Workaround found. How to trigger an online British Airways flight refund using Google Chrome

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• Lady London says:

  31 Mar31 March 12:38

  A key point.
  British Airways does not owe you a refund for a flight they cancelled or moved significantly because it’s in their terms and conditions.

  They owe you a refund because statute EC261 / EU261 says you have the right to a refund (or a later reroute on a date you want) if they cancel or move any flight in your booking significantly. This right is in EU and UK law. It overrides any terms and conditions of your purchase of the flight.

  Importantly you have the right to a full refund for this happening to even 1 flight even if your ticket is “nonrefundable”.

  You do not have to accept a voucher. You do not have to pay any cancellation or amendment fees to the airline. You do not have to pay the difference between your ticket cost and the higher ticket cost of your same flights if you choose to do same flights on a later date of your choosing instead of taking a refund. If the airline is not flying your route when you need to travel then they must provide you a ticket on another airline free of charge.

  The above choices are yours to make and the airline cannot refuse your choice.

  Your booking qualifies for these rights if it is on a Europe or UK airline departing from anywhere, and your booking qualifies if it is on a non UK non European airline if your booking departs out of UK or Europe.

  When they cancel or try to amend your flight significantly the airline is legally obliged to inform you of your rights above. If they do not and you mistakenly accept a voucher I believe you would have the right to state they did not inform you of your rights and demand a refund. IIRC Ryanair got fined heavily for not informing customers of their rights to refund/reroute.

  If you need accomodation and if mealtimes occur during any delay of flight or rescheduled flight the you also have a further right under same legislation for these called duty of care which you can look up. If you take a refund or a rebooking to a date of your choice far ahead you do not get this.

  • Vit says:

    31 Mar31 March 12:50

    Many thanks. This is much clearer now. Mine is just £200 and 2 weeks till the flight (which has been cancelled). I will:

    1. Sit tight now till 72 hours before departure to call them.
    2. If cannot get through still, at least my flight is cancelled, so nothing much I can do still.
    3. May consider chargeback option at the end of April if I cannot get through to them (2 weeks after).

    • Lady London says:

      31 Mar31 March 13:20

      EU261 says if you choose refund they have to refund you in either 7 or 14 days (I forget which – the legislation text is very readable and disable but I don’t have time right now).

      However in these times iwould give the airline 28 and probably a bit more. If the airline goes bust though you would lose your money if you’ve not been paid before. You could also lose your money if they are forced to ‘restructure’ in a way that means they are rebuilt without any of the old debts including your refund that was due. I hasten to say there is no way I expect British Airways to be forced to do this as their situation is relatively strong.

• Howard says:

  31 Mar31 March 13:19

  I have been caught out with cash booking with Easyjet…..Surprise trip for my wife and I had 2 x 12 seats In paid for…..

  Anyone with chargeback experience…

  Amex Plat did the chargeback within 24 hours and now have a letter advising that money in my account but Easyjet can challenge…I did a chat contact and they are saying they are supporting their customers….I am hopeful Amex do not overturn decision..

  As for Capital on Tap its a different story……I have 12 Easy Jet for the return flight plus 12 concert seats…….the venue in Amsterdam will not refund the money………Capital on Tap is very different….they won’t do the chargeback immediately……They have told me they will ask Easyjet and the venue for an explanation…I am not confident they will be strong enough to cancel…

  • Lady London says:

    31 Mar31 March 13:22

    This kind of situation is where Amex has proved it’s worth over decades.

    • Howard says:

      31 Mar31 March 13:32

      Agreed!!

    • Vit says:

      31 Mar31 March 14:00

      Agreed. Waited more than 6 weeks after cancellation of two bookings through an agent. Did not hear from them since. Went for charge back through AMEX. Got money right away. I don’t care if I I have to pay back the agent fees later but at least the money is back in my account now.

      • Lady London says:

        31 Mar31 March 15:53

        Yes the airline cannot deduct anything from your refund. Even if their TS and C’s say they can. Not in this situation. However if you booked through a travel agent then if their TS and C’s say you owe the agent a fee then you do have to pay. Which is fair enough as agents hardly ever earn from airlines anymore.

