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British Airways will now offer refunds via a voucher

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Last week, British Airways launched its ‘Book with Confidence’ guarantee in an attempt to drive bookings.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t good enough.  I even gave it a hard time during my BBC World TV interview last week.

British Airways has now made it better AND extended it to cover bookings made to the end of March.

For clarity though …. anyone who booked before 3rd March is still stuffed.  On the majority of routes, they must travel if their flight is still operating or lose their money.

Full details of ‘Book with Confidence’ are on this page of ba.com.

British Airways Book With Confidence Guarantee

This is how ‘Book with Confidence’ now works:

For NEW bookings, and ONLY new bookings, made from Tuesday 3rd March to Tuesday 31st March for travel up to 31st December 2020, you will be able to:

change your flight to any future date without paying any change fees, or

request a full refund in the form of a British Airways voucher, valid for 12 months from the date of the first flight in your booking

This applies to all cabins on all routes.   You can trigger the change or voucher right up until the close of check-in of your originally booked flight.

Here is some small print:

It is only valid for British Airways marketed services, excluding Comair and SUN-AIR

If the flight you book with the voucher is cheaper than the value of the flight you cancelled, the extra can be carried over to another booking – you do not lose it

Multiple changes are allowed to the same booking – you can change the date and then decide to cancel the whole thing if you wish

If you change your flight, you must pay the fare difference if you want to move your flight to a date which is more expensive than the price you paid

Note the any money you pay for extra baggage or seat selection will NOT be refunded as part of the travel voucher.  However, your additional baggage and seating will be carried over to whatever flight you eventually book with the voucher.

The voucher is not transferable

You can find out more on ba.com here.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (71)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Paul Walker says:
    10 Mar10 March 21:32

    Bad Airline putting customers last again. Needs to be some serious increases in passenger communications and a more customer friendly approach to these situations. With so many staff cuts and failures recently it will be hard to bounce back from this.

  • Lee says:
    10 Mar10 March 21:34

    My wife and I are travelling from Dublin to Heathrow on 8th April returning 14th using Avios flying BA
    Between that we are using the 241 BA voucher to fly Heathrow to New York
    It’s too early to know now but at the moment we intend to go. If we decide to cancel I’m not sure if we can get our Avios and tax and surcharges refunded?
    If BA cancel will they extend the 241 voucher as its close to expiring
    If anyone knows would be grateful. Thanks

    • Nick says:
      10 Mar10 March 22:34

      Yes. Contrary to what Rob is saying, BA is extending all expiring 2-4-1s and GUFs on request (extension is for 6 months), it’s just a short call to ask.

  • Mr. AC says:
    10 Mar10 March 21:59

    This is quite good. BA will in fact probably see some of my money going their way before the crisis is over (either by containment succeeding or failing do fully that quarantine no longer makes sense).

  • Lee says:
    10 Mar10 March 23:18

    Thanks for that nick, good to know

  • Voltron says:
    10 Mar10 March 23:33

    Longterm, will no bookings for hotels / airlines cause devaluation for point schemes? Or would it be the opposite to attract people back into travelling.

    • Alex Sm says:
      11 Mar11 March 13:28

      @Rob, which way did it go after 9/11 and 2009 fin crisis?

      • Rob says:
        11 Mar11 March 15:10

        United was saying yesterday that it will take 18 months to get back to historic load factors. If this is true then you will see 18 months of good earn deals and generous reward availability.

  • RYAN Nelson says:
    11 Mar11 March 00:34

    Can British Airways also waive the change fee for persons who would have booked before March2020? because there are some persons who definitely will not be able to travel or may not want to risk travelling because of the coronavirus. Thanks for your consideration.

    • Lottie says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:09

      Yes they can as they did it for me on Monday. They changed a flight into Italy, that wasn’t on the do not fly list back then, to a flight to France on the basis that my 70+ i laws didn’t want to fly to Turin. (They have health issues) They waived the change fees. It was all done pretty quickly. He did tell me a few times it wasn’t policy but did it anyway.

      • Dravid74 says:
        11 Mar11 March 08:31

        wait so you sent them to the second most affected european country instead? eh?

        • Lottie says:
          11 Mar11 March 14:30

          Ha the whole family were booked on the flight. We didn’t have a choice as the accommodation is all in France but we were flying to Italy. If they cancelled the Italy flights we lost all our accommodation/ car hire/ ski etc money as it’s not in Italy. We are hoping that there is a UK/ France ban over the next 3 weeks as it’s escalating over there and we can claim all on the insurance. If not they won’t go at all.

  • IndiaCharlie says:
    11 Mar11 March 05:24

    Can this be used to “extend” a 241? Book before expiry then ask to delay to another time. I appreciate this is fully not what it is intended for 😉.

    • Vincent Teo says:
      11 Mar11 March 07:10

      Good question. I’d also be interested to know if this was possible. It does say all flights!

  • Peter says:
    11 Mar11 March 06:32

    I discovered yesterday that even if a flight is still planned to operate, some insurers will not provide cover for new bookings against any issues caused by Coronavirus on the basis that it is a pre-existing substantial risk.

    • Shoestring says:
      11 Mar11 March 07:34

      that’s because Covid-19 *is* a well-known existing risk now

      not so different to taking out home insurance on a flood plain/ flood risk area and T&Cs show that flooding has been excluded from the cover – ie shouldn’t come as a surprise

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