British Airways will refund ALL flights to 31st May for a voucher – but should you say no?

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• Yasmin says:

  13 Mar13 March 21:02

  I have a flight with non-refundable hotel for part of the trip. BA sites says you forfeit this amount if you accept the voucher. However, the hotel is Hilton who are refunding advance purchases even though they are non-refundable. Should BA not apply this policy?

  • Lady London says:

    13 Mar13 March 21:19

    Hotels within holidays are done in a different way and you are not the counterparty in the hotel booking, BA is. Even if Hilton is refunding standalone non-holiday bookings this is completely irrelevant to the arrangements you have.

• Lady London says:

  13 Mar13 March 21:16

  I took one look at your opening paragraph and thought the same as you Rob.

  BA knows they’re about to cancel a LOT of flights. Around 50% give or take 10% will be in their plans and then they’ll see what more needs to be done.

  Knowing this, this is a cynical effort by British Airways to get unaware customers to get BA off the hook for EU261 duty of care costs. EU261 duty of care is always payable regardless of the cause of cancellation and regardless of its date.

  If customers cancel now then BA owes them no duty of care. This removes a lot of cost. Bear in mind that BA will be charging as much as it can for flights that remain running.

  Worse, by canceling now and taking a voucher, who knows how much you will have to pay for a flight to use that voucher? Guess what BA’s preference is a about what price you should pay.

  If you wait till BA cancels then it’s you not BA that chooses if you take a refund or a reroute. Actually id ask for a reroute. That gives me duty of care and price protection. If BA is decent they’ll allow tickets to be rebooked far into the future and come to an arrangement with the passenger that no duty of care is needed for this particular change. I’ve done that a couple of times with another airline – I didn’t even want duty of care just a relaxed rebook. Once I made that clear there was no problem in ticket being reissued for a long date ahead.

  If anyone still is inclined to fly their route in the future just not yet sure when, I suggest you consider Robs advice, wait and see if BA cancel, then make your decision.

  If anyone has really lost their taste for travelling where they had booked, at all, and just needs certainty then if possible wait and see if BA cancels. They will make sure they cancel at least 14 days ahead for almost everything. (For their benefit, not yours.) If they cancel you get cash back if you choose to refund and not reroute, and it’s done.

  However if you cancel now and take a voucher you haven’t got closure, you are still trapped with BA possibly price gouging you when you try to use it, whereas if they cancel you won’t be trapped and can close it how you like – cash back, or reroute+duty of care.

  Given the slot decision just handed down I think this is BA in full knowledge of what they’re going to do, serving you a cake that they are going to take back most of themselves and eat.

  • Alex says:

    13 Mar13 March 21:33

    Completely agree, except I am on an 8am flight to Amsterdam tomorrow and have just called BA to request my voucher, initially they refused, they literally weren’t aware that the policy had changed. I had to argue on the phone and point them to their own website. Have got confirmation from them, that I can use credit in next twelve months. This is because I am due to fly to the US next week, although looking more likely that the travel policy will change…. The US booking is avios though, so more relaxed on that one. What a complete mess!

    • Alexander Weaver says:

      13 Mar13 March 21:34

      (you need to request voucher before check-in closes which didn’t give me much time….)

    • Lady London says:

      14 Mar14 March 15:18

      Yes of course in your case with flight imminent and not cancelled and not significantly rescheduled by BA of course you take the voucher.

  • PlaneConcorde says:

    13 Mar13 March 23:57

    +1
    I agree with you. Well said.

• Marko says:

  13 Mar13 March 21:23

  How long does it take to receive the voucher? It says 48 hours, but could it take much longer due to the massive amount of requests?

  I have a flight booked for the upcoming Wednesday that I want to cancel for a voucher…

• ChrisC says:

  13 Mar13 March 21:30

  Extra confusion now, I just had reward availability come up to bring my US 3 Apr flight forward to the 1st Apr, which would be more convenient but that would be a change fee. Given the possibility of a US ban it is dubious change to make, on the other hand it brings it closer to 14 days and being cynical the EC261 would be nice. I guess leave it for now and wait for the chaos to play out.

  • Shoestring says:

    13 Mar13 March 21:32

    US ban = extraordinary circumstances

• Fiona Kenny says:

  13 Mar13 March 21:39

  Reward flights booked for 3rd April. If there’s a travel ban, any idea how these might be dealt with?

  • Shoestring says:

    13 Mar13 March 21:42

    ie flight cancellation, which means you can choose between refund or re-ticketing

    reward flights count the same as cash tickets here

• Peter Taysum says:

  13 Mar13 March 21:51

  I’m travelling tomorrow on “holiday” so not possible to give 48 hours notice, have applied for voucher anyway. Hotels have all refunded advance booking charges when I pointed out I’m an ED Doctor who is looking after sick patients. See what happens. I’ve cancelled everything else until end of May.

  Hi hum.

  • Polly says:

    15 Mar15 March 08:11

    Take as much care as possible. You are doing an amazing job. I am out of that work now, but they are calling for us to return to help out. But with an even older OH, difficult decision.

• Reeferman says:

  13 Mar13 March 22:01

  I have a flight booked on a r.t. ticket: LHR/OSL on 23rd Mar and CPH/LHR on 10th Apr. Denmark is closing its borders tomorrow so it’s highly likely BA will cancel the 10th Apr flight over the coming days. If so, can I cancel the whole r.t. for a full refund, even though the LHR/OSL flight is still scheduled? If so, does EU261 apply – as well as the BA cash refund?

• Mark says:

  13 Mar13 March 22:07

  This flying with confidence is a scam by British Airways. Have just spent three hours on the phone with British Airways and they will not let me travel back early tomorrow to London instead of Tuesday for free, despite saying you can change your date of travel, if before 31 May 2020, for free!

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