Why is British Airways deliberately blocking online cash refunds for Avios flight bookings?

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• Cwyfan says:

  19 Mar19 March 06:25

  If you take the voucher, and it is based upon a lloyds free upgrade voucher, does anybody know what the voucher allows you to rebook, for instance same class, different destination, or do I need to go through avios in some way?

  I too believe it is unreasonable to make us call an already busy call centre. I makes BA look like they neither care about staff or customers, when they will need us both after this.

  • Iain says:

    19 Mar19 March 06:54

    Yes it would be useful to have some clarity on this.

    An historic Lloyd’s Avios article had comments which mentioned this is manually processed and some people received the full Avios back ie club world equivalent when having booked an upgrade from prem economy.

• Michael C says:

  19 Mar19 March 06:32

  I rang about cancelling my avios booking to Japan next week as, again, only saw the voucher online.
  The person dealing with me also only offered the voucher. When I said “But can’t I just cancel like a normal avios ticket for 35 GBP each?”, he said, “Well, yes…you could do that, too”.

  He was insisting on the cancellation fee (in fact, asking for 50 GBP to include “service”), so I said wasn’t that just making people wait for the cancellation?

  Long story short, cancellation email arrived an hour later.

• Genghis says:

  19 Mar19 March 06:40

  I don’t think the exam question was quite answered. So “Why is British Airways deliberately blocking online cash refunds for Avios flight bookings?

  Deliberate ploy to keep cash or “IT error”?

  • memesweeper says:

    19 Mar19 March 06:52

    The jury is out given the behaviour is inconsistent on different apps/browsers/platforms.

    When they fix *that* we’ll know what they were trying to do. For the time being I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

• Dave Barron says:

  19 Mar19 March 06:44

  This is exactly the position I’m in. We have an Avios booking on 3rd April from Newcastle to Chicago via Heathrow. The booking was made last summer using 92k Avios, two 241 vouchers, plus £1152 in “taxes”/fees. The flights have yet to be cancelled by BA and Manage My Booking still show them as scheduled. Reviewing the schedules BA appears to be cancelling 4 out of the 5 daily flights to Chicago (retaining the mid day flight presumably for US nationals returning home). Currently I can verify this on BA.com up to a week in advance but my scheduled flights are just over 2 weeks away. In terms of the domestic leg most flights are still running at present.

  My legal right is cancel up to 24 hours prior to departure if flights are cancelled for a full refund but I can’t yet request this as they’re not cancelled. For now I’m not prepared to cancel and be subject to the £35 per person fee (£140 loss for the 4 of us) so based on what I’m currently witnessing on BA.com I’m waiting until flights are officially cancelled approximately 7 days before departure – this will legally entitle me to a 100% refund of Avios, Cash element plus also return my two 241 vouchers (one of my which ordinarily would be close to expiry and the other which has approx 12 months validity left – although based on advice on HFP I would expect one or both of them to be extended).

  Since my booking was made last summer the taxes/fees element for these flights have changed and today would cost me approximately £200 more. I presumed if I rebooked for a future date I wouldn’t be charged more although given a future suitable date for us to go the the US (even if planes fly) would now be in the summer which would constitute peak Avios pricing and based on the terms of my original booking would result in an increased Avios fare as current tickets were booked as an Off Peak fare.

  I’ve decided to wait an get a 100% refund next week rather than a reduced refund now or a voucher. No doubt I will need to call BA to get it which is frustrating (particular given that only a week ago BA cancelled my domestic departure before the travel ban hit and despite then offering me a full refund online I opted to call them and rebook to an earlier domestic connection – being proactive a week ago is now delaying my refund!)

  The airline industry globally is in its knees but hopefully will bounce back as normality returns. I expect taking a longer term view the government will support the industry by abolishing Air Passenger Duty for a period – this theoretically could mean for example an Avios booking in 12 months time for example would be cheaper anyway. All theoretical of course but like I say personally I’d rather see my 100% refund now and review other options later down the line.

