suenufc74

Hi
I could do with some help, we used 48K avois to upgrade our flights - the booking has now been cancelled - approx 3 weeks ago, we have our email with the voucher code - but no avios have been returned.....
A BA guy i spoke to on twitter has said that the avois stay with that booking until we re-book? is this correct? or should we get a refund?
Our first flight (Newcastle to Heathrow) has been officially cancelled (we got an email last week) but our connecting flight (Heathrow to Miami) has not? I'm a bit confused
The whole booking has only just disappeared from the App and the website today....
But we still have no avios refund.

Tortuga1970

The avios are part of your voucher. The disadvantage to the voucher is that it has be to used within 12 months of your original outbound flight and depends on award availability being available. BA have made it pretty useless for many people.

ENTP

Called the Gold line on Friday (in the sunshine, glass of wine in hand). Requested a refund on two bookings (cash, small discount with Avios) that BA had cancelled. Avios returned immediately, and credits on my Amex appeared this morning.

suenufc74

Some people seem to be getting avios refunds - some people dont? I dont mind as I will be booking with BA again (hopefully within 12 month)...
Couple of questions
Does it have to be the exact same holiday? do we have to book the exact same upgraded seats? - or is it just a credit of 48,000 avios for your next booking? we were going to Miami - husband now fancying a trip (another one to Vegas instead - I'm looking at the Maldives for Christmas
secondly - what if the travel ban is still in place (highly unlikely I know) and the 12 month mark passes - do you loose it?
last question- If I rebook now for later in the year - and it gets cancelled again - will I get to book it again?
I'm keen to show my loyalty to BA and keen to get more holidays booked especially for later this year to the USA, but I am wary of loosing anything...

subject2load

Refunds (+ aborted flight / holiday plans in general) were the main focus of a 35 minute piece on BBC Radio Five Live a little earlier today.

It was a calm, balanced, discussion ; with full recognition of the unprecedented challenges confronting airlines and the industry as a whole.

The thorny matter of vouchers cropped up a fair bit, and several perplexed listeners phoning in for guidance were advised to contact and firmly remind their travel supplier of their legal obligations, such that a cash (and / or Avios) refund is now the proper entitlement for customers affected by cancellations once notified.

Amongst the ‘big names’, Lufthansa (Group) and BA were singled out for mention as being less than honourable in their approach to this, currently and over recent weeks.

Hornetcoach

Flight cancelled March 15. Contacted Refund helper on Thursday. Money back in credit card account this morning. Thanks.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum suenufc74, it's good to see you here.

The first question is "how did you end up with a voucher?" - did you select that as the cancellation option? If you did not do so, then the full refund option should still be available to you since the NCL-LHR sector was cancelled.

Secondly I'm guessing this is a revenue ticket where you used Upgrade using Avios. So if you did select the voucher option then you can use it on alternative services, Las Vegas would be fairly straightforward, you would deploy the cash and Avios to di something similar to the Miami service, and it should cost something similar if you are careful with date selection. Maldives would normally cost more Avios and cash, but the principle is the same, and that would be an option, but MRU tends to be tricky for UuA availability, whereas LAS isn't so difficult. As for the prospect of travel ban continuing - that seems unlikely for the USA at least - but the question is impossible to answer, we can't clearly predict things a month off at the moment.

Confus

I understand the scepticism, and would add that as this is very new it could be that in your haste to be FT’s perpetual guinea pig your experience was handled by someone who doesn’t yet fully understand the policy or its implementation.

However, that policy is very clear. And conveniently available to all via the BA Travel Trade website. For obvious reasons the direct one will be almost identical.

KARFA

Thanks. yes I have found it too since then. I posted it in the voucher thread earlier today and credited you as well https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/32289261-post172.html

I had no desire to be a guinea pig, I have vouchers and had some bookings I needed to make. I thought my experience may be useful to others so spent some time writing it up and posting.

Hawk777

BA do know of the obligations 're cancelled flights though and on the voucher application form it also reminds the customer to call up if they want a refund, so unfortunately all that advice is gonna do is lead to person to be on the phone for 40mins or so wait just to be told no unfortunately

subject2load

Agreed .... I am in absolutely no doubt that BA senior management are indeed well aware of their statutory obligations.

But of course the issue that arose (not surprisingly ! ) on today’s radio feature - just as with so much of the wider media coverage / travel blogs etc - is that a) they do not make the cash refund option nearly as clear as they could on the website, and b) they have unreasonably caused both customers and support staff extra work, by cynically disabling the normally efficient online facility. The resultant negative public comments could so easily have been avoided.

Facepalm1381

Flights cancelled on 9 April, refund showed on my CC the next day, this was a cash booking.

Want to say thanks to BA Refund Helper for his help! I PM'd him to help me with the refund because I couldn't reach BA at all, call was dropped every time I called.

exLHRnowSFO

Anybody received unreconcilable refund amounts? I have a ~800GBP credit on my Amex from BA but no flights flights amounting to that (I'm expecting a few refunds, one of which is $1.2k, but none of which are the credited amount). Are they spitting refunds up somehow?

northeastflyer

Anyone else have experience of this working for them? I hope this IS the case, as it gives the customer more flexibility, which is only fair, being our money that will still go back to BA one way or another.

corporate-wage-slave

One area which has confused some FTers is when they used Part Pay with Avios, since the Avios are not refunded, the cash amount would be higher. There are also reports of redemption bookings having taxes, fees and charges paid at different times to the Avios refund.