Reply To: Rerouting rights during a war

[JDB]

Ingking wrote:

Was told today by an agent to cancel the booking, get my refund and then rebook onto LY and claim it back from BA.
Is that not incorrect? If I cancel the bookong then BA definitely won’t reimburse me as they are no longer required to offer alternative transfer.
Or have I got something wrong?

I don’t plan on rebooking myself but wondering if I’ve lost my marbles or it’s regular BA misinformation.

It’s not misinformation; BA is being practical and anyway cannot and is not intending/attempting to extinguish your UK261 rights here. It’s a common misapprehension re taking a refund having this effect. Obviously any refund would be set against your reimbursement claim. Keep a note of the advice you were given with date/time just in case.

However, for practical reasons, as you are swapping a BA Avios ticket for an El Al cash ticket, it may be easier not to refund your existing booking and be fully refunded for the rerouting ticket so there is no question about the value of the Avios. If it were cash for cash, I would take the refund as you will likely be out of pocket for a while.