What am I entitled to on a 241 F booking that is downgraded to J?

[spawn606]

Hi folks,

Need to fly to Chicago as we are moving to the US. We wanted to fly F due to the larger cabin allowance that we need to move our stuff however I saw the HFP post about how BA294/295 is going to be operated by a 3 cabin (Air Brussels?) from July – October.

There is still availability in F for our dates using the BA 241 voucher. I want to secure these but was wondering what happens if/when these flights are updated?

Do we lose our extra cabin allowance? Are we entitled to an alternative F flight from another carrier? Or do we just simply have to accept the J despite paying hight taxes/fees/avios?

Thanks

[SamG]

I think there has been the odd scenario where a specific policy has been published whereby the benefits have been maintained and you fly in J. But the usual policy is either you fly in J with J allowances and then get a refund – 75%. Note though that BA does not agree with this stance on Avios tickets so you’d need to fight for it. Or you can ask for a reroute in F – either onto the other Chicago flight or via another hub.

I’m surprised you still see F availability though – I had a look at expertflyer and the cabin is F0 on all the dates I can see! Maybe they’ve forgotten about Avios!

[NorthernLass]

Note there’s no automatic entitlement to travel in F on another carrier (or even another BA flight), so they’re within their rights to refuse. They could agree that you can still have your baggage allowance, though I’m not sure how this would work in practice when you arrive at the airport with all your luggage.

[meta]

You’ll need to involuntarily accept the downgrade and the system will only give you J benefits. They might put a note on the booking, but I am not sure how this would work practically.