onceiflewoften

Hello

I was advised by a friend to join this frequent flyer forum to seek help and guidance as I can’t find the answers to my quandary on BA’s own website, and I don’t think phoning them now is the right thing to do. Despite randomly reading and trying to search for info since signing up, I’m not doing too well, though …..

This is my maiden post so my apologies if it is full of Flyertalk netiquette faux pas, if it’s posted in the wrong place or if Iam asking oft repeated questions that my inability to search properly means I failed to find existing answers. I shall try to explain in hopefully not too much detail. Please may I have some help and tips.

Here’s my situation:

Back in December 2019 we used a BA Amex Avios companion voucher/2-4-1 deal to book return flights from LHR to JNB for September 2020. I know this flight is currently not operating. I also know that BA have extended the validity of their vouchers, but I’m not sure I understand the revised terms.

What I haven’t found out is if this extension also applies to ‘spent’ vouchers for flights not yet taken, or are not operating, or just for those who have vouchers sitting waiting, yet to be used.

We do not know if BA will resume the service to South Africa at some point before our departure date. It is likely though as South Africa seems to be moving to opening up its tourism industry by early September, and BA are clearly keen to resume as many flights as they can where there’s any sort of demand, and the JNB route is not a seasonal route, it carries many business passengers.

However, the truth of the matter is that we really do not want to use those flight or take a trip to South Africa for many reasons, whether those flights resume or not, whether the UK FCO directive changes soon to allow leisure travel to anywhere or not, and even if our travel insurance covers us for all Covid-19 related aspects or not.

I am aware that cancelling by personal choice, when a flight is still operating, is not normally a reason to get any sort of refund, but these are not normal times and what applied previously doesn’t necessarily apply now as many exceptions are being made, but I if any apply in my case.

What advice can you offer me? Can I cancel the booking and get back both the Avios needed and the extra fees that were paid on an Amex card? If so, is there a ‘correct’ way of doing this? Is there a better time to make the cancellation – as in right now, or wait until August when BA may notify me the flight is cancelled, as is the case for paid flight? If I get the Avios back and the companion voucher back, by when do I need to spend the voucher? It was due to expire early October 2020, hence booking for September travel. Will I get the fees back?

Separately, where can I find tips on how to use this forum correctly? How to search it? How to find threads that provide tips and guidance? Do I get an alert when somebody replies to me, or do I need to check back in to find responses? Up to now I’ve found random threads by googling, not by searching once signed into the website much easier to do.

Thank you for your patience and help.

ThatT1Feeling

Hello, onceiflewoften and welcome to the BA board.

I am sure one of the Ambassadors will be along soon to provide a better greeting and also help you with how best to search for what you're looking for. The best place to look for most newbie answers is in the "sticky" posts at the top of the home page for the forum.

Specifically, with your booking, if it's an Avios booking which I assume it is, as it's a 2-4-1, then you should just be able to cancel up to 24 hours before departure, with a relatively small fee, and get your cash portion of the fare back.

Regarding your Amex voucher, it's a good question as to whether its validity will be extended and maybe another poster can answer that one.

Good luck!

AJA_

Welcome onceiflewoften!

You are lucky as you've booked an Avios reward booking which can be cancelled by you up to 24 hours before departure for a fee of £35 per passenger.

Your Amex voucher has been automatically extended by 6 months even though it is used. It is found in your BAEC account under e-vouchers. This is found under the My Executive Club Menu / Manage My account / Manage my account and then scroll to the bottom of the page and look for My eVouchers.

If you cancel you will get your Amex voucher back, all Avios and all cash paid minus the £35 per passenger.

You don't need to do anything right now, wait for BA to potentially cancel your flight as that will enable you to get everything back for no fee

As for tips on using this forum I would read throught the sticky threads at the top of the BA forum

For details specific to the Amex voucher take a look at this thread BA American Express 2-4-1 Voucher Discussion

pauldb

Your voucher should have been extended. Log-in and go to Manage My Account and then My eVouchers and you should see it, even as a spent voucher.

I haven’t followed all the news but I believe SA is closed to all flights and there have been suggestions this will continue for some time. So your flight may get cancelled or BA’s voucher policy may get extended to September (widely or just for certain destinations).

You can cancel your booking for £35pp and get everything else back. If your voucher is extended and there’s someone else available that you’d rather book before April, you should just do that.

Otherwise just wait. If BA cancel the flight you can then cancel without the fee.

Perhaps more usefully, if BA extend the voucher policy to your flight, you get everything back in the form of a Future Travel Voucher. This is valid until April 2022, so it effectively extends your 241 that far. Basically you can use the voucher for two flights of the same cost (so to the US/Canada/Caribbean/India instead if you prefer) subject to any small difference in fees. Or pay the difference in avios to go further. This rebooking would be subject to avios availability.

PETER01

Some excellent comprehensive replies there onceiflewoften so I won't add anything other than to say a warm welcome to Flyertalk and the BA Board. Let us know how you get on if possible?

I hope you enjoy this place and dare I say it it's probably the best online forum on the internet for all BA and oneworld related matters with a plethora of threads and Sticky's to read through if required as and when. You'll find them in the

BA Forum Dashboard.

We're blessed to have many frequent (and non frequent!) flyers here offering their free advice and outstanding knowledge etc, 24 x 7, 365 days a year.

onceiflewoften

Thank you all for both the warm welcome and the helpful replies. Very much appreciated.

