Expired 241 but BA cancelled flight

[beardysuhz]

I had a 241 that expired August 2021 but after BA cancelled our original flights they issued an FTV.

I had rebooked flights LHR to Tokyo (July 2022) and it seems BA will be cancelling all flights to Tokyo on BA metal until Nov 22.

I still haven’t received confirmation from BA that the flight is cancelled but I wanted to know what my options are if BA cancel the flight.

1. Will BA issue a refund of Avios, Taxes and Voucher with original expiry date (therefore my 241 expires)

2. Can I rebook onto any date within 365 days of departure?

3. Will BA provide the option of issuing an FTV and therefore extending the 241 to September 2023?

4. Do I have to accept if BA choose to rebook me onto JAL on same dates? (I also can’t fly on the same dates anymore so a part of me is happy that BA may cancel the flights)

[meta]

Read up on EU261 or UK261 on this forum. This gets asked regularly. You have full rights if BA cancels which gives you three choices and these are your choices not BA’s: refund, re-route on any airline or re-route on BA at any date in the future within reason.

[Lady London]

What you now have is a ticket. Or 2 tickets, each with the full rights meta describes. Even if they were bought with a 241 or a voucher or avios or in a sale, does not matter. You have 2 tickets and how you got them and any expiry dates on the voucher or whatever was used to pay for them, don’t apply. There are now no date limitations it’s completely irrelevant that your voucher would have expired by now. As what you have now is a ticket (or 2) with a fresh new set of rights.

Of course to many longhaul destinations if your booked trip is cancelled you might only want to do the trip at a certain time of year, annual event or season. Don’t let BA tell you you can’t. As soon as the flights you want including your return flight show up for sale online, call and ask for those flights as your reroute.

Avios seats are not required to be available if you are rerouting onto a later date because your original flight was cancelled by airline. Don’t let a BA agent tell you that – some do. Any seat showing online for sale that you can see, you have a right to. So around 355 days ahead make sure your return date is being offered too.

You only get one chance and you have to rebook all your needed flights in that one go. So also don’t accept a partial solution. If that happens change nothing, leave the ticket as it is and come back here for help.

You don’t have to choose new dates by the date of your original flight. But let them know you have to replan and will get back to them when you have a later date. Don’t let them tell you you can only rebook within x days or you have to take a refund as they’re not flying it anymore etc. That’s their problem not yours, you get to choose if you want a later date not them.

Read up on here as meta says.

[thechrisbuckley]

I had a very similar situation.

Called BA last week and today received a refund for taxes, 192K Avios and a new 2for1 voucher with expiry of September 2023.

[NorthernLass]

@thechrisbuckly – that’s very interesting. People have been reporting being told by BA that if the 241 has expired it won’t now be extended in the case of a cancellation so it sounds very much as though it’s (yet another) case of who you get through to. They clearly CAN extend the 241s as your experience shows, so the OP could try asking for this is that’s what they want.

[beardysuhz]

Thank you all very much for your amazing help and support I really appreciate it.

@LadyLondon – “You don’t have to choose new dates by the date of your original flight. But let them know you have to replan and will get back to them when you have a later date” – does this mean hypothetically I can wait until March 2023 and then book a flight 355 days out? Is there some sort of reasonable time limit as per EC261 regulations?

@chrisbuckly – that’s also another potential (although it seems that BA has increased its taxes/fees for avios redemptions quite significantly so maybe although i wouldn’t mind having the 241 extended until 2023 the first option of rebooking flights onto any date might make the most sense.

[marks7389]

NorthernLass wrote:

@thechrisbuckly – that’s very interesting. People have been reporting being told by BA that if the 241 has expired it won’t now be extended in the case of a cancellation so it sounds very much as though it’s (yet another) case of who you get through to. They clearly CAN extend the 241s as your experience shows, so the OP could try asking for this is that’s what they want.

Definitely worth pushing. AGL told me they wouldn’t refund a Lloyds upgrade voucher from a flight BA cancelled in January. After some wrangling they eventually agreed to honour it on a new booking albeit with some restrictions that I was willing to accept.

[Lady London]

beardysuhz wrote:

Thank you all very much for your amazing help and support I really appreciate it.

@LadyLondon – “You don’t have to choose new dates by the date of your original flight. But let them know you have to replan and will get back to them when you have a later date” – does this mean hypothetically I can wait until March 2023 and then book a flight 355 days out? Is there some sort of reasonable time limit as per EC261 regulations?

