When should you accept a British Airways ‘Future Travel Voucher’ instead of a cash refund?

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• Meg says:

  7 Feb7 February 05:48

  Thanks Rob this is helpful! I have two tricky scenarios:
  – a CASH business class booking to Male booked in a sale. Currently BOTH flights still operating in Feb (the only ones going that week..) but obviously given national lockdown likely cannot travel. Preference here is to be moved to a new flight later in the year rather than voucher, as clearly chances of getting 2 x return biz seats for <£1000 each again is unlikely.
  – Avios 2-4-1 business class booking to Sydney booked in the avios sale in October 2020. Problem here is BA has stopped flying to Sydney and won’t resume until Nov 2021, more than 365 days past the booking date. Also refusing to put us on QR, CX etc. Again, don’t want the refund as unlikely to get 2x biz seats to sydney for 25% of the usual avios cost again, and also need to get to Sydney!

  Thoughts on best way forward on either?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    7 Feb7 February 06:40

    1) unless it’s cancelled or BA throw you some massive goodwill you’re going to lose those flights and have an FTV for <£1000 each. Sorry

    2) BA aren’t flying and probably won’t so they will cancel at some point, have to wait it out unfortunately. You can exercise your EU261 rights and have it moved (355 days is not your problem they can issue a new ticket) or ask for a convenient re route and if they point blank refuse you could buy new tickets and claim cash via MCOL. However, you need to wait until they are actually cancelled.

    • YC says:

      7 Feb7 February 07:40

      If BA cancels, Are they technically suppose to move ur flight to any date you wish? Even if they are not flying. E.g. Put you on QR on a new date?

      • TGLoyalty says:

        7 Feb7 February 10:04

        I think that would be an uphill battle unless they can’t find you anything else on the original dates.

      • kitten says:

        7 Feb7 February 19:11

        Yes
        Bearing in mind provided they reroute you’with reasonable despatch’ BA gets to choose which airline they reroute you on.

  • Sue says:

    7 Feb7 February 08:18

    I am confused. I understood they are now giving e vouchers not future travel vouchers, which ARE transferable to another name? They are effectively just a credit note valid till April 23. All the future travel vouchers I was given (for flights I opted to cancel.. not cancelled by BA) were replaced with e vouchers which are easy to use online. New e voucher received instantly for the remaining credit. Ps for the many flights I had with BA which they cancelled I was refunded in cash very promptly… if you don’t count the time it took to speak to a human being to say I wanted cash not voucher.

    • The real John says:

      7 Feb7 February 13:00

      Those are for paid flights. Redemption flights need to be FTVd if BA doesn’t cancel

      • kitten says:

        7 Feb7 February 19:13

        redemption flights can still be refunded just that unlike FTV you pay cancellation fee

• Mike says:

  7 Feb7 February 06:20

  Keep trying. I moved 3 first seats (2 as a 241) to Miami from March 21 to Nov21 that were booked in the 50% Avios sale on October 6th. The first guy only gave the option of moving to the end of June when the 50% sale was up Tomas mentioned the 12 month thing too. 2nd guy just took my new dates and changed without hesitation.

• Gtellez says:

  7 Feb7 February 06:21

  I have a 241 voucher that expires on October. Could I book something cheap (like London-Manchester) using the voucher and some avios, then cancel it and request an evoucher? Then, according to the article, I could use the evoucher for different flights (like Tokyo) paying the difference in Avios until 2023? Thanks.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    7 Feb7 February 06:41

    Yes absolutely but the 2nd passenger name will be fixed so no flexibility there.

  • Tom says:

    7 Feb7 February 07:14

    Yep – I did exactly that for a FTV which was expiring. Process of booking and requesting the FTV took minutes. Much easier than I expected!

    • Den says:

      7 Feb7 February 09:48

      I have a voucher expiring in March 2022, maybe this is around the earliest I am going to travel anywhere now. But as highlighted I have just looked at trying to find the cheapest reward flights – £70 with 2-4-1 voucher. So £70 to extend the voucher to April 2023! when hopefully travel will be really opened up. You wont lose the money if you re-book but the voucher is extended by 13 months! So do I wait a while to see if vouchers are to be extended? Also it depends how long the new cancellation/extension of the voucher is current! And when cheap reward flights are available! However, as we travel a lot, this is a very good way of taking the stress away of risking the loss of a 2-4-1 voucher!

• James says:

  7 Feb7 February 06:49

  I’ve got two First tickets from Heathrow to Dallas booked for next month. They were booked in the 50% avios sale and I used a BA Amex 2-4-1 voucher. If they offer a FTV, does that mean we can travel in 2022 or 2023 on the same route without having to use more avios? It was such a good deal that I would prefer this than an avios refund.

  • Rob says:

    7 Feb7 February 11:04

    No. You will need full Avios.

  • kitten says:

    7 Feb7 February 19:20

    But if BA cancels any flight on your booking or significantly reschedules it you can choose to reroute samevtravel at a later date that suits you no extra charge, no more avios payable, 241 seat still included even if the voucher that earned it had expired.

    Hold till very near the flight for something to be cancelled then call them to say you bevrequesting by reroute at a later date esp if what’s cancelled is not the first leg – let them know you intend to reroute even if you will need to call back again to sort out reroute dates.