Just to check I've understood correctly:

If I have somewhere in mind, and just want to move my flights to early next year and to somewhere else, I could simply go ahead and do that right now? Would moving/changing the flights still incur the £35 per passenger fee, or not? And is that per flight or per return booking?

If I feel confident that the flights will remain cancelled for some time, and have nowhere in mind I want to fly to instead, I might as well wait until much nearer departure date and cancel then, as that will be for free. I will then benefit from the much longer booking period, but may loose out on grabbing a flight to somewhere I might want to go to for early next year by holding back.

Separately, do any of you happen to know or have a feeling about demand versus availability for Avios availability in CW or F compared to normal times? One the one hand I get the impression that lots of leisure travellers are no longer wishing to fly in any plane to anywhere, and certainly not wanting to head off to somewhere exotic and are not booking anything. On the other hand, there must be lots and lots of travellers who had to cancel and are now busy using their returned Avios to book for early next year. I have no clue which of these hypotheses is the more likely.

Thank you all once again.

Flier74

Another option you have is if you don’t wish to travel is that you can apply for a Future Travel Voucher which is valid until April 2022, if they extend the travel period until end of September. You would get the full value (no £35 cancellation fee) and the Amex Voucher validity will also be extended for travel to be completed by 30 April 2022) as this is part of your voucher.

TPG UK reported a success story and I have just done this yesterday as well with a voucher which otherwise would have expired before I could have used it sensibly.

For now I would sit tight and not do anything until they either cancel the flight and you can rebook at any other date if you wish or get a full refund and the voucher reinstated or if they extend a Future Travel Voucher into September go with that option.
I hope you get the result which works best for you.

pauldb

Yes that all seems correct to me. The voluntary change fee is £35 per person if you do it now (i.e. £70 for a return booking for 2). If you want to change the avios band up or down you in fact have to cancel and rebook, but the cancel fee is also £35 each.

There may be pent up demand to spend avios next year, but BA’s own guidance is that overall demand will be much weaker, and likely to be down more than the reduced amount of seats they fly. So overall it ought to be easier to redeem avios, IMHO.

lovetoholiday

We have a flight to Boston in August and have today been offered the voucher. This flight was booked under the BA Amex companion 2-4-1. If we accept the voucher instead of a refund would our Club seats also be transferred over or do we start from scratch again.

I do apologise if this question has been asked before. Thank you in advance

AJA_

You could change your flights to somewhere else for £70 (£35 per passenger)

I would recommend waiting until closer to the flight to see if BA cancels. If they do you then have the option of sticking with the flights to SA but moving the dates. BA has until now extended the ability to not need Avios availability to 1 year from the usual -3 to +14 days from original flight. That may work if you still want to visit SA.

As far as First Class is concerned BA do not guarantee to release any reward seat inventory, unlike CW where it is 2 seats per flight. My gut feeling is that won't change and as they are slowly reconfiguring 1st to only 8 seats I think the chances of 1st Class reward availability will stay the same or go down.

AJA_

You're welcome

By the way just be aware you only have the ability to make 5 posts in your 1st 24 hours so you may want to ration any further comments today.

AJA_

Effectively the FTV just freezes your Avios booking so you can just rebook another pair of club tickets to the original destination or another destination in the same Avios spending zone.. You have until April 2022 to complete your travel ie return must be completed before end of April 2022. Whichever destination you choose you will have to find Avios availability.

onceiflewoften

I've managed find my way around a bit of this forum. And also rummaged around BA's website. I've found a few threads or notes which essential repeat the info you have all shared with me. I think I'm getting the hang of these forums, managed to find out where I stand with a few other airline and hotel schemes.

I also looked around forBA flights at other dates and to different destinations. Nothing is jumping out at me to make me wish to change horses right now and pay the per person fee to do that, so I'll just follow the advice here to sit tight and wait to see what BA do.

I know they're already notifying some passengers of August flight cancellations, so I may not have long to wait for them to start on September ones.

The unspent Amex companion vouchers we are also sitting on, all I've done is make diary entries for 6 months before they expire as a just in case, as they have also been extended. I fear there are going to be far more travellers with vouchers or Avios in need of spending in 2021 than there will be eligible seats, but I'll face that when I'm confident I'm ready to travel long haul again for leisure reasons - and that needs much, much more than airlines with planes in the air.

Staying at home we're not exactly spending so not earning Avios or contributing to the next voucher quickly. At least we are safe and well.

Born2turnleft

My August NYC flights were cancelled last week so I called up the number on the e-mail and spoke to a very friendly lady who told me to proceed with the cancellation and get the voucher issued whilst she stayed on the line. Within seconds, she could access my voucher (comprised of Avios & 2 x companion vouchers on 2 different PNRs) and got us all re-booked in F for Boston in May 2021. As May is off-peak, she refunded the Avios difference (24k per booking) back into my account. All showing in my booking but she did say it'd be 4-5 weeks for the tickets to be reissued as they're prioritizing the reissue of tickets up to November.

There's tons of availability so if you get the right agent (my 3rd attempt) then you can get sorted in under an hour.

onceiflewoften

We have now had an email from BA saying they are sorry but the return leg of the trip has been cancelled. Where do we stand, would somebody please advise?

Had we booked flights with cash, it would seem we would not be entitled to trigger the cancel and refund option, but I don't understand where we stand given is was Avios plus a 2-4-1 voucher booking.

Thank you.