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.

• Ralph says:

  3 Oct3 October 07:32

  I cancelled Cape Town with a 2 4 1 over two weeks ago, on the phone. The booking vanished within a few days, it took nearly two weeks for the refund to go on my credit card and I’m still waiting for the return of my 137000 Avios and my 2 4 1 voucher.
  Does anyone know how long this should take please?

  • Harry T says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:52

    Voucher and Avios return should have been instant. Unfortunately, BA IT is from the Stone Age. I’ve had to chase this for months before, admittedly before I had status. I would ring BAEC.

• David says:

  3 Oct3 October 07:51

  I cancelled my 241 booking last week and have had the voucher redeposited into by BAEC account with the original expiry date. I have also been refunded 2 x £50 on my credit card as I booked in Club Europe and this is the amount I originally paid to secure these flights. Should I have received the full cash amount back or a lower amount due to fees etc. ?

  • NorthernLass says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:04

    You should only have received £15 x 2 back (unless cancelling within 24 hours), so you’ve done quite well!

    • Thegasman says:

      3 Oct3 October 16:35

      If the flights were eligible for BWC then would have qualified for FTV & therefore full cash refund?

      • NorthernLass says:

        3 Oct3 October 17:20

        Good point – I will wait and see if my money turns up!

• AJA says:

  3 Oct3 October 07:52

  I noticed online on the BA website there is now a £15 “Additional Service Centre fee for date/time changes, cancellation and Avios redeposit¹”

  This is in addition to the usual £35 cancellation fee.

  There is apparently “No charge for Gold Members.” for the £15 fee, whole the £35 fee is waived where “No charge for changes to Gold Priority Reward bookings.”

  https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/spending-avios/booking-and-service-fees

  • Harry T says:

    3 Oct3 October 07:54

    I think this has been there for a while tbh. Rarely seems to be enforced. The Gold Priority Rewards exception is just for hooking made with double the usual Avios. Fees are only truly waived for Gold Guest List.

    • AJA says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:05

      My point was that the additional £15 fee would explain why people cancelling CE RFS Reward seats where they paid £50 are not being refunded the £15. Especially if cancelled over the phone. But you would think it should still be refunded if done online.

      • Harry T says:

        3 Oct3 October 08:18

        👍🏻

      • Stu N says:

        3 Oct3 October 08:19

        This is the long-standing fee for telephone services, it’s never enforced for things you can’t do online or that you’ve tried online and don’t work.

        • AJA says:

          3 Oct3 October 08:57

          But that fee would apply now if you follow Rob’s advice: “This is wrong as £15 per person should be returned. Check the refund amount before you confirm the cancellation, and if you don’t agree with the cash element then cancel by phone instead.

        • Rob says:

          3 Oct3 October 08:59

          Extra call centre fees are waived if the website isn’t working properly.

        • Lady London says:

          3 Oct3 October 16:08

          No the important problem here is BA have snuck in “for avios redeposit” which they never had before.

          This means that even if you couldn’tbdo your change or cancellation online so you had to call, so they should waivw the £15 telephone service fee, now they can take your £15 for avios redeposit if you’re cancelling a booking wirh avios paid towards it. Potentiallly in addition to a £15 phone service fee in the future.

          This is the thin end of the wedge. BA is opening up another revenue-increasing category of fees. Having sneakiky devalued avios and increased prices by massive rounda of co-pay increasew for the past three years or so, BA, leaving nonstone unturned, has now introduced an avios redeposit fee. This is what’s going on.

          BA may leave that new texr lying there for a while potenrially up to 2 yeara, then one day we’re going to wake up to BA applying it.

  • Peter K says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:52

    That’s a fee for “service centre” use, that is, calling and talking to someone. Cancelling online of course doesn’t involve this so the fee shouldn’t be applied.

    The £15 fee is waived if you have to call because you can’t do something online as BA IT can’t do it, or an error message is thrown up when trying it online.

