Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways extends Tel Aviv cancellations, allows EL AL rebooking

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

British Airways has announced that flights to Tel Aviv will remain suspended until 14th June.

As we covered last week, Virgin Atlantic has permanently cancelled its Tel Aviv route so this is not available as a rebooking option.

British Airways has, however, agreed a comprehensive deal with EL AL.

If you have a BA ticket to Tel Aviv for travel up to 15th June, you can ask to switch to an EL AL service from Heathrow. This includes redemption tickets.

If this is not convenient or there is no availability on your chosen date, there is an alternative. You can be rebooked on British Airways to various cities in Europe and then switch to a connecting EL AL flight.

Options include Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Larnaca, Madrid, Milan and Paris.

You can, of course, also request a full refund if your British Airways flight has been cancelled.

Further details can be found on the BA trade website here.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (12)

  • Soho Smoked Salmon says:
    8 May8 May 02:35

    Will they let you switch to LY to/from LTN if an LHR flight on the day you want to travel isn’t available?

    Reply
    • Tracey says:
      8 May8 May 08:41

      Yes, I know someone who had done this. Probably a win for BA as ElAl flights from LTN are generally cheaper than from LHR.

      Reply
  • Dvir says:
    8 May8 May 07:03

    We were booked for early next month w BA, and managed to get a LY rebooking. From BA’s bus-like a320 to LY’s long-haul configured 787, feels like a free upgrade.

    Reply
    • Jonathan says:
      8 May8 May 08:47

      Just about anything is an upgrade from BA on their flights that last around 4 or more hours and they use A320 family aircraft to operate the route

      Reply
  • Tracey says:
    8 May8 May 08:39

    Another option is to leave your BA flight on the table and use it for a future trip. Can be very beneficial if you have a future trip planned for peak times.

    Reply
    • JDB says:
      8 May8 May 14:17

      I wouldn’t count on that as being an option. The rebooking window is circumscribed within the BA policy and those who took the Article 8.1(c) provision “at a later date at the passenger’s convenience” too literally in covid times lost their cases.

      Reply
      • Rob says:
        8 May8 May 14:28

        …. although, when Virgin cancelled my Cape Town flights for last month in late 2024, they were happy for me to wait 3 months until December 2025 was bookable and then rebook into super-peak pre-Christmas dates 🙂

        Reply
  • Ben says:
    8 May8 May 08:46

    Just spoke to BA, they are only offering to cancel or change to a flight to Athens but not from Athens to TLV. She was utterly incompetent

    Reply
  • Bernie100 says:
    8 May8 May 08:58

    Had this with BA last October. Our outbound flight was moved to Luton and the return was via Barcelona.
    It did take 3 calls to BA to get this sorted as not all operators are aware of this option.
    Obtaining Avios and Tier points on this involuntary reroute is challenging.
    ELAL’s service is vastly superior to BA.
    BA will cover additional incidental expenses. This was handled promptly and met in full.

    Reply
  • Sam says:
    8 May8 May 09:00

    I am travelling next week and there was no availability on elal from Heathrow, so they put me on elal from Amsterdam

    Reply
  • JulieSoul says:
    8 May8 May 14:30

    Called British today as I have a flight booked for 30 July and wanted to know if they would waive the cancellation fee of £35 per person due to the instability (and wanted to rebook with El Al myself). The agent simply wasted half an hour of my time – offered to rebook me to El Al, then took ages to check, then said actually he can’t as flights in July are not affected. Then claimed that if I cancel my reward flight I would use the full cash component and only get my avios back (so would lose £243 rather than £105). This is what is showing if I try to cancel online as well. I am sure this is wrong and have had this issue before but think it’s best to just wait and get rebooked when the time comes if necessary. But certainly nervewracking. Already missed out on a trip in October when BA originally cancelled our flight and was unable to rebook at the same dates. At least this time in summer holidays we are more flexible!

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Jonathan Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please click here to read our data protection policy before submitting your comment

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!