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This is the only way left to get an online refund for a British Airways Avios flight

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Are you trying to get a refund on a British Airways Avios flight ticket?  There is still one way – and only one way – to get a refund online.

This only applies to tickets where your Avios flight has not been cancelled yet.  If it has been cancelled, you need to join the queue for the British Airways call centre to request a cash and Avios refund if you don’t want a voucher.

I strongly recommend NOT taking a voucher on an Avios ticket.  Your Avios and, if applicable, your British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher are NOT returned separately if you take the voucher.

You get a voucher which contains Avios and the 2-4-1 and the cash element.  The voucher will expire after 12 months from your original flight date – and you must return by that date, not fly out – so you are at real risk of losing your Avios permanently.  Take the cash.

How can I claim an online refund for an Avios flight?

British Airways has deliberately hijacked its own website to stop the online cancellation form appearing.

On 19th March we published an article explaining how to get around this and get an online British Airways flight refund by amending the javascript settings in your internet browser.  It took them some time, but British Airways has now managed to block this workaround for desktop computers.

They forget to block the workaround for iPhones, however.  It does NOT work on iPads.

If you have an iPhone, you can still cancel an Avios redemption flight online, as long as the flight is still operating. 

There’s one thing to note.  When you cancel online, your refund is queued for manual cancellation.  It could take a couple of weeks to get the Avios back in your account, with the money taking even longer.  If you call BA, the Avios are returned immediately, although you must still wait for the cash.  If you want to rebook immediately, you need to call instead.

As your flight has not yet been cancelled by BA, cancellation fees will still be due.  The only way to avoid paying the cancellation fee (£35 per person on long haul flights, £1 or £35 on short haul flights depending on when you booked) is to wait and hope that British Airways cancels your flight which allows you to have a fee-free refund.

British Airways BA 777X 777 9X

This is how to cancel your British Airways flight online

This is what you need to do on your iphone.

Step 1

In the Safari browser, go to ba.com and log in to your account (do not use the British Airways app).

The person who originally booked must log in.  You CANNOT cancel if you are a passenger but were not the original booker.

Step 2

At ba.com, go into ‘Manage My Booking’ for the flight you want to cancel.  If you are asked if you want to use the new or current version of ‘Manage My Booking’, select ‘current’ if you want to follow the pictures below.

Step 3

Scroll to the bottom where you will see a link for ‘Cancellation options for this booking’ – DO NOT CLICK IT

Step 4

Go into ‘Settings’ on your iPhone and scroll down to ‘Safari’.  In the ‘Safari’ section, scroll to the bottom where you see ‘Advanced’ and click it.

Step 5

Under the ‘Advanced’ menu, disable JavaScript (turn the green button to grey)

Step 6

Return to ba.com and click ‘Cancellation options for this booking’

Step 7

You will be on the ‘Consent’ page.  Tick the box to say that you have the consent of all passengers to cancel, and click ‘Continue’

Step 8

And voila!  You are on the ‘Calculate refund’ page – DO NOT CLICK CONFIRM YET

Step 9

Return to the ‘Settings’ section of your iPhone settings.  Click ‘Safari’, scroll down to ‘Advanced’, click for the ‘Advanced’ menu and turn JavaScript back on (turn it from the grey below to green):

Step 10

Go back to the ‘Calculate refund’ page on ba.com, scroll down to ‘Confirm cancellation’ and click it.  You’re done.

Thank you to our readers who help finesse this process yesterday.  Good luck.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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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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.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (278)

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

  • Algor says:
    12 Apr12 April 06:11

    What is the cancellation fee when you do it with this workaround online?

  • MikeG says:
    12 Apr12 April 06:27

    In considering cash versus voucher, if the voucher is valid for 12 months, does that also extend the validity of the 2-4-1 to the same end date. I have LHR-DEL booked 2nd May, 2-4-1 originally ran out 26 June but now extended to 26 Dec. Would this effectively extend the 2-4-1 through to 2nd May 21.

    • AJA says:
      12 Apr12 April 08:24

      Yes the e-voucher is for 12 months from date of cancelled flight so in your case it lasts longer than the extended 2-4-1, sorry Companion Voucher. But bear in mind that BA keeps your Avios and any cash paid when you do this and you cannot book a new flight online using the e-voucher which means that there has to be reward seat availability and you have to phone to book. I would still rather have everything refunded.

