Be cautious booking with British Airways

[Banjo]

I just cancelled our trans-Atlantic Apr 24th Reflection cruise to Ireland.

 

I booked with Delta. For ATL-FLL they gave me a e-credit. Like FCC it has to be used by the end of 2021. We will use it at least to visit kids & grandchildren when this calms down so not really concerned. For my return (DUB-ATL) I used Delta miles on a KLM code share. They were pretty good with that. Returned the miles to my account and reimbursed all the taxes, fees that go with using miles and a payed upgrade to economy comfort.

Edited March 26, 2020 by Banjo

[scorpio47]

15 hours ago, hcat said:

so flights were refunded but not all the extras or add ons?

seems like alot of them,,  what was the penalty?,

 

still very confusing,,hope you get whatever you are entitled to...even if it takes some more correspondence

 

hcat, here's the details (hope this clears up the initial confusion I caused):

Flight cost for refundable with penalty through Flights by Celebrity included a $200 cancellation penalty for each flier for round trip flights costing $476.55 per flier.

Independent of the flight cost, on-line we pre-paid BA for an extra piece of luggage each for a total of $360 ($90 each piece for each flight).  We also pre-selected seats on each flight at a cost of $252 ($63.25 per seat) then subsequently made a seat selection change on one of the flights that cost an additional $108 ($54 per seat) on top of the original seat cost.  That's a total of $720 that BA has decided to keep.

As I mentioned in a reply to C-Dragons, BA's T&Cs for seat selection say there is no refund, but the pre-paid luggage fee should be refundable if cancelled before check-in.  When I have an hour or so to sit on the phone and listed to bad music I'll try calling BA again and request the luggage refund.

Hope I have cleared this up some.  Post again a=if you have any additional questions.

Stay well!!

Paul

[scorpio47]

2 hours ago, waterbug123 said:

 

Incorrect.  Travel between the US and the UK/Ireland has not been suspended.  Some flights may have been canceled, but there is not a blanket suspension on travel between the two. 

Waterbug 123,

I based my statement on the fact the as of midnight 16 March the US has extended it's European travel ban to the UK and Ireland.  There may still be aircraft flying to the UK from the US, but the travel ban should prohibit US citizens from flying there.

[Edinburghgirl1]

Can’t believe you have to pay to select your seats when flying business class!! We usually use Qatar airways and have never had to pay and can select seats on booking. 

[Fouremco]

5 minutes ago, Edinburghgirl1 said:

Can’t believe you have to pay to select your seats when flying business class!! We usually use Qatar airways and have never had to pay and can select seats on booking. 

I don't recall @scorpio47 mentioning anything about flying business class. 

[CI66774]

 

Ban didn't affect travel by U.S. citizens, permanent residents, etc.

 

[waterbug123]

21 hours ago, scorpio47 said:

Waterbug 123,

I based my statement on the fact the as of midnight 16 March the US has extended it's European travel ban to the UK and Ireland.  There may still be aircraft flying to the UK from the US, but the travel ban should prohibit US citizens from flying there.

 

My apologies, I had missed that extension.  There are still exceptions though.

[NMTraveller]

On 3/25/2020 at 1:41 PM, jelayne said:

 I guess we were lucky as they refunded our prepaid seat assignments earlier this month.

Did you have to call them up?  How did you get the seat assignments refunded?  I am in the same boat as the OP.  How long does it take?

Edited April 17, 2020 by NMTraveller

[NantahalaCruiser]

On 3/25/2020 at 1:45 PM, bigbenboys said:

I'm in the wait and see with BA. We canceled our cruise and took the FCC with Celebrity. I'm now just waiting to see what BA is going to do. Our flights are on May 13 Seattle to London in Business. We fly home on BA in 1st class. BA has taken very good by me in the last 30 years.

If BA happens to change your flight schedule times by more than 1 hour, then by US DOT regulations, they are obligated to give you a full refund if you cancel.  So check your flights to see if there have been any changes.  Many airlines are cutting back on flights - necessitating such changes to many ticketed flights.

[terrydtx]

8 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

Did you have to call them up?  How did you get the seat assignments refunded?  I am in the same boat as the OP.  How long does it take?

We are in the same situation with BA. Our American Airlines flights to Venice in September got changed with us going from DFW to Heathrow on AA and then BA to Venice. We booked Premium Economy but BA would not give us a seat assignment without a $82 fee in coach. This fee IMHO is pure BS with BA.  Then AA changed that flight to us now going to Madrid from DFW and cancelled the BA flights and now BA will not refund the seat assignment fees by saying they are non refundable. We will NEVER fly BA anywhere. AA when you fly Premium Economy gives you a seat in the extra leg room sections of the main cabin for non PE segments at no extra charge, but BA doesn't honor this.  BA is just like Spirit Airlines in the US where everything is an extra charge.

