Jan 1, 2021, 8:29 am
Last edit by: corporate-wage-slave
01 - 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 2023 (now extended from April 2022 including existing FTVs), 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. If you us,ed an FTV to pay for this now cancelled service then you can have a refund back to the FTV's original booking.
Online forms: manual process which may take many weeks
link to webform to claim a refund (UK) or link to webform to claim a refund (US)
Paid Seating Refund:
link to webform to claim a refund (UK)
02 - If your flight is not cancelled but you no longer wish to travel
Commercial booking: If you are eligible for Buy with Confidence, you can have an FTV valid until 31 August 2022 (this has been extended several times). Rebooking may lead to a fare recalculation but no change fee. Travel must be fully completed by this date.
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 30 April 2022, 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: https://ba.com/confidence
Bookings made using Lloyds Upgrade Voucher
You should expect to receive:
A full refund of Avios and money paid plus 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
03 - How to find out the status of your voucher and the amount it contains
Use the Qantas website and look back to your original PNR. Step by step guide by corporate-wage-slave
04 - Future Travel Vouchers versus eVouchers
FTVs cannot be used online (and are not really vouchers), whereas eVouchers, issued for simple bookings, can be used online.
BA are now issuing eVouchers directly in simple cases, and also proactively replacing existing FTVs with new eVouchers. These are usable online. Complex cases still get FTVs, which require a phone call to book. In both cases, you need to apply online through the Cancellation Options in MMB, and both will generate an email typically within a few minutes. This is how to tell the difference
1) eVouchers will get an email entitled "Your British Airways eVoucher"
This will then have a line like this and the online ability is mentioned in the email text:
Your eVoucher details
125-1234567890 / GBP48.87 / WAGE-SLAVE /
2) FTVs will get an email entitled "Your British Airways Future Travel Voucher"
The relevant line then shows:
Voucher code(s)
125-1234567890
It doesn't take much, by FT standards, to turn a booking too complicated for the automated eVoucher. POUGs, flight changes, TCP, seat payment, pay payment with Avios, UuA. 48 and 72 hour Hold bookings all stop it. But if you made a simple single or return booking, point to point, on BA.com and didn't change it, then you should get an eVoucher.
If you obtain an FTV, deploy it on a new booking which BA then cancels, then you can get a refund of the cash from the first booking that led to the FTV. Or an Avios refund without redeposit fees if it was a redemption.
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 2023 (now extended from April 2022 including existing FTVs), 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. If you us,ed an FTV to pay for this now cancelled service then you can have a refund back to the FTV's original booking.
Online forms: manual process which may take many weeks
link to webform to claim a refund (UK) or link to webform to claim a refund (US)
Paid Seating Refund:
link to webform to claim a refund (UK)
02 - If your flight is not cancelled but you no longer wish to travel
Commercial booking: If you are eligible for Buy with Confidence, you can have an FTV valid until 31 August 2022 (this has been extended several times). Rebooking may lead to a fare recalculation but no change fee. Travel must be fully completed by this date.
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 30 April 2022, 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: https://ba.com/confidence
Bookings made using Lloyds Upgrade Voucher
You should expect to receive:
A full refund of Avios and money paid plus 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.
03 - How to find out the status of your voucher and the amount it contains
Use the Qantas website and look back to your original PNR. Step by step guide by corporate-wage-slave
04 - Future Travel Vouchers versus eVouchers
FTVs cannot be used online (and are not really vouchers), whereas eVouchers, issued for simple bookings, can be used online.
BA are now issuing eVouchers directly in simple cases, and also proactively replacing existing FTVs with new eVouchers. These are usable online. Complex cases still get FTVs, which require a phone call to book. In both cases, you need to apply online through the Cancellation Options in MMB, and both will generate an email typically within a few minutes. This is how to tell the difference
1) eVouchers will get an email entitled "Your British Airways eVoucher"
This will then have a line like this and the online ability is mentioned in the email text:
Your eVoucher details
125-1234567890 / GBP48.87 / WAGE-SLAVE /
2) FTVs will get an email entitled "Your British Airways Future Travel Voucher"
The relevant line then shows:
Voucher code(s)
125-1234567890
It doesn't take much, by FT standards, to turn a booking too complicated for the automated eVoucher. POUGs, flight changes, TCP, seat payment, pay payment with Avios, UuA. 48 and 72 hour Hold bookings all stop it. But if you made a simple single or return booking, point to point, on BA.com and didn't change it, then you should get an eVoucher.
If you obtain an FTV, deploy it on a new booking which BA then cancels, then you can get a refund of the cash from the first booking that led to the FTV. Or an Avios refund without redeposit fees if it was a redemption.
