How long do you have to accept a change by BA?

[Iranicus]

We have an upcoming trip to Thailand booked. It’s London-Bangkok and then Koh Samui-Bangkok-London. All on one ticket.

The time of the Koh Samui-Bangkok flight changed meaning that instead of a 2 hour layover, it’s now almost 7 hours.

BA gave us the option to change our flights for free or cancel and get a full refund. We now think we might cancel the trip due to other circumstances.

We fly in April and were notified of the change in December. How long do we have to accept or reject (and refund) the change to our flights? Could we wait until a week before travel or will BA presume we have accepted.

[freckles]

In theory, up until the actual (outbound?) flight, but I wouldn’t wait it out until the last minute. I did once sit on a BA change for a couple of months without issue, but others may have different experience.

[JDB]

@Iranicus – per the EC261 Interpretative Guidelines, there is no official time limit but an airline is entitled to cancel your booking for a refund if they have notified the passenger of a change to which that passenger hasn’t responded. BA seems very relaxed about this compared to other airlines, but it doesn’t always help to play games/play chicken on this! Your booking is probably in a ‘pending’ state awaiting your decision.

You might get away with it, but nobody could sensibly advise you to leave it to the last minute as your optionality could disappear without notice.

[meta]

BA is relaxed, but not that relaxed. They will very likely refund after no response for two months or so. It happened to a few colleagues. What happened is that the ticket was still showing in their accounts (without ticket number), but they received a refund. Then it’s a question of them trying to re-instate the ticket and it’s an ugly process.