  Good luck folks and don’t be railroaded by BA (or others) denying you your rights.

  • Dave Barron says:

    19 Mar19 March 06:49

    P.S. Thanks to Rob and HFP – brilliant site.

    • Shoestring says:

      19 Mar19 March 08:53

      if flights get cancelled you have the right to be re-ticketed at no cost to yourself

      • Dave Barron says:

        19 Mar19 March 11:16

        My understanding is if the flights are cancelled and changed by me from the existing off peak tickets to peak tickets (e.g August) I would need to pay the increased Avios but there would be no change to charges applied?

        • Shoestring says:

          19 Mar19 March 15:47

          yes if you are choosing a much later date

          but if you had a non-peak date & that flight got cancelled, & the next possible date were peak, you wouldn’t in theory have to pay the difference

      • Dave Barron says:

        19 Mar19 March 16:07

        Thanks for your clarification Shoestring.

        • Dave Barron says:

          20 Mar20 March 05:18

          Just to confirm BA officially cancelled my Avios booking Thursday afternoon so I immediately called them. After a 15 minute wait I got through to a very helpful and friendly advisor who ordinarily was based at their Warrington call centre but was actually working from home.

          Full refund requested and advised to allow up to 10 working days to credit my Amex account. Avios were refunded immediately and to show in my account. My 2x 241 vouchers will apparently reappear in my account within 24-72 hours following manual intervention and advisor states they would in due course be extended if necessary.

          I really can’t praise the advisor enough and look forward to monies hitting my account soon.

• Paul says:

  19 Mar19 March 06:44

  Yes this does indeed seem to be a deliberate policy. They are also dragging their heals on cancelling services they know today have no chance of operating.

  I am due to fly to IAH in 2 week returning from a PHL 10 days later. They have known for a week that neither IAH nor PHL are on the list of 13 entry points but have not cancelled he outbound service but have cancelled the return. MMB tells me to call and I do not get the option of a voucher, not that I would touch that.

• Alex says:

  19 Mar19 March 06:45

  Maybe it’s just me, but if I access the cancellation option in Manage My Booking via my laptop, I get the voucher page. If I access via my iPhone using the safari browser, I get the avios cancellation page and can cancel for the avios + taxes? So the ones where I wanted to cancel (flight to South Africa) I could do this without calling BA, and got my 2for1 voucher, avios and cash back already. The one where I called up to cancel (imminent flight to US), I got my 2for1 and points back, but still waiting for refund from BA. Charged the £35pp fee in both cases.

• Karen says:

  19 Mar19 March 06:46

  Thank you so much for this article. I just today went online to cancel several avios bookings in May and got the voucher page.

• memesweeper says:

  19 Mar19 March 06:47

  OT: no bits (and a similar situation)

  I have a hotel booking in a few weeks in a hotel in France that is part of a small chain, and closed.

  I emailed to ask for my money back, they have offered a voucher, I have asked again for my money back and they have not replied. Next step is S75 via Amex I guess, but how long do I leave it? Will Amex need me to wait for the date of the booking to pass without the hotel being open? Or is their email saying it is closed on my dates now sufficient?

  • Genghis says:

    19 Mar19 March 07:04

    I put my first “Corona” dispute in with Amex on Tue night for something for today which had been cancelled and it was approved immediately with case closed. Never had that before. They didn’t even ask for supporting evidence.

    • Crafty says:

      19 Mar19 March 09:40

      How much money? Most of my Amex chargebacks have been for small amounts (sub-£20) and were approved without any checks. I think it’s a risk based approach, which is very sensible.

      • Genghis says:

        19 Mar19 March 10:24

        Only a tenner. When I’ve done similar amounts in the past they have gone for review. A risk based approach makes sense.

        • memesweeper says:

          19 Mar19 March 12:18

          mine’s for two grand! Chargeback initiated…

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