kimbray

Sorry for the detailed email. As I have seen in this forum, BA is going back to "pre COVID" conditions of carriage after 30/9/22. I have a trip the starts before the change and ends after. I called in to see if I could change ONLY my outbound date and the answer was NO and I would lose all base fare if I made change. When I go to the web site and start the process of cancelling to see what it says there (as the langague on BA site also states for travel AFTER 30/9/22, log in and manage booking), I go thru the cancel starting process and it takes me to a VOUCHER Page. I did not go any further than this, but when I called, due to my ticket straddling the change in condition of carriage, I would LOSE all base fare $$.

I could just keep my exisiting flights as I am planning on still going, but was going to change outbound to a later date.

Looking for any thoughts on getting a voucher for a cancel or not OR any other strategy as I am just looking to change my outbound date whish is before 30/9/22.

Thanks!

cauchy

What happens when you click to change rather than cancel the itinerary? When looking at bookings that straddle 30 September I've seen £0 change fees on the conditions section of the booking flow (at least for the flights before 30 Sept), which, if it were the same for you, would hold independently of any 'book with confidence' offer.

ScienceTeacher

No, it does not. It says for trips fully completed by 30/09/22 you can claim a voucher for use on trips fully completed - outbound and return - by 30/09/23. Appreciate this might be confusing.

As a solution - I had this issue - you can pay to change your return journey to before 30/09/22 so it is fully completed, and then claim a voucher. For me this was £60.00, and the eVoucher value was the trip plus this £60.00.

kimbray

So since my ticket was economy with $$ and then upgrade with Avios to PE, I cannot do anything online. Need to call in...

kimbray

Oh, I love this idea. Just to confirm, you called in (I need to based on base fare $ and upgrade with Avios) and asked for cost to change your return to before 30/9/22 and then cancelled and got voucher.

I am NOT sure if I have screwed myself by booking with $ and upgrading with Avios. My fare class is P and U.

cauchy

Is the underlying economy ticket a hand baggage-only fare? Together with the date of purchase, fare bucket of the economy class tickets, rough dates and route someone will be able to advise on the fare rules.

kimbray

Here are more details.
Flight purchased 18/4/22.
Was a standard economy fare but not flexible. Do not have the original class code as all I can see online is current class.
Outbound DEN-LHR-GLA on 22/9/22 (this is the leg I would like to change to 25/9/22 (no more Avios upgradable fares so would not be able to upgrade currently after cancellation)
Return with a stopover in London. GLA-LCY on 30/9/22 and then LHR-DEN on 3/10/22 (This is the leg that has bme straddled).
The taxes/fees/surcharges are over $1,000 and that would all come back.
The original base fare for economy was $650 or so...This is the component of the fare that BA said I would forfiet with a cancellation (again not a basic economy fare)

THANK YOU!

kimbray

Any more feedback on this before I call BA and work to MOVE my return to before 30/9/22? I have been trying to find Avios availablity as that will be part of my challnege I believe, but not sure. Maybe I can downgrade but not sure as I have not had to do this in the past...so any thoughts? Thank you.

cauchy

Sorry, I don't have an ExpertFlyer subscription to check myself. If it were a basic economy / hand baggage only fare that would be an issue, as these seem to be 100% unchangeable departing the USA.

Instead of any clever schemes - which may not work - why don't you just tell the agent you want to go to Glasgow on 25 September instead of 22 September, moving the flight that actually needs moving, and see what can be done? If necessary ask them for the fare basis and to read out fare change rules.

kimbray

Thanks. I have aready don that (waiting 1 hour on hold). The agent was not helpful to just move the outbound from 22 to 25th...I will try again but now will also ask about changing the return. I think the PROBLEM is that I did economy STANDARD (not basic) and then UPGRADED to Premium Economy via Avios. The step of upgrading and now that there are NO replacements for upgrades on any of the dates that I want, I started to have the downgrade discussion with agent, but that was not really fun either. So when I call back in, I am going to ask about changing the return.... Thanks.

kimbray

OK, so I called in (waited on hold for over 1 hour). Got an agent on phone and asked to change my return to before 9/30 to ensure I could then cancel, get voucher and then rebook (actually cheaper to rebook currently over what I paid). However, the agend said they needed to send to their backoffice team and would send me emial around the net price difference to change return. THAT WAS 4 days ago! Have not gotten email with change fees, have not gotten ANYTHING. How hard is it for airline to determine costs for change?!?! Sorry keep posting here but nothing has changed. AMAZING BA!!!

