You can now cancel British Airways Avios bookings online again …. after two years

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

• Swiss Jim says:

  3 Oct3 October 06:24

  Excellent. Expectation though is it won’t work for Gold Priority bookings when no fee due. So I’m still likely to be holding on the phones some time soon….

• Wotsit says:

  3 Oct3 October 06:35

  Rob, You say “my lack of enthusiasm for ringing the call centre”. Is this because of the expected wait time? If so, how can it be possible to ring an overseas call centre just before the release of new reward flights at 1.00am BST? If you’ve got to wait half an hour it’s “game over”. How do you personally get over this problem? Thanks. thanks.

  • John says:

    3 Oct3 October 06:41

    It’s because I hate calling anybody on the phone

    • TimM says:

      3 Oct3 October 06:48

      +2

      • meta says:

        3 Oct3 October 07:37

        At that hour the pressure is probably less on the phone lines. I doubt your average person is calling at 1am. I certainly have stopped calling at 1am. I am not interested in booking too far ahead and from the introduction of new style vouchers, I am only booking ex-UK, so there’s usually plenty of seats available during the day.

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:54

    I have a long list of things I need to do but cannot summon up the enthusiasm for! I imagine you do too.

    • Wotsit says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:04

      LoL!

  • VerdantBacon says:

    3 Oct3 October 13:41

    Who’s calling at 1am to cancel fights? It probably would be a shorter wait to do so, but who’s enthusiastic about doing that

• Michael C says:

  3 Oct3 October 06:36

  Just to confirm you can get as far as the “refund breakdown” screen without definitively cancelling? Just in case you DO disagree with the amount!

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:53

    Yes

• Jonathan12345 says:

  3 Oct3 October 06:58

  Is the process the same if you have booked with a companion voucher ?

  • memesweeper says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:56

    When I last cancelled a booking with a companion voucher it never came back. Be prepared to call and chase it up!

    • Rob says:

      3 Oct3 October 09:00

      This was happening a decade ago and still isn’t fixed. It seems there are multiple ways of cancelling a booking and if the call centre agent does it in some of those ways the refunds are not triggered properly.

• KevinS says:

  3 Oct3 October 07:06

  A good day for u turns!

  • Harry T says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:46

    Personally still relieved noone voted for chaos with Ed Miliband…

    • Rui N. says:

      3 Oct3 October 07:51

      Or that the pound didn’t crash like it would have happened with Corbyn.

      • Harry T says:

        3 Oct3 October 08:21

        😂

    • RussellH says:

      3 Oct3 October 10:47

      9,347,273 people voted Labour in 2015, and the country would have been in a vastly better economic situation than we are now if the Tories had lost that election. And the Tories then were, I accept, significantly less obnoxious than what we now have.

      And almost certainly we would have a much fairer, more balanced country too.

      Never forget that the vote for the three next largest parties against the “winners” (with just 36.8% of the vote) of that election amounted to 43% of the electorate.
      Frankly, I consider that scandalous.

      • MrVine says:

        3 Oct3 October 10:54

        This is so funny.

        What will all this people cry about when Labour win the next election or worse still lose it!!!!

      • Mike says:

        3 Oct3 October 11:30

        Firstly, you don’t know what the state of the country would have been under Labour.

        On our electoral system. The people had the opportunity via a referendum in 2012 to adopt a different electoral system, they decided they preferred the current system.

        • RussellH says:

          3 Oct3 October 13:03

          I do know that there would never have been a referendum about the EU. Leaving the EU has cost us massively in terms of GDP.
          As for anything else, the country could not have been in a worse mess under Labour, who at least care something for the condition of those who have been struggling for years just to survive.

          As to the 2012 referendum on the voting system, that was as much of a con as the EU one.
          If we are to use referendums in this country, and I accept that there is a good case for that in some situations, then we need to learn from how the Swiss run their referendums. Each side has to present a complete case, not a vague wish, with arguments both for and against sent to each voter in a single document well in advance of the vote, giving plenty of time for voters to study it.
          And rules on the media to deal with the lies they regularly perpetrate, such as front page acknowledgements of errors.

        • Callum says:

          3 Oct3 October 15:34

          A minority of the population decided that they preferred FPTP above the specific system of AV that was selected by the Conservatives, who refused to allow any other options. Hardly conclusive.

          Not to mention plenty of people would have changed their minds by now anyway. I know I certainly have (I remember being coerced by the constant arguments that it would get the BNP into power, right when they were growing disturbingly quickly).

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:51

    Do you genuinely care? I was embarrassed to have a huge sum of borrowed money pushed at me.

    • Harry T says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:21

      I think the energy bills support should have been targeted at lower income households and involved actual cash payments. Regarding the 45% tax rate, a better target for simplifying taxes and making them fairer would have been abolishing the marginal tax rate.

      • Rui N. says:

        3 Oct3 October 08:28

        Hear hear.

      • Callum says:

        3 Oct3 October 10:04

        Am I reading this right? You saw how the country reacted to the scrapping of the 45% rate yet feel it’s even slightly plausible to target scrapping all higher rates!?

