Guidance on getting confirmation of flights from BA

[buzzmonkey]

A few months back I posted about a concern that our reward flights in September 2025 would be cancelled due to breaching the IATA rules around surface sector distance. Our flights are LHR to Lax with a return from PVG to LHR (thread here https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/worried-our-reward-flights-could-be-cancelled/).

We’ve been attempting to get clarification from BA – they’ve yet to issue etickets (although the booking is viewable on the BA website/app) likely because it needs submitting manually. Just getting a little concerned now as we need to pay our balance on cruise liner by the end of May (LAX to Tokyo!) and obviously don’t want to be out of pocket if BA simply cancel our booking down the line. Have tried calling them a few times (blue customer only unfortunately) and have gone through the same routine of security and providing card details three times but without any feedback.

Any advice how I can get clarification here?

[JDB]

@buzzmonkey – it is a bit concerning that BA hasn’t issued the tickets yet as I don’t believe their ticketing queue is currently very far behind. BA, unlike other airlines, isn’t bothered about unticketed direct bookings but these ones should have been issued.

If you call, an agent should be able to see if your booking has been picked up by the ticketing team – it almost certainly has, so the agent needs to delve into the notes to see if any notes have been added to explain the failure to issue e-tickets.

If the ticketing team has determined your routing doesn’t comply, it will then fall to what precisely you were told by the agent who booked the itinerary (and the delay works in your favour here) to find a resolution. BA can issue the tickets in a compliant manner and thus waive the voucher rules at its expense if you were wrongly advised at the outset. I’m afraid it does mean calling regularly until resolved.

[memesweeper]

I would call and select the option for new booking. The agents seem to have more of a clue on that line during UK working hours, and given you don’t actually have a ticket yet, it’s not an abuse of process.