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My family (4 of us) were supposed to fly to Geneva on Saturday 27th July but my husband’s ear became very painful on the day of travel and he was told by a doctor in A&E that he should not travel. We supplied a note to basupport@email.ba.com confirming that he could not travel 4 hours before takeoff. BA have kept our return flight but we have to cancel this too as our GP has referred my husband or further investigation so he is not fit to fly.Our flights were fully funded by Avios (70000). Can we expect BA to re credit our Avios and to refund the taxes (£170). We are not rebooking flights at this stage as we have to wait until husband is seen at outpatients Ear clinic late August. I can’t seem to find any guidance online via BA executive club rules and regs.Thank you
Ouch – I sympathise re the ear.
Normally you can cancel an avios flight up to 24 hours before travel and get back all the avios plus the taxes, minus an amount between £1 and £35 (it’s slightly complicated!) Sometimes BA is more generous with cancellations – did you speak to them and ask about the refund, it’s not clear?
If you cancelled after the deadline and BA refuses to refund anything except the APD, there’s not much you can really do except see if you can claim anything on your travel insurance. However, not all policies cover loyalty points.
Thank you!
When I last spoke to BA on day of travel they asked for medical evidence confirming husband could not travel which I supplied. But at that point we were still hopeful of being able to rebook albeit at a later date and still make our return back so I did not get into the complete cancellation scenarios. I will be cancelling the return leg in good time so hopefully we can get the Avios back for that at least as BA have kept that for us. Our travel insurance with Nationwide used to cover airline miles but the providers changed in May of this year and the new one Aviva does not which is unfortunate. I am planning to call BA to discuss but just wanted to be sure if I had any rights or if I was dependent on their goodwill so to speak!BA might be generous, but otherwise you may just get your taxes back. If you booked before May, then you should be covered under your insurance if the same policy is still active. If no-one will reimburse your Avios I suggest raising a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman (I have already raised this issue with them, but they will not even look at it unless I have an “active complaint” – let’s not be pro-active boys!).
Avios literally have a “value” in that you can BUY them! So paying with Avios is no different than paying with a Gift Voucher IMHO. YMMV 😁
Ok thank you hopefully can get this resolved to my satisfaction but if not then will go down the complaint route!
@olenka – BA does have a discretionary policy to refund Avios in case of illness and you should try them first. In respect of Nationwide, did you book this trip before the new terms came into effect? If so, the old terms ought to apply. Also, their new terms re points are not absolute – if you bought the points in any way, you are entitled to claim a cash refund under the terms on production of a receipt if the provider (ie BA) won’t refund you.
As @lhar suggests, I think it’s very likely an unfair contract term not to refund Avios (albeit there is room for argument as to the quantum of any claim). I have raised this with the Directors of Nationwide and their formal response says otherwise, based on their checking the issue with Aviva, but while the Nationwide people are actually very sensible, this change isn’t their choice and Aviva are clowns.
So I have just come off the phone from BA. As we were not able to fly due to medical reasons, our Avios and taxes are not lost so long as we rebook flights within 1 year of the original date that the original flights were booked on. Our Avios flights were booked on 18 March 24 so we have until the 17th March 2025 to rebook (could be to the same place or a new destination, we just pay extra in miles/taxes). This is called Re book to travel under BA illness travel policy. If I had elected to have the Avios refunded today I would be paying £35pp cancellation fee so it made sense to go for the rebook option. The Avios and taxes are held under the original booking reference and this is what needs to be quoted to the BA agent when rebooking. Seems a fair resolution to an unfortunate situation.
Sorry to hear about the illness, but Hurrah! for common sense. Not sure you’d get the same response from Ryanair 😕
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