-
My husband and I, plus our 3 month baby are currently on holiday and booked on my BA companion voucher. I may need to take a detour on the return leg with my baby due to a family terminal illness. My partner needs to return to UK for work. Aware that the lead passenger needs to travel for the voucher to be valid, can I do this and would I need to notify BA that I will not be able to complete the return leg? Or would it be best to just not show up? Any risk of them refusing to let him board? Other issue is that our baby is linked with my husband and not me, due to surnames. Would there be questions at the check in counter when he checks in alone without baby?
Other option would be of course for me to return to UK but book another flight out, but the former would be easier with the baby!
Sorry for your situation, but I’d speak to BA. Whatever we think about them, they are human just like us. 😁 I’ve had plenty of non-refund or non-change sorted in the past – but the “computer says no” so you need to speak to a “non-AI” intelligence,
Common sense says it shouldn’t be an issue. The hard work is finding someone with common sense 😉
Sorry to hear about the family illness. The Ts and Cs are that the voucher holder has to travel, so you would be taking a risk that your husband might be refused boarding if he turned up on his own, though in reality as long as he has a valid BP, they probably won’t even know it’s a 241 booking (unless something flashes up at check-in/boarding??)
By all means try and call BA and ask what they suggest, however you can also change your return leg if you think you’ll be able to use it in future. Are you somewhere where you could get a reasonably-priced ticket (or use avios) to book a solo return for your husband?
I had a similar situation where I was at risk of missing a long haul return as lead booker with companion still needing to fly. I was assured – for a return to the UK – this would be fine. Several years ago, and ultimately didn’t need to put it to the test, but hopefully reassuring.
In all my years on travel forums I’ve never heard of anyone having any problems in this scenario. Each passenger has a ticket and I am quite sure the airport staff do not know or care how it was paid for (unless they specifucally looked but why would they). Just check in the passenger that is travelling and all good. No refunds of course for those that didn’t travel
Same as @SamG I have never heard of the companion being refused travel.
I wouldn’t even call BA to ask about it because that will stir a pot that doesn’t need stirring.
Thanks everyone for your replies. Just wondering, if I do contact BA, how would it work to get the return leg cancelled? Would I still receive a partial cash refund, avios and the companion voucher refund, even though we used it for the outbound journey? Any issues with the baby also linked to my husbands name rather mine? BA rep suggested this for thr bassinet seat as bubs has same surname as Dad and not me.
I think we will just leave it and risk it, my concern is the baby not travelling with him and questions being asked.
I don’t know about the baby, but if the booking is all on one PNR, you can’t cancel the inbound leg once you’ve flown the outbound (as in, if you won’t get anything refunded). You can change it, as I mentioned above – Rob wrote about this recently:
It would help to know where you are. Are you likely to travel to where you are again in the future? If so it might make sense to change the date of the return flight for all of you to a future date and then buy completely new flights for all of you to get back to the UK, you via where you need to go. Then you could buy one way redemptions in the future and have a second holiday. You would need rewards availability at the future date to change to and would depend on how many Avios you’ve got.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
