Reply To: Cancelling a BA Avios Hotels booking

[JDB]

I don’t think the Gold line is the right number to call to resolve this – you need to call the number in your confirmation and ask them to contact the supplier to get a full refund. Do not accept the £500 cancellation charge unless you can and want to make an insurance claim (although any insurer who was on the ball would question the fee) as this will be at best a tacit acceptance of the fee.

If they come back and say no, the supplier won’t budge, email BA/Avios at avios.operationdept@avios.com along these lines which you need to adapt to your circumstances and check the text is correct per your confirmation:-

Re: British Airways Avios travel reservation XXXXXXXX
 
I made the above reservation on [DATE] to stay at the [XX HOTEL] in early April at a total cost of [£XXX.XX]; a PDF copy of my confirmation email is attached.

Unfortunately, I contracted Covid on [XX DATE] and will therefore not be able to travel and/or do not expect to have a clear test until after the 72 hour cancellation window.

I therefore contacted the BA Gold line on [Sunday 27 March] to cancel the booking for a refund [or to rebook].  I spoke to [NAME] / and was told to check and cancel on MMB] and discovered that there was a [£500.00] cancellation fee.  I now understand that the supplier has also refused to refund my booking.
 
I am quite astonished by this response, partly in light of the much publicised BA/BA Holidays ‘Buy with Confidence’ (“BWC”)  policy which you have failed to apply in any form.  While this policy is a matter of goodwill over and above statutory requirements, it is a reason why one chooses to book with you. However, even ignoring the BWC policy, your refusal to refund my booking (less the £35 cancellation fee) is in breach of the strict legal/contractual position and your imposition of new contract terms after the time of booking is a breach of Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (“CRA”).
 
My confirmation email (i.e. our contract) has three brief sections that relate to cancellations or changes:-
 
“Changing your booking” – you offer the opportunity to change the booking by way of cancellation and rebooking, but don’t guarantee the same option will still be available.  This option has not been offered to me.
 
“Cancelling your booking” – for cancellations made prior to 72 hours, you simply say there is a cancellation fee of £35, “plus any applicable Supplier fees as advised at the time of booking”. This confirmation email is “the time of booking” and the formal evidence of our contractual agreement.  To the extent that there is any supplier fee at all, the quantum of which you have failed to specify, it must be taken, under any CRA test of “fairness”, that any such fee will be a relatively modest sum akin to an administrative fee and certainly no more than BA’s own cancellation fee. However, as no fee is specified, the consumer is not properly informed so BA has foregone the opportunity later to collect such a fee.
 
“Cancellation fees” – this section adds nothing relevant to the above
 
Underneath these three sections you provide two hyperlinks – one to the service fees which confirm the £35 BA fee and another “View full terms and conditions” which links to the British Airways Executive Club t&c’s, so largely irrelevant to this hotel booking. The only other terms cited in the email relate to data protection or car hire only.
 
[The implication of the terms as supplied in this email is that you would charge a £35 fee in addition to refusing to refund the cost of my booking, which cannot possibly be the intention, but serves to highlight why your current refusal to refund me is completely at odds with the contractual position.] .

It is critical, for the protection of both parties, that terms and particularly that onerous penalties/cancellation fees are clearly and transparently set out in any travel confirmation and this is a requirement of the CRA that BA has failed to follow on this occasion; you cannot now, ex post facto, impose new cancellation fees or indeed any other new contract terms as BA seeks to do.
 
Please confirm that you have refunded the sum of [£XXX , i.e. the cost of my booking less £35, although in these circumstances even this fee should be waived] to my credit card within the next 14 days, failing which I will issue proceedings to recover this sum via the small claims track of the County Court (MCOL).  Please provide your address for service of such proceedings.