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I snatched some flights to Sydney earlier this year for Christmas ’25 but noticed only at the very end (and by that I mean literally around the payment page) that my partner was not on my Household account. Added my dad as “placeholder”. I knew I could not change the name but assumed I can cancel and rebook at a later date. I just got off the phone with an agent who stated that he does not know when the seats become available again when I cancel them. Does anyone have experiences with such a scenario? I am keen to keep those seats but if this does not work, shame on me!
For travel at Christmas I really don’t see these seats going back into inventory especially on a rare as unicorn redemptions route.
Though given you’re going to cancel anyway it’s worth a try – just make sure your actual travel partner is on your list!
From what I’ve read on here before, and this isn’t cast-iron confirmed, if reward seats are part of BA’s guaranteed initial allocation, they should go straight back into inventory.
However, if they were additional reward seats released later than D-355 they may or may not go straight back, I guess this will depend on whether it’s a high-demand route, how cash sales are progressing, etc.
Obviously you’ll be making the cancellation by phone, so the agent should be able to immediately rebook them if they do become available (unless someone else happens to be trying to book the exact same dates at that time!)
If you cancel and the seats go back into inventory then it is instantaneous. The 241 should also come back immediately although you may need to log out and back again for it to reappear.
The issue you may have is that if British Airways have opened up more seats for redemption (so have sold more than the guaranteed four) then there is a reasonable chance that your seats will not come back into inventory.
As the others have said, the only way to find out is to cancel and attempt to rebook. The longer you leave this, I would suspect the less likely it is the seats would come back. Unless you fancy Christmas in Australia with your dad I think you need to bite the bullet and go for it.
Personally I would do it online to save an additional off-line booking fee. Agents should be able to cancel and rebook seamlessly but if you get a poor one who messes up the process you could be stuffed.
I have cancelled and rebooked twice. The first time was when I realised I had accepted too long a connection in my rush to book. This was free as was within 24 hours of booking and I considered it to be zero risk as was T-355 several hours after the midnight scrum when it would be unlikely anyone else was looking.
The second time was to apply two Barclays upgrade vouchers which I considered quite risky (six months before travelling to Singapore) as per this post:
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/cabin-upgrade-voucher/page/9/#post-722409
I have cancelled one set of Singapore flights that were booked at T-355 that did not come back into inventory. This was at around four months prior to travelling and it certainly shows that the initial release of seats do not always come back.
I hope it works out for you.
Re trying it online, don’t assume you’ll get the Avios back immediately (a few days isn’t unusual), so unless you have enough over-and-above the refunded points, you’ll want to do it by phone.
Thanks everyone! Just got off the phone with another agent and it is done!
Cancellation returned the seats into the pool immediately. My voucher and my Avios were also returned “immediately”, however I was only able to see them on my account – when I went to book the flights again neither the voucher nor the Avios showed. At the same time the agent on the phone also tried to hold the flights from his end but that did not work for another 5-10min, we suspect that whilst everything is visually returned immediately, the IT takes a while to actually update. In any case after about 10min we managed to book the seats again! Mission accomplished! I was thinking about doing this at an ungodly time but had no luck with two agents during that time, hence took the risk today morning.Well done! – and I’m very glad to hear this, as I have a challenge to do something similar for December flights.
The message is: “Don’t give up”I’m delighted for you although I feel a bit sorry for your dad!
@1958
I knew beforehand that some agents simply have a bit more knowledge around these things before they have come across them before. That also helps calm your nerves when you’re on the phone!@Frogee
Well, I did promise him some flights to Shanghai now that they have Club Suite! But still considering flying via Helsinki, tbd!
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