Big news: BA is being more flexible on rebooking your cancelled flights

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• Alex Sm says:

  19 Jul19 July 07:10

  In our case (50% sale PLUS 2-4-1) BA was not flexible at all and did not want to move us to another carrier, after Seoul flights were stopped altogether and we HAD to accept a refund…

  • John says:

    19 Jul19 July 07:44

    … or sue BA

  • Sam G says:

    19 Jul19 July 08:43

    BA would have booked you on Malaysian Airlines, no good this year though for a holiday!

    Not sure now if you’d have left it you could have now got them to rebook for next year on MH but that’s a very long way around anyway so not ideal

  • Lady London says:

    19 Jul19 July 12:41

    You did not have to accept this at all. It seems BA just loves to walk away from any route it drops or suspends for a period and just walks away abandoning passengers or bullies them into a refund by just stonewalling them.

    EU261 says no matter how inconvenient for BA, they are responsible for providing you with alterative transportation on themselves or another airline(s) for what you booked. If they haven’t got an agreement currently valid with their own preferred choice of other airline to do this (such as BA was claiming with Qatar) not your problem Ba is still responsible to provide this including any additional cost now required.

    Do not be forced into a refund if you want to take your EU261 rights to travel as near to your original travel date as possible, or to rebook your travel dates to later dates convenient to you.

    Amongst these options or a refund is your choice not the airline’s. Not onerous to enforce by MCOL, low fees that you get back as you will win as the law clearly gives you this. Hearings by post or phone typically and done with despatch when done. CEDR no cost but use only where the law does not quite support you and you are looking for reasonableness as CEDR arbitrator is not obliged to follow the law and you may get a perverse decision. Whereas MCOL judge is obliged to uphold the law.

    Don’t be bullied.

  • numpty says:

    19 Jul19 July 14:28

    I was in the same situation with flights to KL. I was able to rebook to KL with Qatar with little hassle, other than I wanting the flight to be with MH (for convenience) and the agent repeatedly trying to get me to take a FTV, was a long phonecall.

    • Polly says:

      19 Jul19 July 22:22

      I was forced to accept SIN flights when our kul ones were cancelled. Really pushed for QR but BA adamant they were correct..

      • Lady London says:

        19 Jul19 July 23:01

        Polly as an expert if you got caught by British Airways’s stonewalling, what hope has the average person who buys a British Airways ticket got.

        • Lady London says:

          19 Jul19 July 23:04

          If you had a recording I suspect you could take it to court and demand the rights you had that were denied you by BA.

          Remember if BA cancels your flight you can take your time to try to sort it – so long as they either cancelled your first flight on the booking or you told them that because they’d cancelled a later flight on the booking you wouldn’t be on the first flight on the booking and you would get back later to them to choose what you want to do with the booking (refund or rebook), you don’t have to sort this by the date of your flight. You can let it go and take your time to decide what you want and pursue it with them the booking does not disappear.

• Claire says:

  19 Jul19 July 07:21

  I have a booking to usa which I expect the outbound to be cancelled in next 2 weeks. The inbound is not available to book till 11th sep. Do I have to wait till then to use this policy and will it matter that the outward leg date for this year will have passed. Should you do the flights for next year as soon as they are available ie 355 day mark?

• Lionel says:

  19 Jul19 July 07:24

  About time too. BA only changed their policy because they were getting bad press and being scolded by CAA and were embarrassing themselves. Far too slow British Airways!

• Manya says:

  19 Jul19 July 07:38

  Any chance of BA ‘correcting’ past bookings?

  For example, original booking was cancelled and you moved to a future date of 12 months within booking but if given option of 12 months within flight date you would have selected a date further out.

  • Jonathan says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:07

    No chance. If you don’t like what they are offering &/or think you are legally entitled to a better offer then you should never accept it.

    If you leave the booking then you can still get a refund down the line but once you make a free date change they have fulfilled their obligations. Wait & see if there is another cancellation which might be likely if it’s a longhaul route.

    • Manya says:

      19 Jul19 July 09:09

      But the options initially presented by BA were incorrect so surely the liability is still on them?

      • HBommie says:

        19 Jul19 July 09:43

        Give them a call, it would be interesting to hear your outcome.

        • Manya says:

          19 Jul19 July 10:05

          I called – very unhelpful and robotic UK based CSA. Said no further options would be presented as I accepted one of the options presented at the time and ticket was rebooked. I questioned if all the options presented at the time fulfilled BA’s legal obligations but her response was very much from a script that she couldn’t comment on the legal obligations and that I had accepted the option presented to me. Repeat circular reference for another 5 mins.