[Hypatia13]

We had also paid directly to BA almost $1200 to chose our seats in Business class for the March sailing Singapore to Dubai.  We are promised the refund of the ticket price from Celebrity Choice Air but BA told us that we voluntarily cancelled the flight and that they would not refund the extra payment made directly to them.  I agree that it is unlikely we will fly with  them again.  Jet Blue also declined to refund monies because even though the travel time was during a covered period we had made our reservations to early to get a refund.

[yorky]

47 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

We are in the same situation with BA. Our American Airlines flights to Venice in September got changed with us going from DFW to Heathrow on AA and then BA to Venice. We booked Premium Economy but BA would not give us a seat assignment without a $82 fee in coach. This fee IMHO is pure BS with BA.  Then AA changed that flight to us now going to Madrid from DFW and cancelled the BA flights and now BA will not refund the seat assignment fees by saying they are non refundable. We will NEVER fly BA anywhere. AA when you fly Premium Economy gives you a seat in the extra leg room sections of the main cabin for non PE segments at no extra charge, but BA doesn't honor this.  BA is just like Spirit Airlines in the US where everything is an extra charge.

We found AA dreadful when we last flew with them 3 years ago, prices to pick a seat in advance were well above what we pay with BA and the service was awful with rude staff at the gate.

[Bo1953]

1 hour ago, terrydtx said:

We are in the same situation with BA. Our American Airlines flights to Venice in September got changed with us going from DFW to Heathrow on AA and then BA to Venice. We booked Premium Economy but BA would not give us a seat assignment without a $82 fee in coach. This fee IMHO is pure BS with BA.  Then AA changed that flight to us now going to Madrid from DFW and cancelled the BA flights and now BA will not refund the seat assignment fees by saying they are non refundable. We will NEVER fly BA anywhere. AA when you fly Premium Economy gives you a seat in the extra leg room sections of the main cabin for non PE segments at no extra charge, but BA doesn't honor this.  BA is just like Spirit Airlines in the US where everything is an extra charge.

Have you checked to see what the UK laws are concerning this?

 

You may be protected, regardless of what BA says, hoping that you will not verify.

 

Good luck and bon voyage

[NMTraveller]

1 hour ago, terrydtx said:

We are in the same situation with BA. Our American Airlines flights to Venice in September got changed with us going from DFW to Heathrow on AA and then BA to Venice. We booked Premium Economy but BA would not give us a seat assignment without a $82 fee in coach. This fee IMHO is pure BS with BA.  Then AA changed that flight to us now going to Madrid from DFW and cancelled the BA flights and now BA will not refund the seat assignment fees by saying they are non refundable. We will NEVER fly BA anywhere. AA when you fly Premium Economy gives you a seat in the extra leg room sections of the main cabin for non PE segments at no extra charge, but BA doesn't honor this.  BA is just like Spirit Airlines in the US where everything is an extra charge.

That is what I did.  I paid BA to choose my seat on both sections of the AA flight.  

[islandgirlejfan]

8 hours ago, terrydtx said:

We are in the same situation with BA. Our American Airlines flights to Venice in September got changed with us going from DFW to Heathrow on AA and then BA to Venice. We booked Premium Economy but BA would not give us a seat assignment without a $82 fee in coach. This fee IMHO is pure BS with BA.  Then AA changed that flight to us now going to Madrid from DFW and cancelled the BA flights and now BA will not refund the seat assignment fees by saying they are non refundable. We will NEVER fly BA anywhere. AA when you fly Premium Economy gives you a seat in the extra leg room sections of the main cabin for non PE segments at no extra charge, but BA doesn't honor this.  BA is just like Spirit Airlines in the US where everything is an extra charge.

We are also in the same situation.  We just canceled our flight as the ORD to VCE went missing several times in February and disappeared for good at the end of March with American not flying to VCE throughout the summer.  We were to have come home from BCN to BWI via BA and had purchased the seat assignments for our Premium Economy seats at the price of 228 pounds for us to be able to sit together.  Not only are wondering if we will see the refund for the seat assignments, but refunds for our BCN to BWI as that was not canceled, even though it was an AA codeshare.  I too feel the seat assignment fee is BS.  Charge what you want for the seats in the first place.  This is the sort of stuff that sours consumers.  My husband loves AA and has always liked BA when he was flying for his job, but he was not happy with this seat fee (he hasn't flown for his job since about 2012, so things had changed)....but we did want to sit together, so we dealt with it.  It's been two weeks and we haven't seen anything yet.  So far, we have 500 dollars of 6K invested in various things returned.  