        The idea this “simplifies” taxes is beyond ludicrous. I’d be concerned if it took you much more than a minute with a 99p calculator to calculate your tax level in each income band. The complexity is from the (literally) thousands of pages of carve outs, exemptions and loopholes – if someone genuinely wanted to “simplify” the system they should be starting there. I have no idea why you’re repeating the line, but it’s very clear that politicians are using it because “I want the rich to pay less tax and the poor to pay more” is political suicide – as we’ve seen.

        • RussellH says:

          3 Oct3 October 13:08

          I recall reading somewhere that this current government want to scrap the Office of Tax Simplification in order to save money.
          I fully accept that they do not seem to achieved much during their existence. They probably need much sharper scissors in order to remove some of te pages you refer to.

  • Panda Mick says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:50

    “U turn if you want to”

    I’d expect this to be ringing in the halls of westminister today…

    • KevinS says:

      3 Oct3 October 09:10

      Thick Lizzie hasn’t even been in the job a month. Reckon she’ll booted out by her own party by Easter

      • RussellH says:

        3 Oct3 October 10:50

        But unless there is a General Election soon, we just get yet another extremist nut-job from the Tory party.
        They all need to be thrown out, painfully, for a VERY long time.

        • Lady London says:

          3 Oct3 October 16:18

          No the party needs to be dismembered and cease existing.

          Time was when Tories had a very considerably higher standard of competence and ethics.

          Not that I am a fan of Labour, or of the unproportional representation of the current electoral system

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    3 Oct3 October 12:34

    No one seems to talk about how regressive the NI rates are! 12% for middle class and 2% for the rich (yes, the rich will pay 12% on a small part of income, but that’ll be peanuts for them).
    Someone should petition for a 5% rate on everyone above the personal allowance!

    • Callum says:

      3 Oct3 October 12:48

      A very good point – while the jump from 20% to 40% seems large, in reality the two rates are actually 32% and 42%.

      We would be much better off just scrapping NI and merging it with income tax. I don’t see any rationale for keeping it.

      • RussellH says:

        3 Oct3 October 13:15

        The rationale for for not scrapping NI and merging it with income tax is that the right wing press will call it a 12% increase in income tax.
        Many people believe that NI is a fund dedicated to their state pension and the NHS, to benefits such as Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments, among other, rather than general taxation, and therefore a “good thing”.
        Again, we could learn something from the Swiss, where their equivalent of NI is a dedicated fund.
        However, the Swiss need to learn from us too, and give up the idea that non-payment of income tax is not a crime.

        • Callum says:

          3 Oct3 October 15:17

          Why would the “right wing press” do such a thing (and why wouldn’t the left wing press do the same)?

      • Rob says:

        3 Oct3 October 14:00

        No NI on savings income, which is the key income stream for many Conservative voters.

        • Callum says:

          3 Oct3 October 15:12

          How does that require the existence of NI? If you wanted to retain that then simply change the rate of income tax charged on savings income.

        • Lady London says:

          3 Oct3 October 16:20

          Well the increase in NI Boris pit through, so-called for “social care”, was actually to be levied on dividends which was new.

    • Stu_N says:

      3 Oct3 October 12:53

      That’s because NI is to all intents and purposes another income tax.

      Basic rate =20% income tax plus 12% NI = 32%,
      Higher rate = 40% + 2% = 42%

      I mean, it’s slightly more complex than that but means higher rate isn’t that much higher than basic in the round.

      • KevinS says:

        3 Oct3 October 13:35

        “I fully accept that they do not seem to achieved much during their existence”

        Highest inflation and the only country amongst the G7 (excluding Russia who don’t really count anymore) to have an economy smaller than pre Covid levels (despite having lifted restrictions than most others) is quite an achievement to be fair!

        • Callum says:

          3 Oct3 October 15:22

          No need to exclude Russia given they aren’t in the G7, nor have they ever been. You’re probably thinking of the brief existence of the G8, which reverted back to the G7 about 8 years ago after Russia was kicked out.

        • KevinS says:

          3 Oct3 October 16:34

          Good point Callum!

• To dare is to do says:

  3 Oct3 October 07:08

  I cancelled club Europe flights on Saturday and didn’t get the £15 back so cost me £50 not £35 I’ve also cancelled several club Europe flights on chat and phone and not got the £15 I’ve queried it but told it’s the correct amount. It might be correct by this article it’s £35 but trying getting the extra back is another matter.

  • Andrew J says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:16

    But the cancellation fee is £35, so how can they say it’s £50? A £800 Club World flight has the same £35 cancellation fee or are they trying to say it’s £800 to cancel?

    • meta says:

      3 Oct3 October 07:43

      They always tell it’s the phone cancellation fee to me, but then after 3-4 weeks I got £15 back.

• Andrew H says:

  3 Oct3 October 07:16

  You’ve been able to cancel on the chat for the last two years.

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:51

    Chat isn’t available in the UK unless you use a VPN to trigger it.

    • Rui N. says:

      3 Oct3 October 07:51

      Yes it is. Just used it last week.

    • Harry T says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:22

      Chat are also very frequently utterly useless and/or wrong.

  • SamG says:

    3 Oct3 October 10:27

    Chat recently for me had been saying couldn’t touch Avios bookings

    Haven’t waited long on the phone recently though!

• Mart says:

  3 Oct3 October 07:25

  How long for a Barclaycard voucher to get refunded?

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