@chrisbuckly – that’s also another potential (although it seems that BA has increased its taxes/fees for avios redemptions quite significantly so maybe although i wouldn’t mind having the 241 extended until 2023 the first option of rebooking flights onto any date might make the most sense.

If this is a new changeback by BA and they are now giving 241 vouchers back with Sept 2023 date you can consider it and I would, if the 241 is important to you and you won’t be earning another one to replace it soon enough. But know that in the immortal words of @Colin Mackinnon an FTV only preserves what you paid not what you bought. You might find the pricing or availability of the route you want sails out of reach.

In that case the rights given by EU261 and its UK equivalent, to choose a later date to reroute (rebook) to regardless of whatever that date might cost, protect you a lot better if you still want the same route.

In England legal environment you have to be seen as reasonable otherwise judges will find ways to deny your claim in case of dispute.

Most of us here think a year ahead of when tbe airline advise you are cancelled, or roughly a year later than your original departure, is about the maximum reasonable time ahead to new date. Since there are all sorts of reasons wby people can’t organise to take a trip again for that long particularly long haul, so soon or they may have targeted an annual event etc. Any further ahead and I wouldn’t support you as being reasonable nor would others.

[Kimcarps]

I was in exactly the same situation- I had flights booked to Singapore next month which were cancelled and replaced by flights a few hours later. I didn’t accept the flight changes as our plans had also changed and I finally got through to a very helpful BA agent this morning who agreed that he could ‘open up’ flights up to the 11th March 2023 and rebooked the flights to my chosen dates without any problems what so ever! The original companion voucher would have expired in a few weeks and had been linked to various routes/cancellations over the past couple of years.
He did warn me that if I need to change these dates I will obviously be subject to reward flight availability.
I was on hold to BA for 9 hrs on Saturday but got through today after an hour- I did get cut off after giving my details but thankfully he rang me straight back!

[FFoxSake]

beardysuhz wrote:

I had rebooked flights LHR to Tokyo (July 2022) and it seems BA will be cancelling all flights to Tokyo on BA metal until Nov 22.

Have you got a source for that statement?

We have a Club on a BA 241 LHR-HND-LHR for the Formula 1 (out end of Sep, back mid Oct 22), so just wondering whether we need to get prepared for a battle… and presume we should be looking to go on JAL instead?

[beardysuhz]

FFoxSake wrote:

beardysuhz wrote:

I had rebooked flights LHR to Tokyo (July 2022) and it seems BA will be cancelling all flights to Tokyo on BA metal until Nov 22.

Have you got a source for that statement?

We have a Club on a BA 241 LHR-HND-LHR for the Formula 1 (out end of Sep, back mid Oct 22), so just wondering whether we need to get prepared for a battle… and presume we should be looking to go on JAL instead?

My only source is looking at BA.com and searching for flights. Up until 30th October all flights seem to be JAL (or BA codeshare on JAL). 31st October is the first instance where BA005 and BA007 seem to be bookable. I am not sure if there’s a more accurate way by using 3rd party websites such as expertflyer to check seat availability.

My understanding is that BA will give you the option to travel on JAL without any fuss (Subject to availability of course). Otherwise it will be a good old EC261 re-route battle.

I am yet to receive an official cancellation for my 241 flights to Japan in July but will provide an update once I do and the options BA provide.

[FFoxSake]

beardysuhz wrote:

I am yet to receive an official cancellation for my 241 flights to Japan in July but will provide an update once I do and the options BA provide.

Thank you. That would be really useful to know how you get on with replacement flights.

I also found this article which agrees with your findings… https://londonairtravel.com/2022/03/09/british-airways-london-heathrow-tokyo-suspension/
“British Airways has extended the temporary suspension of flights from London Heathrow to Tokyo Haneda until late May 2022.
BA had suspended the route for the winter season. It was due to resume on Wednesday 30 March 2022. The route will now resume from Sunday 29 May 2022 at the earliest.
Flights beyond this date have been taken off sale until Monday 31 October, which suggests the suspension will be extended further.”

[yonasl]

Flying to Japan in Oct 2022 with JAL and returning with BA first week of November 2022. So far return flight is still there but wouldn’t mind if they cancelled it and moved us to the JAL flight hehe. (paid cash vs. Avios)

[Norm]

So it turns out I’m on the same boat – my Oct tickets have been cancelled.