BA Covid-19 Flight cancellations, rebooking, and refunds | Help and advice thread
Jan 25, 2022, 12:22 am
#3166
Join Date: Sep 2013
Programs: BA Executive Club
Posts: 182
No it doesn't count as a cancellation, and because Reaccom did its job, and agent will see this with status OKC on the sector, and thus not see it as a cancellation, based on other people's experiences of this well known feature of AA's codeshared flights. Furthermore the AMS service isn't going to help. So you don't even have the cash refund option, let alone a rebook at this point. You say mid February, well the clock is running down on that, but you need a proper cancellation and I guess the weakest link is LHR-NCE. That said you've chosen routes which won't be BA's first choice to cancel, MRS would be in a different place to NCE for example. So you either need to hold on to see if there are further changes, or consider the FTV and refare option.
All true open jaws are not in self serve, since there is an implied surface sector. Any changes are bound to require agent intervention.
All true open jaws are not in self serve, since there is an implied surface sector. Any changes are bound to require agent intervention.
Thanks
Bob
Jan 25, 2022, 1:51 am
#3167
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: 63,830
Hi C-W-S or someone else, would you mind explaining why this wouldn't count as a cancellation please? I was under the impression that if any leg of a journey was cancelled you could treat it as a cancellation and utilise the rebooking or refund options. I've clearly misunderstood some aspect of the rules so would be keen to know which bits for future reference.
Jan 25, 2022, 2:01 am
#3168
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: near Heathrow
Programs: BA GGL/CCR, GfL (OWE), SA LifePlat (*G), BD Gold to the end, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 2,912
I reported on this very issue about 6 weeks ago. BA MMB clearly says my flight is cancelled but there is no change to the timing of the flight, and not even a change in the prime AA flight number, just a change on the BA codeshare flight number so in my case I believe BA have initiated the flight number change.
BA we’re very clear in the end that they will not treat this as a cancellation, even though MMB says it is, and a refund of a non-refundable fare is an option in MMB. As a goodwill gesture they said that if I could find flights within the fare rules and I class through the whole itinerary, they would allow changes to the itinerary. Having researched the flights I wanted (2 days different to the original) and called back, it went all the way to fares who said changing it was not possible.
It was a cheeky request in the first place as nothing had changed re flight timings so not feeling too aggrieved. I did learn a lot about Matrix in the process 😀
BA we’re very clear in the end that they will not treat this as a cancellation, even though MMB says it is, and a refund of a non-refundable fare is an option in MMB. As a goodwill gesture they said that if I could find flights within the fare rules and I class through the whole itinerary, they would allow changes to the itinerary. Having researched the flights I wanted (2 days different to the original) and called back, it went all the way to fares who said changing it was not possible.
It was a cheeky request in the first place as nothing had changed re flight timings so not feeling too aggrieved. I did learn a lot about Matrix in the process 😀
Jan 25, 2022, 3:50 am
#3169
Join Date: Sep 2013
Programs: BA Executive Club
Posts: 182
This specifically related to the well known practice of AA to reconfigure their schedule on a Sunday once a month or so, and then correct it again the following Sunday. This results in AA constantly changing their flight numbers since they have so many flights they have run out of numbers. So they duplicate them and then have to make sure the duplicates don't cause other problems such as having the same flight number leaving the same airport in different directions...
Bob
Jan 25, 2022, 5:22 am
#3170
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: 63,830
That I don't know for certain, but I suspect if Reaccom struggles then at some point it becomes a clear cancellation. As with BA, if there is an equipment change then some services get small changes due to the fact that the aircraft is deemed to be quicker, or faster to turnaround, compared to other aircraft, and towards the end of the day this can build up to a bigger time change. There is a 5 hour rule within BA where flight changes (on the same flight number) are regarded as within tolerance, though there is still some scope for arguing it. Clearly if the change misses MCT then something has to give. So as with many things like this, it depends on the specific details. AA tends not to make 1 hour changes in this space, it's more usually the same time or within 15 minutes, due to the way that schedule banking at hubs works. At some point the time change will break some of the spokes.
Jan 25, 2022, 9:20 am
#3171
Join Date: Sep 2013
Programs: BA Executive Club
Posts: 182
That I don't know for certain, but I suspect if Reaccom struggles then at some point it becomes a clear cancellation. As with BA, if there is an equipment change then some services get small changes due to the fact that the aircraft is deemed to be quicker, or faster to turnaround, compared to other aircraft, and towards the end of the day this can build up to a bigger time change. There is a 5 hour rule within BA where flight changes (on the same flight number) are regarded as within tolerance, though there is still some scope for arguing it....
Bob
Jan 25, 2022, 10:11 am
#3172
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 163
If I was downgraded from F to CW on an avios 2-4-1 redemption (due to an aircraft change) would you expect there to be a difference in taxes due and therefore expect a small refund in cash on top of the avios difference?
This is for a LHR - LAS outbound flight.
This is for a LHR - LAS outbound flight.
Jan 25, 2022, 10:14 am
#3173
Ambassador, British Airways; FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Leeds, UK
Programs: BA GGL/CCR, GfL, HH Diamond
Posts: 42,981
No I wouldn't. Usually for exUK bookings when going between CW and F there isn't any difference in taxes/fees/changes.
