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Hello,
I have a part flow 2-4-1 booking. I flew the outbound in first LHR-SCL in August and had the inbound booked in WTP from SJO-LGW in December.
Phoned up to change the inbound to be from AUA-LGW in economy. Charged a £35pp change fee as expected, but was given no refund on taxes or avios for the new leg.
Given the change in class, and moving from a peak to an off-peak date, I was expecting at least a fair few avios back.
Agent said that because it was part-flow, and thus after the 24-hour cutoff for the original outbound, no refunds for taxes or fees would be given.
Is that correct?
There’s another thread currently on this exact subject with a couple of posts about this – can’t recall exactly what they said though!
@flylesstravelmore – yes, BA is correct. Once past 24 hours before the first flight in your itinerary the Avios for your whole booking become non-refundable. Theoretically you might get some cash back, but here, I think the cash element is the same and if by AUA you actually mean Antigua (ANU), isn’t that the same Avios cost as well?
BA has been generous in allowing you to change gateways but they aren’t so generous as to allow what is effectively a back door (partial) refund of Avios if the changed gateway cost were lower.
It’s just the policy so generocity has nothing to do with it unless @JDB means they think the policy itself is generous (which I certainly believe it is). This change was allowed because AUA and SJC are in the same zone. You vould have flown the same class too if award seats were available in which case tehre would have been no perceived loss.
Thanks all!
Definitely not what I had expected, but I guess better to learn on something that was a more marginal difference…
Strangely I did get both a tax and avios refund doing something similar earlier this year. The only difference then was that it was two one-ways on separate PNRs that had been joined with a companion voucher later. Guess that tricked the system.
That’s how it works with the 2 ow PNR strategy, and in addition to lower costs this flexibility is why some of us love them so much.
@flylesstravelmore – even with two PNRs, you wouldn’t have received a refund as the Avios price from AUA is the same as from SJO if you had travelled in WTP and the overall Avios rules prevent any refund for the difference between the classes.
It isn’t a question of ‘tricking the system’ – BA allows people to make a second booking and then reclaim the companion voucher Avios but this is by concession rather than in the terms. If you did receive a refund in the past, it’s because of that concession which is applied manually, so best to keep quiet!
@JDB, I’M not dure if that is true but I cannot say for certain as I’ve never changed PBR2 to a different class having already flown PNR1. However, what I have done is cancelled PNR2 after flying PNR1 and received a full refund for PNR2. I cannot recall what the situation was in this specific case but one interesting thing is that when making bookings in this way some CSA link (can be seen in the booking) the two PNR when refunding the avios while other agents have refunded the avios without linking the two PNR. I believe the former is likely the correct policy but the latter sometimes happens for one reason or another with respect to the CSA. My hunch is that I likely received a refund because the bookings were probably not linked but I cannot say for sure.
I did this earlier this year – We had flown LHR-IAD on the outbound and were due to fly MIA-LHR on the inbound but changed our plans and flew MCO-MAN instead on VS. I had booked the MIA-LHR leg separately and had the 50% avios refunded; I cancelled this online and got everything back apart from the expected £35 pp. Having done a fair few of these kind of itineraries, I don’t think BA links them in any kind of meaningful way!
Thanks for confirming my experience @Anna. I also suspect that PNR1 and PNR2 function independently even where they do show up as linked but I couldn’t recall specifics of my booking.
Everything both @BJ and @NorthernLass and I say is correct. However, it is important to recognise that it relies on not involving an agent who spots that no Avios refund is due on cancellation or voluntary downgrade. It is an entirely informal and generous process, done by concession and as it also unpopular with CSA and apparently a back door to circumventing the Avios terms, it is very unwise to keep talking about it should you wish it to continue.
BA doesn’t link the bookings in any technical sense because there is no provision within GDS/NDC systems for this; it’s not a BA IT issue.
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