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

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• 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!

• Rand says:

  3 Oct3 October 10:53

  Hasn’t this been – in practice – available for a while? The website was talking about a voucher but there was a note that Avios bookings just get cancelled and refunded. I’ve cancelled at least a dozen Avios tickets online in the last few months

  • Rui N. says:

    3 Oct3 October 11:03

    Only if the flight was before 30/09. If you tried to cancel a flight from October onwards it would tell you that the flight was not eligible for a voucher and wouldn’t be cancelled.

  • Gordon says:

    3 Oct3 October 11:03

    I could not do this online. So I calked BA and when I was charged the £15 pp I emailed Rob, See below.

    Hi Gordon
    You’ve been charged the £35 per person cancellation fee PLUS the £15 call centre service charge.

    However, the £15 fee should not have been charged because BA has removed the functionality to do the change on ba.com, so you were forced to ring the call centre.

    I would give them a call back if you can face the queue.

    Rob

• Steve in Croydon says:

  3 Oct3 October 11:51

  Incredible! On 30th September I cancelled a BAEC Avios long-haul booking on QR. Not only did the website show the correct information, it actually did the refund correctly! The Avios were returned immediately (and spread across the original household accounts). The AMEX payment minus £35 was posted the next day.

• Willie says:

  3 Oct3 October 13:35

  Is this only for Avios bookings, not for revenue tickets, too?

  • John says:

    3 Oct3 October 15:46

    Err, for paid tickets it depends on the ticket, most do not come with a “cancel and get back everything less £35” policy

• babyg says:

  3 Oct3 October 14:13

  There was a bug which allowed you to get a voucher for any cash flight up until a few days ago.. basically if you booked a cash flight using a voucher, you could cancel and request a new voucher – BA’s poor IT can sometimes work to your advantage.. alas this loophole is now closed….

• Kevin C says:

  3 Oct3 October 14:25

  I have a refund question, lovely people.

  In August I got stuck in Canada as my son tested positive for covid a day before we were due to fly home. We were on an Amex avios voucher. I know, I know I should have spoken to BA first but I pressed the get voucher button before that advice was given to me.

  A couple of weeks ago I got a refund of the ‘taxes’ on the card I paid with. I haven’t received a single avios. Should I or are they lost as BA consider the return to be a ‘free’ flight as it was on a 2-for-1.

  Thanks. I’ll know to talk to them first next time. Also I hope there isn’t a next time.

  • Stu_N says:

    3 Oct3 October 15:18

    I think you’re stuffed – you’ve basically cancelled the return after you’ve flown the outbound so you’re not due anything back other than government taxes which it sounds like you have now got.

    In this situation the best thing you can do is move the flight to a date in the future (subject to there being any usable availability; by phone you may be able to move to another city in same Avios pricing band which might give more options). This will buy time then you can look at options to use the return once immediate issue has been solved.

• Lee says:

  3 Oct3 October 14:26

  Thanks for the tip. Had received the “no voucher” notice previously. Refund just worked.

• LLLL says:

  3 Oct3 October 14:31

  Called the call centre last week to do an avios cancellation within 24-hours of booking. It was actually more painless than I thought, and wasn’t too time consuming either. I was pleasantly surprised to be honest.

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