    • AJA says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:59

      Yes but now that you can cancel online would you not be charged the fee if you followed Rob’s advice and called instead?

      • Stu_N says:

        3 Oct3 October 09:33

        You wouldn’t be charged the £15 when the online option isn’t working properly. If you cancel online you’re apparently being charged £50, cost should be £35 and only way you can resolve this is to call.

        There are plenty of other things you won’t be charged the telephone fee for – these include open-jaw redemptions, adding returns to a 2-4-1, booking connecting flights or multi-city trips that fail online or come back with ludicrous prices and amending bookings that you can’t do online.

        • Thegasman says:

          3 Oct3 October 16:43

          Strictly speaking the £15 telephone service fee should only be waived for things you can do online but the online option isn’t working.

          For things like open jaw redemptions, adding inbound to a 241 etc where there is no online function then you are supposed to pay. Getting it waived is dependent on CS agents good will.

• NorthernLass says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:03

  As Rob mentioned, I cancelled RFS seats from ORD – the avios appeared immediately but the refund details were that I would get £0 back when I’d paid £50pp. Like Rob, I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to call BA so just accepted the refund as it stated. BA is breaching its own Ts and Cs if I don’t get £15 pp back, but I’m going to wait a while and see if it does turn up on the card before chasing.

  • AJA says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:06

    See my post above for a potential explanation of why you aren’t being refunded the £15.

    • Quark999 says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:40

      That’s not the reason as that’s only ever charged when you call.

      • Bagoly says:

        3 Oct3 October 09:00

        “Should only ever be charged when you call” – yes.
        “BA’s IT only charges you this when you call” – less certain.

        • Stu_N says:

          3 Oct3 October 09:35

          From conversations with phone agents it is a manual charge so it is down to the agent to add it, or not, onto price you are charged.

• Gerry Howe says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:14

  Got to add here that 4 calls to the call centre last week all got through within 5 minutes and one of them was less than a minute. I too was preparing for the phone to just ring for ages but I was stunned at the change.

  • JDB says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:17

    I understand the call centre is the only function that is currently fully staffed. They are making progress but still quite a long way off on ground staff, baggage handlers, cabin crew.

    • Rhys says:

      3 Oct3 October 09:24

      As far as I’m aware crew is almost there on most fleets.

  • Harry T says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:19

    What’s your BA status? I’ve had very little difficulty getting through recently but I’ve recently changed status and wondered how much it’s status Vs better staffing.

    • JDB says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:38

      I’m only Silver – only usually pay for my four qualifying flights – but my comment came from the top… we haven’t found it very difficult to get though during the pandemic.

• Tony says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:50

  Does anyone know if avios bookings qualify under BA’s free 24 hour cancellation policy? Or are you still charged the £35 pp?

  • John says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:54

    Yes and you should be refunded everything in full

  • memesweeper says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:58

    For free you *have* to call – sub 24h online will be charged £35

    • Lady London says:

      3 Oct3 October 16:11

      Used to work free of charge online if you cancelled within 24hrs of booking and both cash and money came back instantly

• Gordon says:

  3 Oct3 October 09:38

  I’m still waiting for a reply from over 2 months ago when I complained when I could not cancel an avios booking online so called CS and they charged me an additional £15 pp on top of the £35 pp cancellation fee,
  I Keep getting emails saying please bear with us we know it’s been a long time etc etc.

• Vic says:

  3 Oct3 October 10:52

  Have just tried to cancel our flights London to Johannesburg and return from CapeTown online which was made using a 241 voucher, avios and cash and the on-screen message stated “Sorry, we can’t cancel your booking online. Please get in touch”.

  • NorthernLass says:

    3 Oct3 October 12:23

    Sometimes anything other than a completely straightforward online booking does throw up this problem – anything with a domestic connection, for example, often can’t be cancelled online. I imagine you booked this as an open jaw by phone, which might be the issue here!

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