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Why won’t British Airways refund your seat reservation fees when you cancel a flight?

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I thought it was worth taking another look today at one of the most egregious money-making schemes pursued by British Airways – the refusal to refund seat reservation fees if you cancel your booking.

This was a hot topic before the pandemic, but went away for two years because – under the ‘Book With Confidence’ covid guarantee – BA was fully refunding what you paid, including seat selection fees. (The money was ring-fenced for paying future seat selection fees, but at least you got it back).

‘Book With Confidence’ is no longer offered, of course, so your seat reservation fees are back at risk.

BA seat reservation fees refund

What originally kicked off our campaign on this was a reader who cancelled two Avios seats in Club World to the US.  All of his Avios and other charges were refunded, less the administration fee, as usual.

However, British Airways refused to refund £500 of seat reservation fees.

Can you really spend £500 on seat reservation fees for a couple?

Unfortunately, yes.

I just did a dummy booking for Heathrow to San Francisco for March.   As you can see, for someone without British Airways Gold or Silver status or the oneworld equivalent, if you want to sit on the top deck of the Airbus A380 by the windows it will cost you £122 per person each-way – a total of £488 return for two.  Bargain.

BA seat reservation fees refund

There are two issues here, I think: is it made clear that your reservation is non-refundable? and is this ‘fair’?

Is it made clear that seat reservations are non-refundable?

British Airways has made some improvements to its wording since we first started highlighting this issue. When you go into ba.com to select seats, this is what you see (click to enlarge):

BA seat reservation fees refund

The terms and conditions are not shown, but require you to click a hyperlink.  This is not ideal, but probably acceptable. 

Under the old version of ba.com, you were shown a summary of the T&C with a further click required to see the full version. Unsurprisingly, this ‘summary’ did not include the key point – that your fee was non-refundable in virtually all circumstances.

Things have now improved in terms of clarity. When you click the ‘Terms & Conditions’ hyperlink, you are taken immediately to the full T&C document. The bit on ‘no refunds’ isn’t at the top, but it is there if you scroll down.

Regardless of the T&Cs, is this ‘fair’?

You might say ‘it doesn’t matter if it’s fair’.

Except, under UK contract law, it does.

There are lots of pieces of regulation which could come into play here such as the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982.

Here is a very concise summary from the Government’s own website:

Businesses can keep your deposit or advance payments, or ask you to pay a cancellation charge, only in certain circumstances:

If you cancel the contract, the business is generally only entitled to keep or receive an amount sufficient to cover their actual losses that directly result from your cancellation (eg costs already incurred or loss of profit).

Businesses must take reasonable steps to reduce their losses (eg by re-selling the goods or services).

Non-refundable deposits should only be a small percentage of the total price.

Cancellation charges must be a genuine estimate of the business’ direct loss.

A good base line is that a consumer contract can only be imposed if it is ‘fair’.

It is difficult to see how retaining a payment of £488 for seat selection is ‘fair’ when the airline can cancel the underlying seat reservation without penalty and suffers no loss when you cancel, especially if the seat is cancelled well before departure.

Seat selection fees also appear ‘unfair’ in terms of the ‘power’ given to each party.  British Airways, according to the small print, is free to throw you out of your allocated seats for any reason it wants.

Intriguingly, if British Airways upgrades you, you don’t get a seat refund:

For the avoidance of doubt, paid seating will not be refunded if you are involuntarily upgraded;

It is difficult to imagine a court agreeing with that, especially if you paid for seats purely in order to be together but – due to the upgrade – you were separated. You do get a refund if you choose to pay to upgrade and do not want to pay for selection in the higher cabin.

In the case of an Avios redemption – or a fully flexible cash ticket – the airline is willing to refund the flight.  It is therefore difficult, in my mind, to put together a ‘reasonable’ justification for keeping the seat selection fees.

BA seat reservation fees refund

Is it worth fighting this if it applies to you?

If you are impacted by this, your options are to take British Airways to CEDR arbitration (here is our guide on how to do it) or, failing that, to MCOL / Small Claims (here is our guide on how to do that).

The bad news is that I know that some readers have lost their case at CEDR when trying to do this. This is because the arbitrator is not empowered to look at whether BA’s actions break consumer laws. They only look at whether British Airways has broken its own terms and conditions – which it hasn’t.