  • Howard says:

    31 Mar31 March 13:31

    Capital on Tap (just on phone) the system is different….They give 30 days for dispute response….if not they put money back on the account or if not they argue customers case….We shall see

• Howard says:

  31 Mar31 March 14:00

  Had a call back from them….Have to say they seem able to deal with this…..Different style to Amex….Very helpful on the phone..

• Catalan says:

  31 Mar31 March 14:14

  BA could have easily avoided all this nonsense if they’d invested in a proper marketing team. In order to promote the take up of the flight voucher they should have incentivised customers by increasing the value of the voucher above the cash fare paid, (similar to what they do for oversold flights eg £500 cash or £800 in vouchers). Life would have been so much simpler for the customer and the poor staff in the call centers.
  Instead, BA chose to employ IT staff to block a customer’s right to a cash refund for a service that they have cancelled.

  • Rob says:

    31 Mar31 March 14:14

    Can’t argue with that.

  • Vit says:

    31 Mar31 March 14:21

    Very fair point, Catalan. Hate to be a pessimist but as a realist, I think they know exactly what they are doing and they chose the “IT option” you mentioned above everything else. A sad reality, I know. 😐

    • Lady London says:

      31 Mar31 March 15:58

      …for which, the regulator should punish them heavily as soon as regular cashflow returns. If the regulator does not punish British Airways for this as soon as it becomes practically possible then British Airways will just intensify all the tricks they were already getting up to to deny passengers obviously due compensation (in peacetime, whereas not due now).,,,well if BA is not punished for this then the regulator has got no ****s.

• Steve O'Hara says:

  31 Mar31 March 15:03

  Would it be in your favour of taking the dreaded voucher for a 241 booking in this scenario: 241 voucher if returned even with 6 month extension will expire in October 2020, but BA refund voucher will be able to be used for 12 months from date of flight ie May 2021? Assuming the BA refund voucher will enable you to book the exact same flights in same class etc next year and you won’t lose out by taking it this way?

  • Lady London says:

    31 Mar31 March 15:46

    Problem with accepting a voucher (which you legally do not have to)

    – voucher has expiry date. Cash doesn’t.
    – voucher can only be used with same airline.
    – voucher is only same value as you paid. Who’s to say that when airlines fly again they are likely to keep lots of reasonably priced seats available? You only get credited your voucher money but they may now want a much higher price. Do you could be stuck with a limited voucher you don’t have other money to add to, to replace your flight.

    If an airline sating they will give you a credit voucher is shaky or not supported by government, you could lose your voucher. The airline may be restructured and still fly again under the same name but you could STI fund your voucher dies not need to be honoured by the new entity.

    For the avoidance of doubt I think British Airways is solid enough and will honour the voucher but the other issues make taking a voucher worse than cash for most people.

    If you do want to travel on a later date, even much later, you have the right to have the airline give you a new ticket for that instead. And you would not have to pay any fare difference even if prices on the later date turn out to be higher. This is true even for avios tickets and even if no avios seats are available in your chosen future flight.

    • Steve O'Hara says:

      31 Mar31 March 15:58

      The cash that would be returned though would be taxes and charges only and the remainder refunded as avios and return of the 241 voucher. If the same flight was to be booked next year, the 241 voucher would have expired and the cash received would not go far in buying a cash ticket in business class which was the original booking.
      “If you do want to travel on a later date, even much later, you have the right to have the airline give you a new ticket for that instead. And you would not have to pay any fare difference even if prices on the later date turn out to be higher. This is true even for avios tickets and even if no avios seats are available in your chosen future flight.”
      This is interesting? Why are they legally obliged to do this when they can refund you exactly what you used to pay in the first place, eg cash, avios and voucher? I’ve no idea how this would work in practice!

      • Lady London says:

        31 Mar31 March 16:28

        Yes eu261 means one of your choices is to same trip on later date that suits you. You can Google text of ec261 eu261 it’s very readable. Posts here have stated also but volume of posts makes hard to find.

