Avios booking where 24 hour free canx period ends within 24hrs of departure

[geekay]

Perhaps not the clearest title post, but hopefully an example helps!

Have booked tickets today at 10am departing tomorrow at 20.30pm. Return long haul flights (out Y run C). These are on a companion voucher and Barclays upgrade voucher. No meaningful status. (Not that any of this matters from what I can tell).

Because of the way we were booking I needed help from BA. The really lovely lady at BA* told me that although my 24 hours free canx period ends when there are only 10 hours to departure, I am still able to take advantage of the free canx, effectively making my tickets cancellable all the way up to 10 hours before departure.

I am not intending to cancel, but have never booked this late and wondered if she was correct. I was expecting her to tell me the opposite – that the tickets are non-cancellable as soon as we hit T-24h.

Anyone have experience of being able to cancel per what I was told on the call?

(All calls are recorded, so if I did need to cancel, I could rely on what she told me, but this is more about information for this forum rather than this specific case).

*I know there are mixed views on BA, but I spent over 2 hours on the phone booking these tickets with 2 agents, and they were both lovely, patient and knowledgeable. They are IAG Loyalty not BA, but still, really impressive and happy to be able to feed back positively on here.

[Joecooljoe]

I have never tested it, but last year had a scenario similar to yours. I booked my spouse to TAB as only that was available and thought POS might open in time (which was midnight that night). I stayed up but it didn’t open but was there when I was up at 7 (flight was around 10am next day) and got it switched ok with an agent.

I didn’t have to pay the £35 although they did mess up tbe taxes and charges by about £50 which i never got back (didn’t apply rfs, I think the agent was rushing). They charged a different amount to what I was told. I complained a few times, but didn’t get anywhere and it was one I just gave up on as was so glad to get her on the flight.

[SamG]

It was a long time ago now but I had the opposite experience – within 24hrs of travel I couldn’t make any changes/cancel even though I was still within 24hrs of booking. I was just trying to change to an earlier flight so the agent tried to get an override but no dice. So proceed with care!