Cancelling companion voucher booking

[Green Plastic]

Hi all,

I am looking to cancel an avios (companion voucher) booking for later this month. The page on BA.com forces me to request a future travel voucher, though it does say that bookings made using companion vouchers will receive an automatic refund.

Then I receive an email advising:
“Thank you for applying for a future travel voucher. Unfortunately, your booking isn’t eligible and we can’t exchange it for a voucher.”

What am I doing wrong?

Many thanks,

GP

[NorthernLass]

Sounds odd – you should be able to get a refund up to Sep 30th under BWC. How long is it since you tried to cancel and is the flight still showing as live in MMB? If the date is getting close you might need to try calling BA to get it sorted.

[Green Plastic]

Yeah flight still showing on MMB and displays when I sign in to the app. Departure date is 23 June.

Oh god, is there no way out of this apart from ringing up? What are the actual chances of getting through? (Gulp)

[Jacob]

Try the online chat? But the lines are much better now, was dealing with some flight changes for my dad (who doesn’t have a status) and had to call the generic line 3 times last week – average 15mins wait. Quicker earlier in the day.

[Green Plastic]

Hang on, do I select yes or no to “request a single e-voucher?”

I said yes the first time, have just tried again saying no. Didn’t seem logical either way but fingers crossed it might work this time

[NorthernLass]

I think that’s just to request separate vouchers for all the people travelling, no idea if it makes any difference!

[To dare is to do]

Green plastic … same thing happening to me same message. I’m going to leave it a couple of days see if it sorts itself out if not I’ll have to call.

[NorthernLass]

I wonder if BA unwittingly pulled the plug on all bookings made under BWC when they ended the guarantee the other day? They are world-class at making extra work for themselves, and huge levels of inconvenience for the customers!

[Green Plastic]

Update: BA have emailed to say they will process my refund.

[To dare is to do]

Green Plastic wrote:

Update: BA have emailed to say they will process my refund.

Well done, I’ll try again tomorrow with the ticking no box who knows 🤷‍♀️

[Ruralite]

I have just had the same message for a booking I cancelled earlier today and am going to wait a couple of days and see what happens. Whilst i was requesting the voucher I did notice it briefly said with Avios bookings they could only refund which is what I’d prefer anyway. I also had problems with the site, it didn’t have my booking at first and initially couldn’t find it when I input the booking reference and was also rather erratic when loading so the BA IT gremlins are obviously at work today.

[Ruralite]

Update – on Saturday afternoon MMB was still showing the 241 booking I cancelled through MMB 2 days earlier as live, so I firstly had a online chat with someone who confirmed it was not been cancelled but said they could not help me as they only dealt with paid bookings & I would have to call. So I breathed in, dialled the executive club help number and readied myself for a long wait. To my surprise, after listening to several recorded messages & ignoring those that told me if I wasn’t travelling within a month to call back later as I wasn’t a priority, the call was answered quite swiftly by someone called Pedro who was very helpful. He cancelled the booking, the Avios & 241 went back into my account almost immediately & he said the refund of cash would take 7-10 days to go back on my card (we’ll see if it does). I asked why this was happening with 241 cancellations & he admitted none of the call centre staff know other than it’s a IT problem that they keep reporting back to their superiors but is not getting addressed.

[dkhosy]

Hi,

Hoping you can help.

I’m about to cancel a single companion voucher booking to re book a return with better flight times.

How long did it take for the companion voucher to show again in your BA account?

I’m worried if I cancel it will take some time and I’ll lose out on the flights.

Thanks

[Anna]

I’ve cancelled 2 of these in the past 48 hours and the voucher came back immediately. However, a few months ago when I did the same thing (just can’t decide where to go in 2023!), I had to chase it up after a week and they had to do it manually so YMMV.

[tylerdurden]

Hello, I’m just double checking if I cancel a companion voucher flight I should receive the voucher back (with original expiry date), a refund of both avios and taxes?

Thanks

[Anna]

Yes, minus £35 pp, though this might be less, or nothing, depending on what BA IT is feeling like today.