      • Lady London says:

        19 Jul19 July 12:59

        Practically Manya once you take an option you are stuck with it and have no redress and no way of correcting. Even if airline acted incorrectly by not informing you of your rights (BA and most), refusing to communicate (eg TAP), refusing options you had a right to and asked for, stonewalling and bullying you, claiming incapacity to provide what you’re entitled to (“system says no”, “supervisot says no”, “we don’t have an agreement with x other airline that flies there” etc.

        Even if all of the above was how you were treated, you only get one chance to choose when an airline cancels your flight.

        Practically I think it would take a massive class action to prove systematic abuse by an airline for a judge or a regulator to order BA or another airline to reinstate passenger rights and I think that’s too hard to do to help individuals if they have let an airline deny their rights and taken a worse choice thsn they would have.

        The best action if you are getting nowhere and being denied a right you have is to do nothing with that flight. Don’t confirm any change even if the system shows a seat is held for you on another flight you didn’t choose. Don’t confirm. If it’s the first flight on the booking the system has pencilled in a different flight for that you don’t want, avoid looking like a no show and let them know you won’t be taking that flight and you will resolve what you will be doing with the booking at a later point. Then just leave it while you try to get the choice you’re entitled to or MCOL – the date of the flight can pass meanwhile.

• Liz says:

  19 Jul19 July 07:41

  This is great news but too late for us. We decided to cancel our Vancouver/Rockies road trip for Aug and took a refund. We then tried to rebook for next May and after 3 attempts couldn’t secure the return flights from Vancouver so gave up and rebooked our Seattle/Washington/Oregon road trip from last year instead. I know we could have booked Seattle for our return flight but didn’t want to complicate it with 2 countries and different covid rules. You win some you lose some but good news for existing bookings.

  • Lady London says:

    19 Jul19 July 13:07

    Sensible comment Liz. With those countries lightening of Covid restrictions wasn’t coming soon enough anyway so you probably haven’t lost out.

    Points up that not making any decision till, say, 36 hours before you have to (in case of difficulty getting through on phone lines) may be a good idea and that making sure the airline knows you’re not taking the outward flight, if it’s not been cancelled completely, is enough to let you take your time even after the flight date has passed, to make up your mind

    • Polly says:

      19 Jul19 July 22:25

      We are the same with Seattle in September just waiting to be cancelled.

  • Tariq says:

    19 Jul19 July 17:55

    +1, 2 months too late for me but good on those that can take advantage.

• Vinz says:

  19 Jul19 July 07:52

  Do you know if this is valid for cancelled onbusiness point bookings? I tried to move a cancelled flight the other day but the operator said she couldn’t do it because there was no ob availability on the day I wanted. That’s never been the case before, even before the pandemic.

  • Lady London says:

    19 Jul19 July 13:10

    should apply to those too. once you’ve obtained a ticket (make sure each ticket has a number and that all your seats are covered by one) then the regulations don’t care how each seat was paid for so you have full rights.

• Jon says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:06

  Does the 355 day flight release period still count? If you wanted to move your flight by a year, are you going have wait until the last minute for flights to be released?

  • Sam G says:

    19 Jul19 July 08:47

    yes. but remember you won’t need Avios availability, so it’s not a “panic midnight” situation – if there is a revenue seat you’ll be put on the flight

    If your outbound is cancelled you can just leave the booking until your inbound is available too and then call in. Even if they’ve reserved space for you on an alternative flight you won’t no-show unless you accepted the alternative in MMB. If you are worried then Twitter DM ask them to remove the rebooked sector but you don’t need to

• The Lord says:

  19 Jul19 July 09:15

  Just to be clear, If I booked avios redemption in March 2021 for travel in September 2021 and BA cancel the flight I can then ask BA to move the redemption to any flight prior to March 2022 regardless of what avios availability is showing? Or can I insist on anything up until September 2022?

  • Sam G says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:26

    You can ask for anything up to September 2022 now – their definition of ticket validity has changed from +1yr from booking to +1yr from flying

    • Sam G says:

      19 Jul19 July 09:27

      avios availability not required

    • The Lord says:

      19 Jul19 July 09:31

      Thanks, so the flight does not need to be cancelled in order to move the booking?

      • Mouse says:

        19 Jul19 July 10:54

        One flight in the itinerary flight still needs to be cancelled

        • Lady London says:

          19 Jul19 July 13:19

          One flight in the whole booking cancelled by the airline triggers EU261 rights for the whole booking.

          If thr first flight on the booking is not cancelled though, or if the system is showing a different outward flight that you didn’t choose and asking you to confirm, call them and tell them you won’t be on that flight as you are looking at your options and will get back to them. First flight cancelled or not taken means you are automatically taken off all later flights on that booking on legacy airlines (not the case on Easyjet and Ryanair, for example). Calling them means you don’t look like a no-show (which if none of your flights had been cancelled by airline would mean your ticket is cancelled without refund)

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