Magnus77

No surprise there! BA screw up with a holidays voucher then the payment disappeared from MMB, gold line cant explain why! Takes full payment over the phone. Has to send to back office to issue receipt. Takes two days apparently, well 12 days later still nothing. Another BA screw up another complaint inbound!

KARFA

This won't work. Any eligibility to BWC now is based on last ticket date . Any involuntary ticket re-issues will be ignored, but original ticket date and any voluntary changes are not, and BA will look at the last one to see whether it is before 8 June 2022. Basically:

• If your booking was made on or after 8 June 2022, it is not within scope for BWC, and changing any flights will not make any difference to this.
• If you have a booking made on or before 7 June 2022 for travel completed by 30 September 2022, and it's therefore eligible for BWC, do not do any voluntary changes now as that will mean the booking is no longer covered by BWC.
• If you have a booking made on or before 7 June 2022 and is not eligible for BWC as it includes flights beyond 30 September 2022, any voluntary changes now will not render it in scope for BWC.

If your booking has BWC, great don't do any changes. If your booking doesn't then you can't do anything to make it eligible now.

kimbray

So let me give some additional info here. Booking was made April 18th, 2022. This was BEFORE the June 7th date. British Airways picked the BWC end date, not me. It is not my fault that I straddle the date on which it ends. I am continuing to call and have them change my return dates to fall inside the BWC dates (return travel to finish by Sept 30, 2022).

I have been quoted that my FARE is less expensive to make this change, but I had a layover in London on return that is now not elegible for refund as I was not doing a layover in origial return date change to 9/30. I have now asked the agent to provide what would be returned/credit/voucher if I do a 1 day layover in London on 9/29 and then finish my return on 9/30 back to Denver.

It is OBNOXIOUS that I cannot see/change this via manage my bookings AND it takes days and a number fo phone calls (disconnects and hold times approaching 1 hour each time) to make a change. This is DUE to the fact that I booked a base economy fare and then UPGRADED with Avios to Premium. This ONE little thing has caused BA to spend over 100 hours researching my ticket, fare info, penalties, etc. Lesson learned to not mix paid/avios together.

Net net, I am again in a place where I am waiting for BA back office to tell me the fare difference (will be less base on my calculation done in 5 min) as well as Avios to be returned for "downgrade" as return does not have avialability.

British Airways needs to "simplify" their T&Cs for different things as my ticket hits all of the FUN challenges. Cross BWC line, Avios upgrade from base fare, AND downgrade as no AVIOS upgrade avaialbe for change... All other airlines I deal with have a simple/straightforward policy for these situations, BUT British Airways requires 72 hours plus for some backoffice person to then notify the helpdesk, who then MAYBE sends me an email (or not), with cost of change/refund/etc.

Such an iterative process with no help from the BA side. I have to be EXPLICIT in my ask each time, then they put me on hold for 20-30 min to ask someone and so on... Net Net, I have wasted about 6-8 hours on this BUT British Airways has wasted even more time... Guess that is why their fees on top of base fare are also going up...

PURE AWSOMENESS!

KARFA

Thanks. It is quite hard to pick out exactly what is going on from your post tbh, but I have tried to summarise the situation.

BA's position when you booked on 18 April was clear, BWC only applied to bookings where travel was completed by the end of September 2022. You chose to make a booking with some flights beyond that date so clearly BWC did not apply and you are not eligible to obtain a future travel voucher for your booking.

BA as of 8 June have said no new bookings will get BWC. Also as I noted you can't change an existing booking which doesn't have BWC so that it becomes eligible. I understand you are asking for quotes to change but have not actually done the change yet.

If your purpose of changing your booking is purely so it falls within BWC you are wasting your time.

Obviously if you are changing your booking because you need to travel on the new dates, that's fine but since your booking never qualified for BWC any change is based on fare rules which means change fee if applicable and fare difference. If the new dates are cheaper you are not due a refund since pretty much all fares say in the case of a change to a new itinerary where the new price is lower a refund is not given of the surplus - basically because the underlying fare is original fare is not refundable. If the new dates are more expensive you pay the change fee and fare difference. Any further changes beyond that will again be based on the fare rules.

It really is that simple.