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BA Holidays tightens its payment terms

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We ran two articles yesterday on BA Holidays – this one looks at some of their sale deals and this one looks at the extension of the ‘double tier points’ offer to October 2022.

What we missed is that BA Holidays has tightened up on its payment terms.

Until 15th December, you could pay your balance up to three weeks before departure.

BA Holidays tightens its payment terms

For all new bookings, you must pay the remaining balance:

  • four weeks before departure for European holidays
  • seven weeks before departure for all other holidays

This ties in with the new cancellation policy, which requires you to cancel more than four weeks before departure if you want to receive a ‘no questions asked’ voucher refund.

You now have the following options when booking with BA:

  • book ‘flight only’ and pay 100% upfront BUT remain eligible to cancel for a voucher up to one hour before departure
  • book ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’, potentially save money on booking each element separately and pay just a small deposit now BUT be required to cancel at least four weeks before departure to receive a voucher for the money paid to date

You can find details of BA Holidays policies on its website here.


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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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Comments (53)

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

  • Rudi says:

    Great website, thanks to the whole team! The only site that really cares more about adding value than on clicks and adds!

    • Rudi says:

      Oh and Merry Christmas everyone!

    • Farid says:

      I do not always agree on the content when clearly it’s Marketing and promotional ( could be more subtle?), but most articles are good journalist pieces! Well done

      • Alex Sm says:

        They need to pay Rhys’ salary!

      • Lady London says:

        Can’t be subtle. Has to be declared, if sponsored content. And it is.

        Lots of other sites clearly taking “sponsorships”, but not declaring them.

        Though I have no idea why Rob has always been soft on Priority Pass and its general uselessness in getting into lounges at major UK airports that was well reported long before covid.

  • Nick says:

    Congratulations Rob, and all of the team, for the great 20m page views this year!

    Another year of excellent articles and points earning possibilities. It’s come a huge way from the early days and I’m looking forward to, hopefully, more travel opportunities in 2022.

    Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and a Happy & Healthy 2022!

  • Si says:

    The hyperlink for ‘dog bites woman whilst using an aircraft loo’ isn’t working. Please resolve.

    I’ve tried googling it but can’t find the article.

    I Must know more!

    • ThinkSquare says:

      Does the competition work for others? I get to the (tedious) end, press submit, but nothing happens.

      • Rob says:

        First time I tried yesterday nothing happened, 2nd time it was accepted. It works fine – HKTB specifically asked us to cover it.

    • ankomonkey says:

      LOL

  • Aaron C says:

    What about “I’m a flight attendant and this one trick could get you upgraded for free”?

    • 1ATL says:

      I find the ads here use analytics from recent searches you’ve made…. so I guess we know what you’ve been looking at 😉

  • ChrisC says:

    @Rob thanks for the credit!

    Are you sure it’s 4 weeks for European holidays?

    Because I had to pay by Wednesday 22nd for a Berlin trip starting on 9th Feb that I booked on the 16th December.

    I did a dummy booking for March and it’s come up with 7 weeks for me as a solo traveller. But initially I left it as two passengers then it is 4 weeks.

    Can someone else do a dummy booking for one person and then for two for the same destination, dates and hotels and check the balance due by date?

    Because it’s really unacceptable for BA to have a different – and worse – balance due by date for solo travellers than it is for parties of 2 or more.

    • PGW says:

      Same for me. I booked a flight+hotel to Italy last weekend. Travelling on 23 February and have to pay the balance by 5 January = 7 weeks prior to departure.

    • Rob says:

      Cut and paste from the BAH website yesterday.

      • ChrisC says:

        Rob am emailing a couple of screen shots over for you to peruse at your leisure.

        Variable cancellation dates depending on destination and how many people are in the party!

    • Lady London says:

      Would be another thing that makes BA Holidays TBF also other holiday co’s… pricewise pretty much not worth it for solo travellers.

      Sounds like BAH has a bug that.keeps the 7 weeks in place for solo travellers even for Europe.

      • ChrisC says:

        I’ve sent Rob some screen shots of dummy bookings but cancellation periods.

        Berlin – solo travellers 7 weeks, 2 pax = 4

        Amsterdam – it’s 4 weeks for solo and 7 weeks for 2!

        So no consistency at all.

        Bad enough solo travellers get the bum deal with it comes to offers but it’s not acceptable to not have the same T&Cs.

  • Crafty says:

    “We’ve never chased page views over putting out quality content” – and yet this is your main indicator for the success of the forum? Can’t have it both ways!

    • Rob says:

      We want the forum to exceed the chat thread, which it has. We were actually expecting to take a short term hit, but haven’t. We have got advertising booked in until the end of March priced off specific page view totals so we don’t have complete freedom.

    • sayling says:

      You can reach the front of a queue by waiting patiently in line, waiting impatiently in line or jumping the queue entirely.

      You still end up achieving the same thing

  • Diydegsy says:

    Congratulations Rob and the team, well deserved!!!

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    Well done Rob and team!

    But were the woman and the dog OK? And what are the magic words that guarantee an upgrade that we just won’t believe?

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

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