If I take the re-route on JAL and it turns out Japan doesn’t (as expected) open up to tourism by then, what happens to my right to cancel the flight and get a full refund, now that it’s not on BA (and not on Avios, etc) ?

[FFoxSake]

Norm wrote:

If I take the re-route on JAL and it turns out Japan doesn’t (as expected) open up to tourism by then, what happens to my right to cancel the flight and get a full refund, now that it’s not on BA (and not on Avios, etc) ?

I was about to ask exactly the same question!

[SamG]

The underlying ticket is still an Avios ticket so you can cancel as normal

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[RK228]

Our trip to Japan for the first half of July, which was also booked using Avios and AMEX 241, was also just cancelled. I think we’ll be hanging tight for a bit (which realistically might be weeks or months, I guess) until Japan announces some sort of road map for reopening.

Lady London wrote:

What you now have is a ticket. Or 2 tickets, each with the full rights meta describes. Even if they were bought with a 241 or a voucher or avios or in a sale, does not matter. You have 2 tickets and how you got them and any expiry dates on the voucher or whatever was used to pay for them, don’t apply. There are now no date limitations it’s completely irrelevant that your voucher would have expired by now. As what you have now is a ticket (or 2) with a fresh new set of rights.

This is really interesting as previous articles on HFP (e.g., see here) seemed to suggest that the rebooking on other airlines following a BA cancellation would still be constrained by the 241 voucher’s original validity. The one we used for these reward flights is due to expire shortly after our trip as currently scheduled (i.e, expiry of 1 August 2022).

If it becomes necessary (e.g., based on Japan continuing with their border restrictions through the summer), I certainly hope that it is true that we can even rebook (with minimal hassle from BA) dates beyond the voucher’s original expiry date.

[davet]

Lady London wrote:

beardysuhz wrote:

Thank you all very much for your amazing help and support I really appreciate it.

@LadyLondon – “You don’t have to choose new dates by the date of your original flight. But let them know you have to replan and will get back to them when you have a later date” – does this mean hypothetically I can wait until March 2023 and then book a flight 355 days out? Is there some sort of reasonable time limit as per EC261 regulations?

@chrisbuckly – that’s also another potential (although it seems that BA has increased its taxes/fees for avios redemptions quite significantly so maybe although i wouldn’t mind having the 241 extended until 2023 the first option of rebooking flights onto any date might make the most sense.

If this is a new changeback by BA and they are now giving 241 vouchers back with Sept 2023 date you can consider it and I would, if the 241 is important to you and you won’t be earning another one to replace it soon enough. But know that in the immortal words of @Colin Mackinnon an FTV only preserves what you paid not what you bought. You might find the pricing or availability of the route you want sails out of reach.

In that case the rights given by EU261 and its UK equivalent, to choose a later date to reroute (rebook) to regardless of whatever that date might cost, protect you a lot better if you still want the same route.

In England legal environment you have to be seen as reasonable otherwise judges will find ways to deny your claim in case of dispute.

Most of us here think a year ahead of when tbe airline advise you are cancelled, or roughly a year later than your original departure, is about the maximum reasonable time ahead to new date. Since there are all sorts of reasons wby people can’t organise to take a trip again for that long particularly long haul, so soon or they may have targeted an annual event etc. Any further ahead and I wouldn’t support you as being reasonable nor would others.

what restrictions are those? I am still fighting but its looking like ill have to go to court to get anything or accept loosing the voucher

[bobcharlton]

In the same boat as several folks on here – flights on BA to Tokyo for June 2022 cancelled by BA on April 4 2022 (flights originally rebooked via FTV (accepted following a cancellation of 2021 flights) in September 2021). I’d like to rebook flights to Tokyo for April 2023 but concerned about 1) BA argue can only book to September 2022 (12 months from booking date) or 2) BA argue can only book to April 3 2023 (12 months from notified cancellation date). Obviously I’d prefer to argue 3) I can book up to 12 months from date of original outward flight (ie up to June 2023) on the basis this is reasonable/can only travel in April 2023 (less than 12 months from original outward flight).

Advice on HfP indicates my preference should be OK but I may have to be prepared to pursue an EC261 claim. Flyertalk discussion appears more pessimistic. As my preferred April 23 flights are not available yet, I can’t test the waters but I’d like to have my arguments ready before making the call to BA (assuming I can get through & don’t get cut off!!). Thanks