Hadrian Moss

Grateful for guidance and advice please as booked BA flights last year using a 2F1 voucher and Avios for an Alaska cruise this September.. Successfully achieved business seats both ways and paid for specific seats. Of course the cruise was cancelled earlier this year but BA have not cancelled the flights with the outbound in only 8 days time.

Spoke to BA a few weeks ago who said if they cancel, we get a full refund (including seat booking charges) but if we cancel we only get the 2F1 voucher and Avios back and lose the seat charges. BA said if they cancel we should hear 7 days before the flight, which is tomorrow.

is this other travellers experience with BA? It seems very unfair to lose the seat booking charges.

My plan is to cancel both flights in a few days time if BA hasn’t. What’s annoying is we had the same flights, again successfully booked with a voucher and Avios (pre-you know what in 2019) business class for the same cruise last year which we shifted to this year and have already shifted to next year.

layz

General rule is if you want the airline to cancel (so you can get a full refund not tied to a voucher) you should wait until almost the last minute before cancelling. Although the closer to the time the chance of the flight getting cancelled gets smaller it may still get cancelled for technical reasons, weather, etc.
You can cancel and request a voucher up until check-in close time of your first flight but I wouldn't quite risk that. I have cancelled a flight around 6 hours before it was due though and that was fine.
If you cancel you have two options:
- Take the voucher and this will wrap up everything including your seat charges, your 2 for 1 will be valid until 2023 in this voucher but you will need to phone up to book using it in the future.
- Take a fare rules cancellation. You will get your cash back (minus an admin fee), your 2 for 1 will go back into your account with its original expiry date but you will lose seat selection fees.

EvilDoctorK

At this stage given that you're flying on the day (?) that Canada is reopening to more visitors then cancellation looks unlikely at this stage .. but as stated above you may as well wait until nearer departure ( don't leave it too late )

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk Hadrian Moss, and welcome to the BA board, it would be great to hear more from you. There are some other threads here which give examples of what other people have done, so have a good look around.

My hunch is that this flight will go ahead, and you do have the option to go to Vancouver if you wish, subject to a few constraints. So indeed the option a refund or FTV. FTV keeps the seat charges in place, but they can only then be used for other seat fees. The companion voucher will also be kept alive until 2023. I don't see this as unfair as such, this policy was in place at the time you booked, and has merely been extended more recently. There isn't a formal 7 day cut off as such (unless this is a BA Holidays booking, in which case other factors come into play) indeed usually 14 days is the more usually quoted one due to the way the EC261 Regulation works.

ab007

I would agree these flights look likely to go ahead, it's something I've been following closely as we're due to fly out there just a few days after your booking on a 241 booked during the 50% avios sale.

I suspect BA are fairly confident it's going ahead as I notice they have added a second flight on some days, frustratingly with a rather better arrival time than the existing 85.

dbarton

I also feel BA flts to both YVR and YUL will restart unless Ottawa pulls the plug at the last moment--------which today seems unlikely

but with both BA and AC flying YUL/LHR can't see loads being too heavy next few months

I expect our 2for1 from YUL to France endSept to take place unless Schengen/France stops American and Cdn visitors next few weeks although am not keen on wearing masks everywhere outdoors----------------obtaining the Passe Sanitaire seems the easy part

londonba2014

Vancouver has seen quite the downgrade, from it's A380 days, it's now being operated by one of the clapped out 777's with the old Rockwell Collins IFE!

Cymro

I'm due to go next month. Hoping against hope for an aircraft swap but at least it's out of range of an A321.

MFCC

Believe it was meant to be due for the 350 and then the 77L (48/40/184) various other route restarts and increases meant it had to be changed. Lots of the States has been resumed or seen frequency increases.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it saw an aircraft swap in the coming months.