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About two hours before my flight I had to change as was clear due to motorway delays I was going to miss it.
Ticket was business Finnair. 12,500 Avios and £130.
I told told I could not change to the next day (seats available). I had to cancel and rebook. No refund of avios or cash would be available.
I had to rebook (economy) 4000 avios and another £130.
Does this sound correct? Would be nice to get something back.
Thanks
Avios flights are usually only cancellable up to 24 hours before departure, but I think you can claim back APD, though it might not be much on short-haul.
Thought as much but I wanted to change not cancel as I missed the flight. Can you not change Avios flights at the last minute then and just pay the £35 fee?
Same 24 hour rule. RTFT 😉
No because otherwise you could change for two weeks’ time then cancel the next day.
Once you’re within 24hrs you’re stuffed although if you go to the airport and explain in person there are plenty of stories to say they can be more accommodating.
After all a proper hold up on the motorway is going to impact more than just you. (Assuming you can average 85mph over 200 miles and finding a 50mph speed restriction scuppering your plans is however fundamentally different).
In my personal experience of this with BA at T5 they’d rebook for £60 into the next available Avios seat. Depending on availability this may or may not be useful…
But as this was a Finnair flight at an outstation this could have been tricky to resolve as BA almost certainly wouldn’t help you and Finnair may or may not have even had staff available let alone with sufficient authority to rebook you for a missed flight on a BA ticket. But again from personal experience it can work the other way where they have more authority and just rebook you FOC (all work related reasons BTW…I’ve only ever missed one flight due to my own stupidity!)
You really had nothing to lose by proceeding to T3 and pleading your case at a ticket counter . At least you had miles available as a last minute cash ticket could have been expensive!
Possibly OP is getting confused with the same-day change policy on some cash bookings?
Also all this stuff is in the booking Ts and Cs.
There are (now) 6 AY flights a day to HEL so the T3 desks should be consistently open. Previously they closed until 2 hours before a flight and staff hopped between land and airside to run them.
Withn 24 hours of departure AY would have had control of the ticket not BA.
So BA gave the correct advice thaat the ticket was basically lost as far as they are concered.
AY are a different matter and it would have cost noting to get to the check in desk and explain the situation and hope for a free or low cost rebooking.
Possibly OP is getting confused with the same-day change policy on some cash bookings?
Yes. We did a cash booking for LHR/AMS recently. We were having a great lunch in a restaurant on one of the canals, and I said “Let’s get a later flight”. Much to my delight/suprise, it was possible to change to a later flight FOC. Fantastic lunch!
In the old days you could beg mercy at the check-in counter (YMMV), but not sure if this works today. Otherwise claim on your travel insurance.
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