BA Holiday final payment - cautionary tale

Old Aug 20, 2020, 11:19 am
  #1  
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BA Holiday final payment - cautionary tale

Firstly, not blaming BA here, it's my fault but hopefully this tale of woe will help others.

Had a final holiday payment due last Saturday. Was going to pay over the weekend but was in Rome (on another trip). Sunday morning 10am Rome time; two calls from Newcastle separated by 5 minutes. Wasn't able to pick up either. Voicemail on second call said 'we've cancelled your booking'.
Got through eventually. Holiday had been cancelled. Agent tried to transfer deposit to new booking but couldn't because hotel cancellation charges had been made.
Ended up losing nearly 1000 deposit - although rebooking the exact same holiday cost about the same amount as originally.

Moral of the story - with 3 weeks before final payment BA are being aggressive in cancelling holiday bookings with unpaid balances. Beware !
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Old Aug 20, 2020, 12:03 pm
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Multiple calls to a customer to collect money - but impossible to get through to them to get a refund.
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Old Aug 20, 2020, 12:08 pm
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Originally Posted by mrandery
Multiple calls to a customer to collect money - but impossible to get through to them to get a refund.
The calls asking for payment are from BA Holidays. Most calls seeking refunds are to BA itself. Different teams, different people, different locations (I believe).
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Old Aug 20, 2020, 12:53 pm
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Different policies and over-arching legislation too. Was discussed here a week ir so ago ... the 2 calls aspect was raised there.

Here, I think >>> BA Holidays default cancellation turning into forced cancellation...
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Old Aug 20, 2020, 2:16 pm
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Originally Posted by T8191
Different policies and over-arching legislation too. Was discussed here a week ir so ago ... the 2 calls aspect was raised there.

Here, I think >>> BA Holidays default cancellation turning into forced cancellation...
I think this is different. BA decided to cancel at t-3 weeks exactly, previously I'd seen others get a few days leeway.

The thing you mention is BA cancelling flights and BA holidays cancelling the whole thing rather than make the effort to move you onto alternatives. They send a 'we're going to cancel the holiday' but in practice you seem to have some time to rebook. We had this for a dxb holiday coming up in October and were able to move flights quite easily.

Also we used UUA on avios for our outbound flight, the flight we were moved to didn't have availability when we looked but our UUA stuck through the rebooking so I guess having to have reward availability on the new flight was not an issue as some have reported.
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Old Aug 20, 2020, 2:53 pm
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Originally Posted by firstlight
Firstly, not blaming BA here, it's my fault but hopefully this tale of woe will help others.

Had a final holiday payment due last Saturday. Was going to pay over the weekend but was in Rome (on another trip). Sunday morning 10am Rome time; two calls from Newcastle separated by 5 minutes. Wasn't able to pick up either. Voicemail on second call said 'we've cancelled your booking'.
Got through eventually. Holiday had been cancelled. Agent tried to transfer deposit to new booking but couldn't because hotel cancellation charges had been made.
Ended up losing nearly 1000 deposit - although rebooking the exact same holiday cost about the same amount as originally.

Moral of the story - with 3 weeks before final payment BA are being aggressive in cancelling holiday bookings with unpaid balances. Beware !
Was your card not on file?
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Old Aug 20, 2020, 3:01 pm
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Originally Posted by PGberkshire
Was your card not on file?
Yes I had a card on file but doesn't seem to matter...
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Old Aug 20, 2020, 3:12 pm
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Ouch. Next time, set a reminder on your mobile phone. Its what they are for.
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Old Aug 20, 2020, 3:22 pm
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Originally Posted by firstlight
Yes I had a card on file but doesn't seem to matter...
That sucks
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Old Aug 21, 2020, 5:02 am
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May I just tag on here please. Are BA Holidays cancelling their packages to Spain etc., in the light of the current FCO advice?
Thanks
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Old Aug 21, 2020, 5:32 am
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Originally Posted by carrotjuice
Ouch. Next time, set a reminder on your mobile phone. Its what they are for.
I always thought that they were for making/receiving phone calls - e.g. the ones from BA Holidays - another option might also be to pay the balance in advance of the due date
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Old Aug 21, 2020, 5:45 am
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Originally Posted by PGberkshire
That sucks
I might be missing something, but I don't see how having a card on file helps without a corresponding authorisation for the charge?

While the OP might have been happy to have the card charged I don't see any way BA Holidays can know that and they'd risk an deluge of complaints if they did this as policy (e.g. people going overlimit and incurring fees, people who were happy to lose their deposit and now have to claim a refund, people who wanted to use another card etc)

Perhaps a genuine enhancement would be the ability to pre-authorise BAH taking the balance from a card on file at the payment due date? (tho there might be issues around CVV/CVC, not sure, I know these must not be stored)
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Old Aug 21, 2020, 5:45 am
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Originally Posted by Shingi
May I just tag on here please. Are BA Holidays cancelling their packages to Spain etc., in the light of the current FCO advice?
Thanks
There were some cases reported of pro-active BAH cancellations in the Rebooking thread. Customers can cancel if FCO advice changes after booking.
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Old Aug 21, 2020, 6:14 am
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Originally Posted by BertieBadger
I might be missing something, but I don't see how having a card on file helps without a corresponding authorisation for the charge?

While the OP might have been happy to have the card charged I don't see any way BA Holidays can know that and they'd risk an deluge of complaints if they did this as policy (e.g. people going overlimit and incurring fees, people who were happy to lose their deposit and now have to claim a refund, people who wanted to use another card etc)

Perhaps a genuine enhancement would be the ability to pre-authorise BAH taking the balance from a card on file at the payment due date? (tho there might be issues around CVV/CVC, not sure, I know these must not be stored)
Yes, quite rightly, having a card number stored doesn't allow it to be charged without the CVV number which can't be kept for more than a few days under (I think) PCI legislation, so the CVV number falls off, making the card number on its own unusable. That's why the calls are necessary - plus of course for the reasons posted in the quote above.

I am surprised about the aggressive nature of the cancellations just the day after the deadline - would this be BAH policy or something governed by outside regulators?
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Old Aug 21, 2020, 6:39 am
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Originally Posted by BertieBadger
I might be missing something, but I don't see how having a card on file helps without a corresponding authorisation for the charge?

While the OP might have been happy to have the card charged I don't see any way BA Holidays can know that and they'd risk an deluge of complaints if they did this as policy (e.g. people going overlimit and incurring fees, people who were happy to lose their deposit and now have to claim a refund, people who wanted to use another card etc)

Perhaps a genuine enhancement would be the ability to pre-authorise BAH taking the balance from a card on file at the payment due date? (tho there might be issues around CVV/CVC, not sure, I know these must not be stored)
Well I leave my card on file for that exact reason, so they can charge it. Im sure it's easy enough to manage this process. simple tick box - "do you want your card on file to be charged if you don't proactively pay to ensure your holiday goes ahead"
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