  
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 443
Originally Posted by KARFA
there is no online cancellation & full refund for cancelled flights since about late March, if you click cancel on MMB it sends you to the form for a future travel voucher - is that what you filled in?

EDIT: this is what the FTV form looks like btw https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/32375796-post2212.html
Yes, I assumed since it was an Avios booking, it would refund the card like every other Avios booking I've ever canceled online. Any way around that now? Incidentally, the flights were subsequently canceled by BA. They will not budge on the phone since the voucher has been issued.
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Old May 20, 20, 1:55 pm
  #2404  
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Originally Posted by slice
Yes, I assumed since it was an Avios booking, it would refund the card like every other Avios booking I've ever canceled online. Any way around that now? Incidentally, the flights were subsequently canceled by BA. They will not budge on the phone since the voucher has been issued.
I did hear of maybe one or two cases about people successfully swapping a FTV for a full refund on request on twitter early on. However, I think now two months in the likelihood of that has dropped to zero. At the end of the day BA will argue the form is clear for what you are requesting.

What happened to the flights after you had requested the FTV is irrelevant I am afraid, just in the same way that if you do a voluntary cancellation and your flights are subsequently cancelled you can't all of a sudden get a full refund.

The value of the booking has been preserved on the FTV and you can use that value towards a new booking up to April 2022. For a reward booking the avios and cash (taxes/fees/charges) is held on the FTV as avios and cash. You haven't lost anything, although I appreciate you preferred a refund.
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Old May 20, 20, 4:15 pm
  #2405  
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
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Originally Posted by KARFA
I did hear of maybe one or two cases about people successfully swapping a FTV for a full refund on request on twitter early on. However, I think now two months in the likelihood of that has dropped to zero. At the end of the day BA will argue the form is clear for what you are requesting.

What happened to the flights after you had requested the FTV is irrelevant I am afraid, just in the same way that if you do a voluntary cancellation and your flights are subsequently cancelled you can't all of a sudden get a full refund.

The value of the booking has been preserved on the FTV and you can use that value towards a new booking up to April 2022. For a reward booking the avios and cash (taxes/fees/charges) is held on the FTV as avios and cash. You haven't lost anything, although I appreciate you preferred a refund.
Thanks for all of the info. What if the new booking is a lower priced award? Will the balance remain part of the FTV or will the Avios be deposited into the account? This isn't my booking, it's for an elder friend who frankly may never end up using the Avios given their reluctance to travel any time in the foreseeable future.
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Old May 20, 20, 5:49 pm
  #2406  
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Originally Posted by slice
Thanks for all of the info. What if the new booking is a lower priced award? Will the balance remain part of the FTV or will the Avios be deposited into the account? This isn't my booking, it's for an elder friend who frankly may never end up using the Avios given their reluctance to travel any time in the foreseeable future.
For a future travel voucher is issued for an avios reward booking if the new avios booking with the voucher is less avios or cash then the difference is refunded to the customer. See this reply in the rebooking thread (you may also want to review some of the posts in that thread):
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/32389642-post308.html

This is different than for vouchers issued for cash bookings.
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Old May 21, 20, 5:13 am
  #2407  
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I have updated the wiki to reflect the fact that those eligible for a cash refund on commercial bookings can instead opt for an Avios credit, running at about 108 to 126 Avios per GBP of the original booking. This is a recent change. More details on this in this thread:

British Airways offering Avios as a refund option ?
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Old May 21, 20, 5:38 am
  #2408  
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
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Originally Posted by KARFA
in terms of involuntary changes where you can book at any other date without reward availability you don't have to worry about peak/off peak. even if your original is off peak, you can rebook for new dates which are peak or off peak.
Throwing in another variable, if the ticket was booked through Avios.com using a Lloyds voucher and this does get cancelled next month, I assume they would they also be able to re-book into a revenue bucket under Guideline 3 (regardless of new dates being peak/off-peak or mixed)?

I want to avoid being stuck with a voucher with the Lloyds voucher only valid for six months.
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Old May 21, 20, 8:24 am
  #2409  
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
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Originally Posted by wellsy
Throwing in another variable, if the ticket was booked through Avios.com using a Lloyds voucher and this does get cancelled next month, I assume they would they also be able to re-book into a revenue bucket under Guideline 3 (regardless of new dates being peak/off-peak or mixed)?

I want to avoid being stuck with a voucher with the Lloyds voucher only valid for six months.
While the voucher is 6 months, you can book for another 12 months past that date.
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Old May 21, 20, 12:07 pm
  #2410  
 
Join Date: May 2020
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Originally Posted by layz
this is on the general number, not the dedicated gold line which has different options).
I’ve seen the dedicated gold line number mentioned however i cannot find that number. My husband is gold, we’ve tried the 0800 number with no luck so if we could ring the gold line that would be great.

any ideas where I will find this number.?

Many Thanks
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Old May 21, 20, 12:37 pm
  #2411  
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Originally Posted by Melgrafs
I’ve seen the dedicated gold line number mentioned however i cannot find that number. My husband is gold, we’ve tried the 0800 number with no luck so if we could ring the gold line that would be great.

any ideas where I will find this number.?
Get him to login under his account, then use this URL
ba.com/contact
But in reality, Bremen (select Germany in the drop down) is easiest to get hold off during the European day time, UK/USA any number in the European evening.

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum Melgrafs, it's good to see you here.
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Old May 22, 20, 2:09 am
  #2412  
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
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A bit of help please! In another post here someone mentioned that LATAM has cancelled all their flights to a destination I am going to for several months, so I checked and yes, my flight with them is no longer going. But on the BA system (an award ticket booked many months ago), it is still confirmed.

I understand that there is a leg between cancelling and actually getting an email about that but it seems like this route was removed quite a while back. And on the BA manage booking page, it still lists a 30 minute time change as a new event, which it has the last few times I logged on, even though this happened many many months ago.

My concern is that the LATAM and BA systems are no longer speaking to each other.

I phoned BA a bit ago and the agent was not able to help me, saying only that the flight is still confirmed but with the small schedule change. I tried to explain all of the above but did not get anywhere. They were adamant the flight is still confirmed.

Any thoughts?
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Old May 22, 20, 2:14 am
  #2413  
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
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An update to my situation where I've been awaiting a 2-4-1 taxes refund since April worth approx £1400.

I was assured that BA processed the refund on 12 May, but AMEX tell me today (22nd) that there is no sign of it and it has not been credited 10 days after it was allegedly issued.

I am giving it one more week then I am going to enter dispute with BA as there is no sign of a refund on my account.
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Old May 22, 20, 2:17 am
  #2414  
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Originally Posted by jimlad48
An update to my situation where I've been awaiting a 2-4-1 taxes refund since April worth approx £1400.

I was assured that BA processed the refund on 12 May, but AMEX tell me today (22nd) that there is no sign of it and it has not been credited 10 days after it was allegedly issued.

I am giving it one more week then I am going to enter dispute with BA as there is no sign of a refund on my account.
if nothing has happened after a week you maybe better off sending a message to BA Refund Helper on here before you go down the dispute route.

EDIT: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/memb...nd-helper.html
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Last edited by KARFA; May 22, 20 at 2:41 am
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Old May 22, 20, 2:47 am
  #2415  
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Programs: BA Exec Club
Posts: 507
Originally Posted by KARFA
if nothing has happened after a week you maybe better off sending a message to BA Refund Helper on here before you go down the dispute route.

EDIT: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/memb...nd-helper.html
already tried that - they were very nice but said as refund shows as processed nothing can be done.
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