    • kitten says:

      7 Feb7 February 19:22

      If they don’t cancel then as above you will either need to take FTV with disadvantage Rob mentions, or cancel yourself incurring cancellation costs

• TripRep says:

  7 Feb7 February 06:52

  “Avios flight booking which has been cancelled?”

  Got this situation using a 241 (soon to expire) to the Maldives

  As we know it’s the hardest route to find Avios availability.

  If I take a FTV, do I need the future flight booking to also have Avios availability for me to book or is their more grace/flexibility around this?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    7 Feb7 February 07:06

    Yes an FTV is just a voucher of the payment for the flight not the actual route.

    You would need to find availability and pay whatever the price is on the date you book.

    You would be better off moving your flights to a future date.

    • Genghis says:

      7 Feb7 February 08:31

      And if flights for future date don’t work:
      – refund everything
      – just before 241 expiry book a one way economy zone 1, then take a FTV

      • TripRep says:

        7 Feb7 February 17:18

        Thanks for the tips all.

• Andrew porwol says:

  7 Feb7 February 07:24

  I’ve had trouble with Avios seats that have been cancelled. Agent not offering to rebook unless Avios available or only booking 14 days ahead (pointless with current restrictions) is there somewhere on BA website that quotes this rule. 1 agent did rebook tho without any issues.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    7 Feb7 February 07:35

    It’s best to read up on EC261 as your legal rights are stronger than whatever’s in BA’s T&Cs

  • kitten says:

    7 Feb7 February 19:27

    rubbish as frequently stated by posters here if BA cancels you are entitled to any seat for sale in same cabin on your own preferred new date they cannot refuse.

    Currently you may meet resistance if your preferred new travel date on is more than 12 months after youe purchase but IMV within reason that resistance should stop being there soon

    • Jonny says:

      22 Feb22 February 16:13

      Was due to fly to Barbados in April on an Avios booking with 2-4-1. BA have today cancelled this flight. Rang them up to re-schedule at Xmas and they have stated that because there is no Avios seat availability in December then they can’t rebook. I asked if they can open up 2x seats on the requested flight and they said they can’t do that. I explained that they had done exactly that on another booking (to Johannesburg) and the guy said that they have changed their policy, or rather they have reverted back to their non-enhanced policy. I sked them when this had happened and he said he didn’t have that information. Am I being fobbed off here, or has anyone else experienced this recently?

      • Rhys says:

        22 Feb22 February 16:15

        You’re being fobbed off. If they have cancelled your flights then reward availability shouldn’t matter.

        • Jonny says:

          22 Feb22 February 16:27

          Hi Rhys. I’ve tried calling twice now and spoke to two different call centre people, but they have both said they can’t do this. They both stick to the same story that if there is no Avios availability on the new flight then it can’t be changed. They originally said this for the Johannesburg flights as well, but then they spoke to someone higher up the food chain and they opened up two seats. Granted that was back in October, but we’re still in the same Covid situation. Any thoughts on how to progress?

• Debbie Chandler says:

  7 Feb7 February 07:45

  We made an Avios booking on an Amex 2-4-1 voucher flying to Capetown on 9 Feb 2021. The flight has been cancelled. We made the booking on 21 Feb 2020. We want to rebook to Capetown for Feb 2022. We will take a Future Travel Voucher as the 2-4-1 would expire this month if we took a refund. Can we rebook onto any flight or do we have to find a flight that has AVIOS availability?

  • Rob says:

    7 Feb7 February 11:02

    Needs Avios seats

    • Redhroogar says:

      10 Feb10 February 19:10

      BA cancelled our BA flights (4 people) to Antigua on the 15th March having already cancelled the 8th March. These tickets had been booked in Oct using 2-4-1s and 50% discounted Avios. They rebooked us for Dec 21 without too much hassle. Were we just lucky?
      Just to complicate matters the original booking made in May 2020 was for 1st December 20 which they cancelled, and I moved to 2nd December before cancelling that myself a) because it was obvious BA were unlikely to fly and b) to save the 50% on the Avios deal. Unfortunately I didn’t realise that the £528 we’d paid for seats was nonrefundable. Still fighting that issue. Doesn’t S75 apply since I paid with Amex BA CC, and they didn’t provide the service? (I would have accepted a transfer to the new booking).

  • kitten says:

    7 Feb7 February 19:35

    This is a classic case of why it’s untenable for BA to claim they cant rerpute someone more than 12 months after original ticket issue.

    It just requires a new ticket to be issued to give the passenger their rights which is a minor admin issue BA should not be claiming forces passengers into lesser solutions than their rights provide.

    I wouldnt accept thia would HUACA ask to be rebooked to my new chosen date, if they mumble 12months tell them that IATA restriction does not apply to involuntary reroutings which this is, ask them to reissue endorsing it INVOL otherwise just issue a new ticket.

    In your situation I would simply not accept this as their cancellation is not your fault

• Rolf says:

  7 Feb7 February 07:51

  Hi there, any idea if FTVs also work with Lloyds upgrade vouchers?

  • Kevin says:

    7 Feb7 February 15:02

    Rob has mentioned in this article worth to check

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