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BA flight time changes- same day-any flexibility on the +/- 2 days rule?
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Hi- we have a flight that has changed by over 4 hours but on the same day in August. We have been sent an email stating we can move it 2 days either way, which is what I’ve also read on here and other forums. It doesn’t say we can cancel it entirely, but I read somewhere that is also an option (but it is an Avios booking and we won’t find that many seats on any other day!)
My question was- is there any flexibility anyone has experienced on the +/- 2 days such that it can be moved more than that?
Thank you for any insights/ experience in advance.I don’t think BA will budge on the +/- 2 days policy. This is already a fairly generous policy (and starts at only 2 hours) that BA has no obligation to offer. At 4 hours delay, BA will additionally offer a refund.
@JDB thank you. I did think that but thought to ask if anyone had a different experience.
I agree it’s not unreasonable. But we have abit of a conundrum and wanted to see if the change might work in our favour due to other factors.
Refunding doesn’t help because we still want the flights which are much higher in cash than the avios we have them booked as, and there is never going to be the same number of avios available on any days in August (we booked the night they became available).
When do you want to move it from/to? You can cancel for a fee (which can be as low as 50p per person depending on different factors), but as you say, that won’t help you with availability on your preferred date.
Is it somewhere you could travel indirectly, e.g. on Iberia? They often have availability via Madrid when all the BA avios seats have been taken.
Also keep checking, as August is still some months off and people do cancel seats if their plans change.
@NorthernLass We need to somehow to move it a week forward for other reasons.
It’s a short haul flight to Dalaman (under 5 hours) and Iberia doesn’t do it nor would I want a connecting flight for short haul.
It’s actually just one way. The other way is on easyJet and we have flight club which means we can change that flight to any other date within £20 of the original flight (which there are many options) for no charge.
Also it’s 7 seats so it’s unlikely we will have that come back in inventory! Also not being able to book hotels with date uncertainty won’t be helpful so I don’t want to leave it too long to wait for a miracle on avios flights if that makes sense.Also dates are flexible so we are not fixed on a specific date. Just have to be in the UK during the latter dates we are currently booked to be away!
I’m not sure if BA will budge on this rule, but I’ve found their help on Twitter to be better than the contact centre staff and prepared to offer more flexibility with changes than on the phone. Might be worth sending them a DM asking for what you want with a compelling justification and see what they say..
Have you tried changing it online ? I’ve heard before that the online tool sometimes is more generous! Otherwise you are correct on the policy for a 4+hr time change and I can’t see BA being flexible on what is already a pretty generous policy
I’m not sure if BA will budge on this rule, but I’ve found their help on Twitter to be better than the contact centre staff and prepared to offer more flexibility with changes than on the phone. Might be worth sending them a DM asking for what you want with a compelling justification and see what they say..
The more people that push the envelope on the +/-2 date range more BA will be tempted to shut it completely.
BA is allowing a change +/- two days change even for avios booked flights which is something they don’t have to do especially if there isn’t any avios availability on the new flights. This isn’t a cancelation where legal rights kick in.
A week is really pushing it especially in August
And the OP would like to change 7 seats so a large number which can be difficult to accommodate anyway.
This is why some flexibility is required for anyone wanting this number of seats at that time of year.
SeatSpy is showing lots of availability to Istanbul, from where it’s another 90 mins to Dalaman, and also a fair bit to DLM itself (though less in the first half of August).
In the past (especially back when BA released fewer guaranteed award seats) I’ve known HFP readers to fly in different cabins, or even on different flights, to get to their destinations at peak times!
@meandthekids, if you put your preferred dates and your party make-up here, I can have a look at possible permutations in between getting pain relief down an injured moggy! I apologise if it really is you and 6 toddlers or another grouping which means you definitely need all those seats together, lol.Thanks to everyone and I totally agree the policy is very generous and I’m not suggesting it isn’t.
@NorthernLass I have seatspy and have been looking at possible combinations. Will continue and work out best option to deal with this thank you so much for offering. And it is me and hubby plus the children so we cannot really have much manoeuvre. And I really don’t want to go indirect with the kids- maybe that’s me being difficult but it’s hard to manage and they aren’t all my kids!It’s not the end of the world, we will have to consider our options, I just wanted to get a view of how flexible that policy was and it was not possible to do it online.
Good luck! You did really well to get 2 adults and 5 kids away on avios in August, hope you find a solution 🤞. And let us know! It all adds to the collective HFP wisdom 😊
*Not teaching you to suck eggs but it looks like BA flies to DLM from both LHR and LGW (but not to ACE which would make my life easier just now 🤦🏻♀️). SeatSpy will just show all the available seats as London departures and not differentiate.
@Northernlass thank you and I’m so sorry I started thinking about your point re two airports and I realised I had got it mixed up with Antalya. We are going to Dalaman in Easter hols, Antalya in summer hols! Sorry especially if you’ve put effort in helping find the seats! Dilemma still exists.
I’ll see how we get on and let you know what we ended up doing if we don’t cancel altogether.
We did avios one way as on the other way it was cheaper using easyJet. And now that we have a conundrum, EasyJet Flight Club seems great for the flexibility.
Seatspy doesn’t seem to be correct at finding number of seats. Is it usually inaccurate? Eg there’s a date it shows 4 seats when there are actually 5 seats (when I search 5, it doesn’t show up).
It can be slightly behind as it’s not a live system and as I understand it, “collects” data from BA at intervals. And sometimes the BA page that it uses is wrong. It’s a good general guide, but you always need to double check on ba.com as obviously people can be booking or cancelling seats at any point.
Mixing up these things is easily done, especially, I imagine, if you have 5 kids, lol.
Easyjet do seem a lot better than Ryanair, who charge an arm and a leg to change anything.
If you do have to cancel you might end up booking a different holiday altogether which might even work out better! In August you don’t need to go all the way to southern Turkey for sun, sand and sea.
Does anyone have any suggestions for Antalya style all inclusive resorts in Europe that would appeal to kids from 4-16? Also not breaking the bank entirely given the size of the group!
In other news we have now caught this vomiting bug that seems to be going round…
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