Cancelling travel due to medical emergency

[yarg]

Hi,

My parents are booked to travel LHR-JNB on April 18th (returning 6 weeks later) using a companion voucher. The voucher is one of those that was extended automatically a couple of times during the pandemic, and would now be expiring in early May. In addition, they have several internal flights using Comair (so visible in MMB, but via a different booking ref).

Unfortunately, my dad had to be rushed to hospital 10 days ago for emergency heart surgery. Thankfully the surgery was a success, but he is in no way fit to fly, and has a medical certificate from the surgeon stating that my dad should not fly for at least 3 months and must seek a further opinion on his fitness to fly thereafter.

I contacted BA Customer Relations; the lady said we will need to cancel the flights (paying the 35ppp) and then contact them back to request an extension to the voucher, but that the extension being granted is not guaranteed. I had hoped they would be more sympathetic to the fact that my parents’ are not “not flying” out of choice but rather as a result of an emergency major surgery, but that’s the answer so far…

So my question here is: is anyone aware of any other route that could be taken to ensure that my parents could take these same flights but just later on when my dad is cleared to fly again? Any other contact numbers or e-mails? Any legislation applying to medical emergencies (clutching at straws…)

Looking at the news and traffic on various forums, I’m also vaguely hoping that with all the disruption BA might even cancel my parents’ flights on the 18th, which would leave them in a much stronger position, but again…that’s clutching at straws I fear.

Any thoughts/suggestions very much welcome.
Thanks a lot!

[NorthernLass]

So sorry to hear about your dad, glad that his surgery was successful. BA seem to be all over the place at the moment with what they are telling people. There have definitely been some companion vouchers returned with the Sep 23 date, but also someone posted yesterday that they got their voucher back with only 5 days’ validity so I don’t don’t if there’s even an official policy on this.

Would your parents travel insurance cover new flights (or reimburse the cash equivalent of the current ones) in the event of a trip being cancelled for medical reasons?

Another option would be to cancel the flights online, which SHOULD give you the option of a FTV which would then be automatically refunded without having to pay the £35pp and with the extended date on the 241. I don’t know if anyone has been through this process recently and could confirm this though. I can’t see a way of preserving this specific booking though; they’d be liable for any extra costs BA might decide to add in the meantime and also future award availability.

[AJA]

Firstly I am sorry to read this but glad to hear your father’s surgery was successful. Secondly have your parents considered claiming on their travel insurance assuming they are covered for abandonment of travel. That would go some way to paying for anything they can’t get back from BA. It would also cover the £35 per passenger cost to cancel, plus any cancellation fees on the Comair flights and other bookings in SA.

I think you are going to have to rely on goodwill from BA for them to extend the companion voucher.

I would not be inclined to wait to see if BA cancels the flight given that you have already contacted them although you could just wait until a bit closer to the date to see if they do. That said we are talking less than 2 weeks away and I suspect that if it was going to be cancelled it would have been by now. Not sure why you think there is a chance it might be cancelled? Are you thinking another IT meltdown?

You could just try cancelling online for a FTV – that avoids any fees – and then wait for BA to refund the Companion Voucher and Avios but whether that would impact BA’s goodwill to extending the voucher expiry is an unknown.

[yarg]

Thanks for your quick reply and the suggestions. I’m not sure about their travel insurance; will check that with them.

Regarding the FTV: I have several expiring vouchers myself coming up and earlier this year I used the trick detailed on this site of booking a domestic trip, cancelling and getting the FTV with the voucher “embedded” and usable up until 2023. But then a month or so ago I wanted to try that trick on another voucher and found that that option was no longer working and that cancelled flights were just having the voucher with the original date deposited back into the account.
Your idea of cancelling online to get an FTV and the extended voucher date til Sept 2023 would be perfect for my folks, but if it were that simple I can’t help wondering why BA wouldn’t just suggest that to us? Any way to confirm that the idea would work that you know of please? I’ve asked the same question on FlyerTalk so hopefully someone either here or there could confirm if that idea would work…

Thanks again for the ideas!

[yarg]

AJA wrote:

Firstly I am sorry to read this but glad to hear your father’s surgery was successful. Secondly have your parents considered claiming on their travel insurance assuming they are covered for abandonment of travel. That would go some way to paying for anything they can’t get back from BA. It would also cover the £35 per passenger cost to cancel, plus any cancellation fees on the Comair flights and other bookings in SA.

I think you are going to have to rely on goodwill from BA for them to extend the companion voucher.

I would not be inclined to wait to see if BA cancels the flight given that you have already contacted them although you could just wait until a bit closer to the date to see if they do. That said we are talking less than 2 weeks away and I suspect that if it was going to be cancelled it would have been by now. Not sure why you think there is a chance it might be cancelled? Are you thinking another IT meltdown?

You could just try cancelling online for a FTV – that avoids any fees – and then wait for BA to refund the Companion Voucher and Avios but whether that would impact BA’s goodwill to extending the voucher expiry is an unknown.

Thanks for your reply too. Regarding potential cancellation by BA themselves, I guess it’s more just seeing the news and the accumulation of troubles at LHR that made me wonder if a cancellation might happen…but am aware that’s clutching at straws.

So essentially our options are:

1) do what BA says: ring them up and ask them to cancel and refund the flights (minus the 35ppp charge) and ask them to make the request to the back office for an extension to the original voucher due to extenuating circumstances – such an extension would not be guaranteed though
2) cancel online and request an FTV; this avoids the 35ppp charge and would theoretically have the companion voucher value embedded in the FTV for use until Sept 2023 – problem is the only way to know if this works is to try…and then it would be too late to circle back to option #1 if it doesn’t work

Is that about the sum of it as you see it?
Thanks!