Frequentflyer99

We have spiralling UK Covid rates and both LHR and BA in a state of almost terminal meltdown. BA can probably sell most BWC cancelled seats 10 times over given the current shortage of seats, and is never at risk of actually losing the cash paid by BWC pax (apart from on Avios bookings).

I for one am now booking nothing that cannot be easily cancelled. Am I alone? Surely the return of BWC should now be a no-brainer for BA?

corporate-wage-slave

I wouldn't say the place is in meltdown, that's a bit of a stretch, delays today are in the 20 - 30 minute range mainly. But as it happens, CB4D has been activated for this weekend, so all BA operated flights for today, Saturday and Sunday are rebookable online within the next 180 days if cabin space available, and beyond 180 days if the same booking class is available. Apparently both offers are now available via MMB, though I'd be surprised if the second part works. I've no doubt they will do this again on peak days.

Frequentflyer99

Meltdown was more of a reference to last minute cancellations than delays.

Surely the policy you mention being implemented this w/e is a recognition that it would be good to be reducing the pressures by losing pax at the moment. And this is before the additional pressures that the school hols will bring.

The possibility of being told at the very last minute that I can re-book something for a fixed date in the future is of no interest to me. It is a very significantly worse option than BWC.

It will be interesting to see whether BWC does make a comeback at some point. Are there any rumours that it is being considered yet ??

mmogdan

What is CB4D?

lost_in_translation

I just moved a Sunday flight to the Monday one I actually wanted using this tool online in MMB, seat is now showing as occupied on Expertflyer and availability shifted from J1 to J0 so I think this is working for rebooking within 180 days. Updated e-ticket receipt also received via email.

I must surely owe CWS a new mug or something by now

corporate-wage-slave

Customer Booking 4 (for) Disruption, a set of MMB control modules.

Frequentflyer99

Surely a Gold Cup !

Bullswood

"Is it not time to bring back Buy With Confidence?"

I reckon BA would be on thin ice to use that slogan again given current chaos.

Advertising Standards Rule 3.1 states “Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. When considering whether business to consumer advertising is misleading, the ASA will take factors identified in the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 including how the average consumer will interpret the ad and whether it is likely to cause consumers to take a transactional decision that they otherwise wouldn’t have taken."

scottishpoet

The schedule is still eratiics, the last few days have proven that, the seriously late arrivals of BA822 in CPH EVERY day this week show the schedule challenges BA has

Until this stops and the schedule is much more predictable then, in my opinion, BA should have left BWC available.

Tafflyer

For the last 2 years I have either been buying tickets last minute when it is mostly sure a service will operate or if the airline sells me a flexible ticket for a reasonable price. This means that from the 8th June I have not bought any BA tickets.

I would love to give BA more cash and redeem my outstanding vouchers for the TATL travel I need to do this Autumn but cannot do so because I do not have the confidence I might not need to change it. Flexible TATL tickets in J on BA are prohibitively expensive for me and so I find myself waiting to book. This would be different if BWC was still in effect.

Agent69

I would have thought that exactly the opposite was true.

BA introduced BWC as an inducement to fly when aircraft were empty. Now that flights are full I can see no need for it from a BA perspective.

USA_flyer

BWC was a truly excellent policy and i can see why they instituted it and then stopped it. What I would really like to see is a little more pragmatism whereby genuine distress (+ve covide test or other medical issues, bereavement for example) triggers the ability to reasonably change a ticket.

TedToToe

Does this include being able to book into a more expensive fare bucket without charge?

corporate-wage-slave

Potentially yes. You won't see that on screen though, you'll have to delve elsewhere for that information. That aspect is not new, it's happened many times before.

orbitmic

I totally agree with the OP. As the name says, BWC was all about giving people "confidence" in a period of uncertainty. Uncertainty is now at incredibly high levels for a whole variety of reasons - more diverse than when BWC was introduced but not any less likely to affect customers' confidence.

My worry is that BA won't because their planes are full anyway, because they worry about their finance, maybe even because they might (wrongly in my view) partly blame BWC for current flux in bookings and people changing plans. Personally, I'd be almost tempted to take things the other way round and say that BWC can act as a natural regulator. It implicitly encourages customers to take pressure off in periods when BA finds it hard to cope anyway, and it gives customers a sense that they are in control when doing exactly what BA might want or even need them to do anyway due to cancellations, which, by contrast, are far more likely to leave a bitter aftertaste as we say in endless threads on this forum almost every hour.

Ultimately, however, my guess is that this will all depend on what the competition does. A number of other airlines are being more generous than BA with continued change policies for now. I suspect that when BA ended BWC, they expected other airlines to similarly stop offering similar protections imminently. If they do not, however, thereby leaving BA as the "mean one out", this may make them rethink.

One option would of course be an intermediate one - a model that no longer allows cancellation for a voucher but does allow one free change on all bookings till at least the end of the year. This would be less good than BWC, but in my view, it would already go some way towards protecting confidence and good will on customers' part, and no matter how well sales are going right now, in as fragile an economic climate as the one we are experiencing at the moment, if BA (and for that matter other airlines) have any sense, they ought to realise that they might need customers' good will and sympathy in the very near future and that losing it just before it may count most could prove a catastrophic management mistake.