Here is a quote from a failed arbitration claim

Here is a quote from a CEDR arbitration decision refusing to order BA to refund seat selection fees:

“Whist I recognise the passenger deems this provision unfair, I am unable to make a determination as to whether the same is unfair, binding, acceptable, balanced or not to the detriment of the consumer. Should the passenger be unsatisfied with my ruling, he is free to reject the decision and and to negotiate a settlement with the airline or to pursue the matter elsewhere should he wish to do so, including to dispute the validity of the abovementioned provision (or the airline’s terms and conditions as a whole) before a competent body or court.“

Even if you win at CEDR or MCOL, these cases do not set legal precedent.  Settlement usually comes with the requirement to sign a confidentiality agreement, so it cannot even be publicised.

It would require a full court hearing to take place before legal precedent was set, as happened in – for example – Jet2 vs Huzar, the case which set the precedent that mechanical failure was not an excuse for not paying EC261 compensation.

Until someone does that, however, British Airways will carry on attempting to extract large sums for seat selection fees on cancelled flights.

The only good news is that, with the new Club Suite, the seats are created more or less equal and there is very little justification for spending money on a reservation.  Even if you end up not being able to sit together, other passengers should be more willing to move onboard to accommodate you as they would not be worse off.

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Comments (125)

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

  • JAXBA says:
    2 Jan2 January 04:32

    “Bargain”

    Worth repeating that the voluntary fees are set a level to actually dissuade customers from paying them. It solves the old complaint of ‘I can’t even pay a fee to select a seat???’ but puts off enough people from paying so that there is more choice for (1) members with status/those paying full fare, and (2) online check-in.

    If someone insists on paying the inflated fees, BA will happily take the money!

    There should probably be more instances where the fees are refundable though, such as if the underlying booking is refundable, or refundable with a fee, then perhaps refund the seat fees minus 10%?

  • Rob says:
    2 Jan2 January 05:22

    Tells you everything about the real current BA.Pathetic that they won’t refund the seat reservation fee. And they profess how they look after the customer. Hypocrites comes to mind….A former shadow of the BA from decades ago when it was respected and top of its game.

  • TimM says:
    2 Jan2 January 05:48

    BA’s actions are clearly illegal. The principle of consumer law is that any contract not individually negotiated must not disadvantage the consumer. A few MCOL (formerly known as ‘small claims court’) claims should sort the issue out.

    I am forever agreeing to T&Cs knowing they have no standing in law simply because I am required to do so. I have taken around 10 businesses to court over the years and have won, one way or the other, every time.

    Consumer law is powerful – use it!

    • Ironside says:
      2 Jan2 January 12:56

      “The principle of consumer law is that any contract not individually negotiated must not disadvantage the consumer”

      I once (and only once) lost a trial at County Court because the judge did not understand that fact. In summing up, she threw out the entirity of consumer protection legislation saying “If the terms and conditions are contractual then they cannot be unfair.” She went on to refuse permission to appeal and threatened me with contempt of court if I went over her head.

      Point being, you are correct but all the consumer legislation in the world cannot make up for a non-zero percentage of incompetant judges.

  • Charles says:
    2 Jan2 January 06:40

    Not for seat reservations but simply for cancelling cash tickets, I’m still waiting for a refund for 6 tickets from BA that I cancelled back in June 2023. I’ve emailed them multiple times but hear and get nothing from BA. What can I do?
    Separately from 1.5 years ago, my son booked a ticket and booked for his bike box to go under the plane. They lost it and we claimed back a refund for the cost of the bike box fee which they eventually found plus all his expenses for having initially lost his bike and he needed to rent a replacement. Again nothing from BA despite writing multiple emails.
    Do I need to initiate legal proceedings against BA or is there a more simple way to take action to recover my money from them?

    • Gordon says:
      2 Jan2 January 06:51

      I am sure JDB will post some advise on this!

    • JDB says:
      2 Jan2 January 07:31

      There’s not a lot of detail here, but you need to pursue BA for a response, failing which escalate to CEDR. I’m not sure that you would be entitled to claim a refund of the bike box fee but other reasonable expenses should be reimbursed although some sound more like an insurance claim rather than something for which BA is liable.

