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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:

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

  • Ross says:
    11 Mar11 March 07:04

    Does anyone know the status of avios hotel bookings? We have a number of hotels booked in Europe using avios. If there are travel bans to those countries would BA let you rebook (even if avios bookings are non-refundable)?

  • Shoestring says:
    11 Mar11 March 07:45

    people can be both sympathetic to you not wanting to get stuck on a cruise ship Petri dish *and* to BA – why should they offer you a refund when the flight is still going as usual and there’s no FCO advice not to travel?

    I personally think the balance is right: ie independent FCO official advice determines the ‘fairness’ of BA’s position

    • xcalx says:
      11 Mar11 March 09:06

      I personally think the balance is right: ie independent FCO official advice determines the ‘fairness’ of BA’s position

      I can see the FCO eventually following the US State Department in advising against traveling on cruise ships. However with only a fraction of the worlds cruise traffic using UK ports it will be well down the list of priorities.

      I was reading reaction to the US Vice President Pence meeeting with cruise heads over the weekend. The general consensus was for the infected ships to return to their (US tax avoiding) port of registration to carry out the quarantine.

      I cant see my cruises in April happening but fingers crossed.

    • ChrisBCN says:
      11 Mar11 March 11:00

      Curious as to how you can square off your “petri dish” comment with your “pussycat virus” comments?

  • Paul says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:06

    Feels like BA’s policy is somewhat worse than American Airlines rtn .In Feb I booked an expensive flight (which actually includes flying on BA planes) to visit a client next week. Client is now banning all meetings. AA have not only waived changed fees but allow changes to cabin class as well as destination. If the new flight is cheaper (and/or I have to downgrade to Econ + because the new business class prices are more), they refund me the difference (albeit with an AA voucher). Not sure if BA is actually do that (in the past, they have locked me to the cabin booked, often resulting in thousands more £s being needed to be spent).

  • John G says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:12

    If booked through a travel agent will they issue the voucher or does one still need to contact BA? Is it the same answer on day of travel?

  • Richard says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:15

    Wow, I think they have really got what’s happening here! This might be the move that they need to start getting the market’s confidence back.

  • Matt says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:18

    Hi Rob,
    On the below – anyone who doesn’t travel / elects to lose their money – Will they still earn avios on those ‘missed’ flights? I’m guessing not…

    “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”

  • NotYou says:
    11 Mar11 March 09:26

    Mmmmm, I booked with BA last week but it’s not “BA Marketed”, it’s all IB flight numbers.

    I guess no chance to cancel and get a voucher, I didn’t see any policy regarding IB yet.

  • Shoestring says:
    11 Mar11 March 09:31

    Skyscanner: Airlines are dropping the price of their tickets to destinations across the world because of the decline in global travel caused by coronavirus.
    https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/cost-plane-tickets-dropping-up-3933679

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