Confus

No. If you submit a request on ba.com for an agent-issued booking you will receive an email rejecting your request and advising you to contact your agent.

The policy and instructions BA gives its agents - including Amex - is available free to all on the Travel Trade portal if you want to see how it works. In essence it’s the same as a FTV if booked direct - i.e. a suspended booking with relaxed rules over reissue.

If - and only if - your agent books your original ticket through NDC, then they (note the agent, not you) can request an EMD e-voucher on your behalf. This can then be used in the normal way. I don’t think Amex is connected to NDC yet, however.

justin1123

With a BA FTV held by Amex travel, will they charge service fees to make bookings? Obviously you won't be able to use this online and recall they usually charge when you make booking over the phone.

This could get pricey if using a several hundred 1k GBP voucher to make a number of separate Europe bookings!

ratechaser

I've got this offer too (same as many of us I suspect). When it first came up I briefly looked for B2B 160TP options just over £200 but nothing obvious presented itself.

For something like that I'd probably give it a go, but for a bigger booking I'd still probably opt for going direct, for the sake of £50...

justin1123

I am confused about the Book with Confidence / FTV policy and Amex booking, can anyone advise!

My understanding from the website and discussion above is that the policy applies the same for BA booking as for those done with Amex.

I am looking at booking TXL-LHR-JFK-LAX I class return for next May, as BA on the first sectors and an AA connection, 125 ticket. I have priced this up with Amex but they are insistent that a refund to voucher would not apply and that it is fully non-refundable. They can't explain why - only that refunds are "only for COVID reasons...?" Am I wrong or is Amex wrong!

Confus

Neither. BA makes a BWC policy available to agents, but they have no power to force agents to offer it on to customers. If Amex chooses to have a more restrictive policy then that’s their business (and yours, for contracting with them). Now one could argue that Amex are choosing to put themselves at a disadvantage compared with their competitors… but that of course is their prerogative.

KARFA

I think this is a very good example of why I am avoiding TA bookings even more than usual atm. I am afraid £50 cashback on my card for using Amex travel is not enough to persuade me otherwise.

Schwann

Amex don't give a voucher per say. They just leave the ticket "open" by removing all the flights and keeping the value that you paid - you'd then need to call/live chat with Amex to book the flights you want.

Amex are following the BA BWC guidelines but it is a slightly different scenario than booking direct on BA.com

bisonrav

Anyone got any recent experience of getting a voucher for a BA flight from Amex Travel? I have a slightly convoluted situation where I have a booking made on my wife's Gold Amex - she downgraded to a free credit card in the interim. This is for Canada in a couple of weeks, and looks like the trip is now unrealistic given the 100% test and quarantine on arrival.

Any hints or suggestions helpful, though I posted in the Covid forum around the specifics of testing etc and don't need help with that here.

bisonrav

Reporting back on the experience cancelling the Canada flight for FTV. This was actually on my wife's AMEX travel account, to qualify for a cashback payment.

Contacted AMEX travel by chat yesterday, this was relatively efficient in terms of wait times, but the agent eventually advised BA now had control of the tickets and she couldn't instigate a voucher credit. She was clear that AMEX allowed it, just didn't know how to do it. She asked me to contact BA today to start the process.

So I called and eventually got through (this post was made during the aftermath of Storm Eunice, very long hold times), and discussed with a GGL agent who went away to see what she could do and arranged to call me back. As expected she was unable to issue the credit because of the travel agency, but notated the booking with an explanation they should contact Trade Support if the process wasn't clear.

Then onto AMEX chat again where I got an excellent agent who understood the process and was able to action it directly. The FTV becomes a credit onto your amex account, usable only for BA bookings obviously.

So essentially this looks like a HUACA scenario mostly, but with persistence you do get the voucher. I'm surprised it's this difficult to be honest as I wouldn't expect it to be uncommon, and AMEX travel are one of the better OTAs by reputation.