    • Lady London says:
      3 Jan3 January 00:07

      If you paid on credit card is this a case where you could ask credit card to refund under s75?

    • Lady London says:
      3 Jan3 January 00:09

      ON the bike box fee is this not similar to a cloakroom ticket(paid) case? I think cloakrooms used to have coats accepted with no liability notices up. But eventually someone took them to court for loss of their coat and the cloakroom lost the case on the basis that there was a contract that implied safekeeping of the coat, as a fee had been charged for the service. All a long time ago but I’m pretty sure that’s why the “no liability” notices there used to be in cloakrooms at venues, disappeared.

  • Sam Wardill says:
    2 Jan2 January 06:42

    Thanks for flagging this . While I would never pay these fees, I think it is really important to highlight the protections under the unfair terms in consumer contracts act. I also think it is a real shame that ADR bodies will not assess the fairness of Ts & Cs.

  • Matt says:
    2 Jan2 January 06:46

    I don’t pay for seat reservations for this reason, whereas I would if they were refundable. I wonder how many others don’t book seats for this reason compared to the extra revenue they receive from not issuing a refund.

    I can’t imagine it’s that much of a positive for BA, especially given the poor customer experience for those who have to cancel for genuine reasons who may be put off booking BA flights in the future.

    • CarpalTravel says:
      2 Jan2 January 06:54

      I likely would pay (even as non-refundable) if the prices were vaguely sensible. Throwing out numbers however that would make even O’Leary blush, no chance.

      • Matt says:
        2 Jan2 January 07:15

        I’d consider paying if they were priced 50% lower and non-refundable. I mostly fly on Avios and BA holidays bookings as I need some flexibility to cancel for work reasons, so I’m making an eyes-open decision on whether I think it’s worthwhile or not.

        It seems wrong for BA to refuse a refund in cases where people need to cancel for other reasons who might not be aware of the T&Cs, although BA might show some discretion in certain circumstances as highlighted in other comments.

  • Richmond_Surrey says:
    2 Jan2 January 06:55

    I never pay for seats on BA. I paid on United and they were refundable. Actually, I’m moving my business to United, due to option of canceling tickets up to last minute and getting future travel credit. BA would refund me peanuts for some taxes. United gave back every penny in the form of credit and cash refund for seats.

  • Tracy says:
    2 Jan2 January 07:01

    I went down the small claims route and got refunded.
    BA responded that they would defend the case.
    The next day BA emailed to say: ‘As previously explained, pre-booked seats are non-refundable as per the terms and conditions.

    ‘The terms of the contract were clearly set out and there was no breach of contract or any other legal course of action which would enable you to recover the amount for the pre-booking. As such BA is not liable to pay any sum to you and liability for your court claim is denied.

    ‘However, BA does not wish to remain in dispute with you and on this occasion only, BA has raised the amount of £386 to be sent to you by way of cheque in full and final settlement of your claim. This will put you back in the position that you were in before the payment for the seats was made.

    ‘Please note that this is a goodwill gesture and does not reflect the legal position.’

    This was 2019 and took alot of effort / time.

    Not sure I’d bother again. Don’t prebook seats anymore either.

    • Jemima says:
      2 Jan2 January 08:19

      They’re a cheeky bunch of spivs. Still, I’m happy to take a gold card from them again next week, which will give me nearly three years to drawn down my points balance. When that’s done, and whilst it is being done, AF and Swiss will be getting my cash for intra-Euro flights.

    • Mark says:
      2 Jan2 January 11:26

      I’d love to take the to court to test their t&cs

      They wouldn’t have a hope in hell. Can’t believe no one has done it yet.

      But I don’t pay for seat selection and only fly BA with avios.

      I think in the 75 or so BA flights I’ve flown I can count the ones I’ve paid for in full on 1 hand. And that was back in the day when BA was a full service airline and not a low service, low cost carrier.

      If avios disappeared, my travel would be purely based on cost and convenience.

      • Peter K says:
        2 Jan2 January 13:46

        I imagine those with the financial clout to take them to court, and not worry about the cost in case they do happen to lose, are also ones who are not too bothered about the fee or are gold/silver card members already.

    • Lady London says:
      3 Jan3 January 00:05

      You could have called their bluff by responding, and informing the court, that it is in the public interest for the case to be heard as you believe their terms are fundamentally unfair.?

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