Jan 25, 2022, 10:20 am
#3175
Ambassador, British Airways; FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Leeds, UK
Programs: BA GGL/CCR, GfL, HH Diamond
Posts: 42,981
No problem. I should have added that this is true of any voluntary change between the two cabins. For involuntary downgrades it may be that downgrade refund would apply under EC261 have a look at the dedicated posts in the your guide to compensation thread for some more details.
Jan 25, 2022, 11:52 am
#3176
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 138
That I don't know for certain, but I suspect if Reaccom struggles then at some point it becomes a clear cancellation. As with BA, if there is an equipment change then some services get small changes due to the fact that the aircraft is deemed to be quicker, or faster to turnaround, compared to other aircraft, and towards the end of the day this can build up to a bigger time change. There is a 5 hour rule within BA where flight changes (on the same flight number) are regarded as within tolerance, though there is still some scope for arguing it. Clearly if the change misses MCT then something has to give. So as with many things like this, it depends on the specific details. AA tends not to make 1 hour changes in this space, it's more usually the same time or within 15 minutes, due to the way that schedule banking at hubs works. At some point the time change will break some of the spokes.
Jan 25, 2022, 11:56 am
#3177
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 138
Is there still an online form for requesting a refund when BA cancels a flight? I can't seem to find one online now, the form I would use says during fill out that it can't be used for refunds?
Also do we know if BA are still offering refunds as a conversion to Avios at a good rate? Thanks in advance!
Also do we know if BA are still offering refunds as a conversion to Avios at a good rate? Thanks in advance!
Jan 25, 2022, 12:30 pm
#3178
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: 63,830
If Reaccom rebooks you then the system - rightly or wrongly - sees that as a continuation of the prior arrangements. Clearly if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck then you can argue your case in court. But it is the case even now that if BA moves your flight by 5 hours you don't necessarily get a refund, at least in BA's eyes. There is something in the conditions of carriage which gives the passenger the ability to argue it is significant, so it's not the end of the matter.
Jan 25, 2022, 1:21 pm
#3179
Join Date: Sep 2010
Programs: BA Blue, HH Diamond
Posts: 66
BA have cancelled my 2-4-1 BA104 flight in October 2022 (which was the old club seat). I've been shifted on to BA108 (with new club seat). I paid for seat selection on my BA104 flight (there were particular seats I wanted), no need for that now we have the new club suite. Cheekily I had paid for the "most expensive" seat selection fees at the front of the cabin and they have automatically moved me to the cheapest seat selection at the back of the cabin. BA's terms state:
"You can claim a refund for seats you paid for within 30 days of the completion of the last flight in your itinerary where:
1) At what point do I tell them I am unsatisfied with the alternative seat?
2) Do I have to wait until I have flown the segment before I can claim or can I just do it now. From past experience with BA they only want to give refunds after you have flown but this is the first time I've paid for seat selection.
"You can claim a refund for seats you paid for within 30 days of the completion of the last flight in your itinerary where:
- we change your seat to an alternative seat and you are unsatisfied with the alternative seat;
- we cancel your flight"
1) At what point do I tell them I am unsatisfied with the alternative seat?
2) Do I have to wait until I have flown the segment before I can claim or can I just do it now. From past experience with BA they only want to give refunds after you have flown but this is the first time I've paid for seat selection.
Jan 25, 2022, 1:26 pm
#3180
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: living near Malaga
Programs: BA Gold , Mucci recipient. Coffee Drinker, Blue Sky Thinker
Posts: 2,112
BA have cancelled my 2-4-1 BA104 flight in October 2022 (which was the old club seat). I've been shifted on to BA108 (with new club seat). I paid for seat selection on my BA104 flight (there were particular seats I wanted), no need for that now we have the new club suite. Cheekily I had paid for the "most expensive" seat selection fees at the front of the cabin and they have automatically moved me to the cheapest seat selection at the back of the cabin. BA's terms state:
"You can claim a refund for seats you paid for within 30 days of the completion of the last flight in your itinerary where:
1) At what point do I tell them I am unsatisfied with the alternative seat?
2) Do I have to wait until I have flown the segment before I can claim or can I just do it now (cheekily they have moved me from the most expensive seats to the cheapest!). From past experience with BA they only want to give refunds after you have flown but this is the first time I've paid for seat selection.
"You can claim a refund for seats you paid for within 30 days of the completion of the last flight in your itinerary where:
- we change your seat to an alternative seat and you are unsatisfied with the alternative seat;
- we cancel your flight"
1) At what point do I tell them I am unsatisfied with the alternative seat?
2) Do I have to wait until I have flown the segment before I can claim or can I just do it now (cheekily they have moved me from the most expensive seats to the cheapest!). From past experience with BA they only want to give refunds after you have flown but this is the first time I've paid for seat selection.