If you just booked an ORD > MAD IB flight, thank BA for destroying my trip

[spawn606]

Seriously.

A BA representative on the phone earlier told me to go ahead and cancel my existing 241 booking to be able to best help me make a small change. I did it, they then decided to let me know that the BA IT systems are down and they cannot refund my avios and companion voucher back in time. 10 mins later, both my flights are taken, they charge me 35pp cancellation fee.

So whoever got the flight, congratulations to you. I hope you thank BA for indirectly destroying my family trip that is due to begin in a few weeks.

Yay for non-refundable hotel bookings, without any flights.

All it cost me was an extra 35pp (which BA said unfortunately they cannot refund to me), 6.5 hours of my day, and a mental health breakdown.

[Richie]

Sorry that this has happened to you @spawn606.

[lesscleverandrew]

My understanding (for BA) is that (cancelled) Avios flights do not immediately go back into the pool of available reward-bookable flights. That’s the case with BA and probably IB.

[spawn606]

Thanks @Richie

lesscleverandrew wrote:

So are you saying that it would be complete coincidence that 10 mins after I hit “cancel”, I get an alert (the same one I set to allow me to book this originally), notifying me of new availability for that exact flight?

I certainly hope that is the case but I cant imagine it so. Do you know how long it takes typically to go back into the pool?

[slidey]

What needed to be changed that would require cancelling a booking rather than having the airline make the change?

It sounds like terrible advice from BA as once a flight is cancelled, you have no control over if it will reappear, when it will reappear or if it will still be there for you to rebook.

[spawn606]

slidey wrote:

What needed to be changed that would require cancelling a booking rather than having the airline make the change?

It sounds like terrible advice from BA as once a flight is cancelled, you have no control over if it will reappear, when it will reappear or if it will still be there for you to rebook.

The connection to be added to the outbound failed to display on BA’s system. However, when doing a search for the flight that includes the ORD>MAD portion, it shows up as bookable.

And yes, the risk is obviously there, but the failure occurred because of the IT systems failing today. That failure blocked the refund and the person I spoke with (after 40 mins of waiting), had to do something manually to unblock it, then it instantly refunded.

So whilst the risk of losing those seats is there, it is typically marginal, so long as you are quick and ready once cancelled, as I was.

But again, the gross failures of BA over the years in its choice to outsource IT, grossly increase the average time to connect to an agent + maximising profit, is the path that leads to these things. And this all whilst creating an accountability structure such that I have a human BA employee on the call acknowledging how awful this situation is, and how the IT failure contributed to it, yet openly admit to having no power to enforce any change to any outcome.

sigh

[zio]

@lesscleverandrew every BA avios flight I have cancelled has immediately gone back into reward inventory.
It has been suggested on here that (i) if the reward seats were those originally released for a flight they would go back into inventory but (ii) if the cancellation occurs close to the flight date (can’t remember if a particular cut-off was given) then the reward seats won’t (necessarily) go back into inventory.
Ultimately, though, as @slidey says, there is no control over the process.

@spawn606 very sorry to hear of your experience. A real nightmare scenario.

[Lady London]

Call back asap and ask for a copy of the recording of the call.

Play to a friend who’s normally rational and cool-headed.

Decide if you were following agent instructions that lost part of your booking or if you were warned or should have been aware of the risks and decided to go ahead anyway.

If the former, raise a very very polite request for help that it seems BA system problems lost part of your booking whilst you were under instructions on the phone by an agent to solve/work round an existing problem on the booking, and an important part of it got lost can
they help you get it back please. Stay nice blame no one.

If BA wants to fix this it won’t cost them that much so don’t p… them off. Just carefully grovel.

On second thoughts, don’t ask for a recording of the call unless the grovel fails without hope.
After all if they can’t help you’ll want to understand and learn for the future.

[Gosia44]

What a nightmare situation. The person who booked those seats obviously has no idea and it is not their fault. As someone suggested above, make a very very polite complaint to BA. After all, you were under the instructions of their agents.
I don’t think I would ever trust BA with any provisional cancellation. And it is always best to record any conversation with BA, just in case..

[NorthernLass]

@spawn606, how infuriating for you, I hope you manage to sort this out.

You say the flights were on IB – where did the “notification” come from that more (or cancelled) seats had become available? I only ask because SeatSpy doesn’t show IB availability and the BA system doesn’t issue alerts AFAIK. As mentioned above, I don’t think there’s much info out there around IB seats going back into the inventory.

You don’t say exactly when you’re travelling, however SeatSpy is showing decent availability on BA for ORD on BA for the second half of August if that’s any help to you.

[LD27]

@spawn606. So sorry to hear of the problem you have experienced. I do hope you manage to sort it out satisfactorily.

I’ve made a couple of bookings/cancellations recently on Iberia using 2-4-1. Had to ring BA (Avios option) as we were in and out of different airports. I’m not sure these flights go back into inventory like BA flights. Those I cancelled didn’t for later this year and next year. When I have made these bookings and have received follow up emails, it’s not been BA that has contacted me but email from a Customer Loyalty Agent, Avios Group Limited (AGL).