        For a big trip this is well worth considering. Just think about things like are you certain you can do the nee date. Will you still be comfortable travelling if you would have to get new insurance that would exclude covid cover. Flights may run again but there could still be issues you would be uncofirtable with. If your new flight runs and you are not on it you could lose pretty much everything.

        If I had snagged 241 tix to Sydney in j or f and if I felt I would never get another 241 then I’d give the later reroute option some serious thought. After all, we all have to hope for the future, hey?

      • Lady London says:

        31 Mar31 March 16:29

        Refund or rebook us y o u r choice not the airline’s. Even if they try to deny.

        • Lady London says:

          31 Mar31 March 16:36

          If an avios booking you could take a refund including the avoid but who’s to say avuos prices will buy you same flight in future? Who’s to say BA doesnt force up ‘taxes'(that they mostly keep) even higher for your same ticket when you come to rebook?

          In reroute situation there doesn’t have to be avios seats available on the flight you are rerouted onto. They are supposed to put you in revenue seat if no avios seats and you have the right to be rerouted in “comparable conditions” (generally taken to be same class of travel)

  • AJA says:

    31 Mar31 March 18:47

    Steve If you take the e-Voucher instead of having your 2-4-1 and Avios returned to you BA holds the Avios in the background for you to use with the e-Voucher which means that you will still have to find Avios reward availability in the future. The biggest issue for me though is that you can’t redeem the e-Voucher online which means you have to phone up to redeem it. It may make sense to take the voucher if you have paid cash for choosing a seat as that is included in the voucher value.

    • Steve O'Harat says:

      1 Apr1 April 09:36

      Thanks AJA. The not being able to use it online thing seems ridiculous. Quite unbelievable in fact. I guess my point of if it would be in your interests to take the e-voucher instead purely comes down to the fact that it will allow you to travel beyond when you normally would if your 241 voucher expires. I wonder if the e-voucher contains double the amount of avios that were needed for the original booking for use in a future avios redemption then due to the fact that a 241 voucher was used originally?! This is so complicated!

      • Lady London says:

        1 Apr1 April 12:12

        I suspect using the ticket number as a voucher ref. is a quick and dirty solution to get something up and running without having to write code or employ loads of people to administer it. Sort of an emergency solution really.

        So when you come to use it they will have to manually look at your old ticket to see what you had, I guess

• Vit says:

  31 Mar31 March 15:53

  Got through to BA Customer service team at around 1530hr today and be able to claim full refund back on two bookings with outbound flight cancelled. My outbound flight was not due in 2 weeks. I guess I am just being extremely lucky — after less than 10 tries.

  • Railman says:

    31 Mar31 March 16:25

    Is that for a cash booking or Avios?

    • jamie says:

      31 Mar31 March 16:34

      Indeed, until you know exactly what the voucher might be worth you could easily make a wrong decision

    • Vit says:

      31 Mar31 March 20:20

      Hi, that was for cash booking, asking for full refund. All I would say, is keep trying.

• Kashif Chaudhry says:

  31 Mar31 March 16:39

  So, I managed to speak to a human being today to cancel my avios booking. Below is a summary to help others. Tyoed on my phone, so apologies.

  – i called a week ago, they wouldnt deal with my query as it was over 72 hours from travel
  – i tried for hours the past few days. No joy. At one point heard a message about the UK call centre opening at 5.30
  -rang at 5.30 this am. Kept looping through a recording, before cutting off my call
  -At 6.03am it started ringing and out me in a queue
  -59 mins and 50 seconds later I was cut off. Must be a ridiculous limit befire they hang people up
  -called again and a lovely human spoke. She offered to rescedule or refund
  -i chose the latter
  -she out me on hold and came back a few minutes later to tell me that my points should be credited back tonight and refund could take upto 10 days to hit my bank
  -Ive not had any email confirmation of any sort, but my points came back into my Exec Club account within a couple of hours

• Amy BL says:

  31 Mar31 March 16:39

  Just called the main phone number they want you use: 0800 727 800 from within the UK
  Got through straight away and a full refund issued – was reminded it would take 7-14 days to appear.
  As other commenters have said, don’t press 1 to speak to someone about a refund, keep holding and press 2 when offered a second menu to speak to someone about a flight.

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