 

[scorpio47]

Well, persistence seems to have paid off!  I started this thread after I was refused a refund from British Airways for pre-paid seat selections and excess baggage charges for flights booked for a planned Apex cruise.  Several additional calls and long waits on hold apparently paid off.  I noticed a credit for a full refund pending on our credit card today.  So a belated thanks to British Airways for doing the right thing in these trying times, and best wishes for success to others who are trying to recover financial losses caused by the pandemic from BA or other organizations.

Paul

[sippican]

I don't believe this is a situation unique to British Airways. We purchased over $7000 in Business Class Seats from Qantas. They only wanted to issue travel vouchers good for one year from ticket issue (which would take us to August of this year).  They finally agreed to refund (since they eventually cancelled the flight), minus penalties. Told us the refund wouild take 8 - 12 weeks, and we are still unclear of the amount. They would not even take our call until 72 house before the scheduled flight, and never responded to e-mail contact. 

We also had business class tickets from Honolulu to Orlando on American Airlines, they cancelled the leg from Honolulu to Dallas, burt since they are still flying the leg from Dallas to Orlando, they say our flight is not cancelled so no refund. We did purchse this particular flight from Chase Travel Rewards with points, and Chase intervened on our behalf, and refunded the points.The representative from Chase said that American told him we only purchased a flight from Dallas to Orlando!!!

My point is, these are difficult times. It is new territory for everyone, partuicularly those in the travel industry. To warn against dealing with one company in particluar does no good whatsoever. We are all wallowing through the crap in one way or another.

Edited April 23, 2020 by sippican

[HelenREMfan]

I have never flown again with BA since they cancelled my flight to Manchester from JFK with no pre warning and then totally failed to explain exactly why the flight was cancelled (I always suspected it was to save money and to fill a London Heathrow flight with the Manchester travellers) The way my queries were treated and for that matter how I was treated at JFK persuaded me not to travel with them again.

 

Just why we are allowing these airlines to cram seats into planes with ridiculous levels of personal space and then paying them to be allowed a seat with non DVT properties id ludicrous. 

 

Maybe after the current world situation we could be sending these airlines a clear message - do not treat us like cattle and what customer service means.

 

I wish Celebrity would base more cruises from the UK. There would be no need then to fly. I can't travel to the USA because of being unable to get travel insurance cover.  There are no Western Med cruises except for one in August for the next 2 seasons. I do not cruise during school peak time holidays so I have no cruise to do......

[hawkesbaynz]

I fly BA regularly although often using Avios from points gained from an Amex card. The pre-pay for seat selection is irksome. I believe higher tiers have free choice thus an encouragement for brand loyalty. We usually compare price and convenience and will never become  Gold Member. 
 

However the only UK airline that will not seat a family group together is the Irish mafia organisation Ryan Air where it is essential. 
 

You can make free choice 24 hours  before the flight.  I always have an alarm set on my iPhone to remind me.  You are always seated with family members and there is usually an opportunity to change seats.  
 

In November we had a cruise ex Fort Lauderdale then a week in Cancun. The short flight from a Miami with AA was as expensive as the BA trans atlantic and the customer care could be described as contemptible. 

[yorky]

19 minutes ago, hawkesbaynz said:

I fly BA regularly although often using Avios from points gained from an Amex card. The pre-pay for seat selection is irksome. I believe higher tiers have free choice thus an encouragement for brand loyalty. We usually compare price and convenience and will never become  Gold Member. 
 

However the only UK airline that will not seat a family group together is the Irish mafia organisation Ryan Air where it is essential. 
 

You can make free choice 24 hours  before the flight.  I always have an alarm set on my iPhone to remind me.  You are always seated with family members and there is usually an opportunity to change seats.  
 

In November we had a cruise ex Fort Lauderdale then a week in Cancun. The short flight from a Miami with AA was as expensive as the BA trans atlantic and the customer care could be described as contemptible. 

Yep same with us, I will never fly AA again and their charges for picking your own seat were way higher than BA.

[downsmead]

BA cancelled our outbound flight before X cancelled our sailing. I waited until X cancelled and then called BA. The message said due to high demand please do not contact until 72 hours within travel date. I waited until April (flight was 19/4) and then called. Was on hold for ~ 25 mins but then did speak to an agent. I apologised that my flight was obviously not within the 72 hours but that I was seeking a refund. He replied ‘not a problem’ and dealt with my request but explained that I would not see the refund within the normal time frame. I did get my refund eventually 👍. 
BA usually ‘assigns’ seats to passengers and do keep couples / groups together. Usually when I do the 24hr on line check in, I just confirm the seats they have allocated.

The BA refund is the only refund I have received, have seen nothing of my two cruise refunds.