Rhodent

Hi there,

After some time lurking in the dark, and reading I sort of need some help myself this time.

So I was hoping someone may be able to give me some advice on an issue I am having with BA.
Back in October 2020, I had a flight booked with my ex-partner to Berlin. We were supposed to be flying to Berlin, and close to the time, we had to cancel due to the sudden lockdown that Berlin entered.

At the time I wasn't too phased, I requested a future travel voucher and they arrived. I was slightly perplexed at the split vouchers sent to me in a sort of point format with no other information. Until today...

I have tried to use the vouchers, and have now found out that when they were issued - rather than returning the amount to me in full, as you'd expect when booking a flight to be refunded to a credit card. They have in turn split the voucher between us, so my fare is on one code and his on another. I tried to speak to the complaints team, and they insist that the voucher is in his name - the thing is we're not on the greatest speaking terms, and I can't exactly go 4-5 months later saying oh you owe me money for something you never used. I am sort of in this situation, where everything has come off my own cards, but the money has been returned to someone else during the refund process and BA refuses to assist me saying:

"Our Future Travel Vouchers allow for a future booking to be made in the name of the person on the original ticket. When there is more than one passenger, each person receives their own voucher to use. We appreciate the frustration this has caused, especially as you paid for the whole booking, but I'm afraid the Future Travel Vouchers are non-transferable."

This isn't a case of being non-transferable, this is a case of them issuing someone else with my money and now refusing to correct their issue.

If someone knows how I may be able to escalate this, or how I can correct it; or if someone maybe knows if the vouchers will automatically be refunded to the original payment source when they expire.
It's a little upsetting for me to have these things throw into my face a few months later when I really took BA, trusting them at the time.

Thanks for your help

mikeyfly

Welcome to Flyertalk Rhodent

The vouchers are indeed for the named passengers booked to the value of their ticket, this is set out in the T&Cs and you can read up on this in the thread for using vouchers:

Book with confidence policy - FlyerTalk Forums
Rebooking with e-voucher - FlyerTalk Forums

There isn't a way around this which is easy, you can both independently utilise the voucher value, they don't have to be on the same trip, they can be separated.

There is a convoluted way around this for you to potentially get the money back in hard cash. What was the value of the two tickets ?

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum Rhodent.

I can see it is a tricky situation, and I'm not sure I am going to be the bearer of good news either. I am assuming here that your flights did in fact operate, if they didn't then you may have a bit more scope. But when applying for the FTV it was made clear on the screen and in this forum that the vouchers would be issued per traveller on the reservation, as opposed to whoever made the reservation. So I think that part was clearly laid out at the time, and I doubt BA will budge on that aspect. You mention about vouchers expiring and turning into cash - there is some consumer pressure to allow this to happen, and some airlines are doing so too, usually where they issued vouchers instead of a refund. But BA did offer refunds for cancelled flights, plus they have now extended the FTVs to 30 April 2023, which gets them off the hook there.

Your best bet is to ask your Ex - via an intermediary if necessary - to make a booking for a flight that is bound to be cancelled. Apart from making this booking in his name, or allow it to be made, he needs not do anything else. Ditto for your own FTV. If that happens then you would get a refund to the original form of payment. As things stand, and given the details provided, I don't think you can look to BA to help, the paths lead to your estranged partner. You probably think that is unfair, but you are actually in a more flexible place than if you held tickets for a future flight and had split up before travel.

Globaliser

As c-w-s says, getting a FTV was not the same as getting a refund. The process is a bit like stripping the specific flight details off the (non-transferable) ticket that had been issued to each of you, and each of you being able to reuse the (non-transferable) ticket to book a different flight in the future. No money has been refunded or returned to anyone.

suley

Random thought but if they were paid on CC, would the OP be better doing a chargeback assuming the flights did not operate?

sammyg901

Use the voucher to book a flight to Mykonos or similar in early May. It'll get cancelled and you can get a cash refund

Confus

No, because a voucher was accepted and the T&C were clear (and agreed to). There is no provision in chargeback rules for ‘split up with my partner’.

KARFA

I would like to add my own welcome to FT Rhodent, I don't have anything to add to the excellent advice above but good to see you posting after previously lurking.

What would the ground be for a chargeback?

I don't think that would allow the OP to recover the value on their ex partner's FTV though?

sammyg901

If I'm following correctly then both were paid using their card, so if they booked a flight for both of them again using the FTV, when it's cancelled the cash refund will make its way back to the payment card

KARFA

Ah I see yes. But how would the OP make the booking in the first place using their ex partners FTV?

sammyg901

Make a booking for both of them, then BA won't need to speak to the ex

Rhodent

Thank you to everyone for their advice. I left it a few days to see what options I had.
So what I ended up doing was taking c-w-s' advice, and I booked a ticket on LHR-FCN in mid April. My thoughts were that the COVID VOC that is spreading through Latin America and Portugal, will mean it is left on the red list ban for the foreseeable future. Mykonos was a bit too risky, given the Greeks willingness to reopen their tourism sector. So for a total of voucher + £8.04 on my card, I rebooked it.

BA didn't confirm any of his details, and all my contact details and card were still on the ticket. They even reissued the same flight reference.
So if anyone has a similar issue, you don't even need to talk to the person. BA just processed it. The hardest part was trying to get a combination of tickets as close to the value. The only thing I did was made sure it was above the value of the voucher so it was considered a "payment" and qualified for a full refund rather then them sending me another voucher.

Consider it the cost of a scratch card to win back my money haha :P I will update in mid-April to my success if it goes ahead and is refunded.

You guys have been wonderful, and extremely helpful to me, thank you.

Rhodent

Update time.
So big thank you to c-w-s, the idea of rebooking under the original ticket worked great. Absolutely no questions upon booking; and when the flight was cancelled last week Monday. I requested a refund via the online portal to avoid human-to-human questions. All amounts were fully refunded and my credit card has a nice green refund value to it. Also heads up to anyone curious about processing time - refund was requested Monday 8 March, refunded Friday 19 March. So do expect a long wait.

Retrospectively the Madeira booking was risky; as the flight ban was lifted today. So a particularly close, but probably still well-calculated risk.

Thanks again

mikeyfly

Great result and thanks for following up with your outcome !

Anonba

I dont no why you think you would be questioned for taking a refund on a booking with cancelled flights, its a fairly common theme at the moment!