      • Doug M says:
        12 Apr12 April 11:04

        I think this is the only circumstance where the voucher should be considered. But personally I’d sooner have the cash and Avios returned, and lose the voucher if there’s no further extensions.
        This is so BA, accept something quite poor instead of what they’re legally obligated to do. If they want to make the vouchers work they need to incentivise people. As usual this will work for them because the great majority of people are not aware of their rights.
        They know they can get away with this because the EC261 regulations have never been actively enforced. Sure you can go MCOL or other options, but there’s no regulatory teeth to make the airlines act in accordance with the regulations.

  • Prune says:
    12 Apr12 April 06:52

    Probably a really silly question, but if you take the voucher for a 2 for 1 Avios booking are you still constrained by Avios availability when wanting to use it or can you use it like a cash booking thus giving you ridiculous availability?

    • AJA says:
      12 Apr12 April 08:28

      There has to be reward seat availability and you can only redeem the e-voucher by calling up, you CANT do it online.

      A big negative for me given the issues everyone is experiencing calling BA at the moment and likely to be the case with everyone calling to make use of their e-voucher in the future.

  • Howard says:
    12 Apr12 April 07:00

    works for me up to step 10.

    Ask are you a passenger……but after clicking nothing happens….only option is ‘Back to manage my booking”.

  • Karen says:
    12 Apr12 April 07:06

    not working for us on an iphone. we are not seeing the consent page in step 7.

    • Howard says:
      12 Apr12 April 07:13

      Sorry I should have said the same….No consent page.

    • The other Kevin says:
      12 Apr12 April 07:25

      On IPad I see the consent page but then it still goes to the Voucher page.

    • Howard says:
      12 Apr12 April 07:33

      Get try…Thank you Rob…..I am trying on iPhone 10

    • Sloth says:
      12 Apr12 April 08:18

      The steps have been done slightly wrong. You need to disable Javacript AFTER you have selected the cancel my booking option, then you will see the consent page and then you disable JavaScript before clicking continue

  • Adam says:
    12 Apr12 April 07:10

    I paid £50 pp plus avios and a 241 to fly three of us to Gibraltar in club europe in early June. I very very much doubt we are going now – should I cancel using this process or wait for BA to cancel the flight?

    • AJA says:
      12 Apr12 April 08:35

      It’s a gamble, but if you think you won’t be going even if flights resume in June then I think cancelling now is the way to go. Bear in mind you will pay a cancellation fee which may be as little as 50p or as much as £35.

      I have had the same debate about my flights in July but I don’t have an iPhone or IPad so can’t cancel online now so I think I will wait for BA to cancel my flight and then call them. 🙁

      • Adam says:
        12 Apr12 April 13:32

        I may go in and see if it’s a 50p cancellation… if it is then go for it as I don’t think we’d want to travel now even if we could. If it’s £35 I’ll wait as that’s a lot x3 people… but could do with my 241 and 50k Avios back

        • Adam says:
          12 Apr12 April 13:37

          They want £35pp to cancel – so will leave it
          For now and hope they cancel it 👌🏼

  • J C says:
    12 Apr12 April 07:15

    Thanks HFP!

    Booked an Avios open jaw LHR-EDI-ABZ-LHR for two in May using two one way bookings and only the LHR-EDI leg had been cancelled. Was dreading having to phone up BA and beg them for understanding not to have to pay £70 to cancel a trip they had basically messed up for me.

    I don’t mind paying £1 to avoid the hassle!

  • RAJIV CHHABRA says:
    12 Apr12 April 07:18

    Hi
    I am struggling to get refund for a car hire booked with avios for a trip which was cancelled by BA
    Cannot apply for a refund voucher as it does not have the 6 character reference but a 8 digit refernece number?
    Can’t get through to a human being on the phone lines.
    Any ideas??

    • Tyra says:
      12 Apr12 April 07:58

      I‘d been trying for weeks and got through by not pressing any options. I waited about 15 minutes and then spoke to someone.

    • Anna says:
      12 Apr12 April 08:13

      BA contacted us by a couple of days before we were due to collect our hire car and offered a voucher which we accepted as in theory it should be a straight cash amount and not complicated by Avios/companion voucher. They immediately sent us an email confirming that this amount could be claimed against a future booking – a bit of a faff but we will definitely use it. It was a lot easier than waiting for ages on the phone. You don’t say when your booking is for but I would imagine they will contact you as well.

    • AJA says:
      12 Apr12 April 08:41

      Can you still see the booking if you search for it under MMB in your BAEC a/c in the other bookings with BA partners section? If so it should show you the 6 digit BA PNR.

      Alternatively you could try contacting Avis. Or if you are a member of Avis Preferred it might show up in your a/c there. Avis might just give you a voucher or credit directly.

      Good luck!

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

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