A Positive Refund Experience with British Airways… Once I Picked up the Phone

This weekend, I was meant to be in Chicago, catching up with friends. Of course – COVID-19 had to play its merry part.  As such, I’m stuck in the office, fighting the good fight.

However, there was one big matter to address – the matter of getting my money back from British Airways.

No leaving on a jet plane for me – British Airways Boeing 747-400 “BOAC” – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.

In good faith, in late January, I pulled the trigger on a return between London Heathrow and Chicago, with the outbound segment on American Airlines in Main Cabin and the inbound British Airways flight in World Traveller Plus – all for the value of £611 or so.

And then the world fell apart step by step.

Which wasn’t ideal.I kept an eye on my fights as the USA closed its borders to Europeans, the UK and Irish citizens and both my BA and AA flights being cancelled.

And lo – they were cancelled eventually.

First one flight…

Then the other.

With that done, I waited as people with more urgent travel needs cleared the queue.

Now, when you hit cancel your booking from “Manage My Booking”, British Airways hasn’t been helpful to direct you to a cash refund and instead pushes you to to the webform to claim a voucher.

Ummm. No thanks British Airways.

Why didn’t I take the voucher? Simply – whilst the voucher is valid for a year, I honestly don’t know where I’ll be in my travel calendar through the year – and I’m taking a “safer rather than sorry” approach.

And that money can go to other things I need to do and get done right now.

So if you want your cash returned to your account, you’ll need to pick up the phone.

Inside the UK ring 0800 727 800 or outside the UK, ring +44 (0)203 250 0145

Ideally – you should ring 72 hours before travel, ensuring at least one of segments have been cancelled. Note, if you all your segments are shown as the flight is operating, you can only take the voucher at this time

He’s on the phone… doesn’t want to go home…

Firstly, I tried the Silver Member Line. The good news is you can ring it and it will be answered by a machine. The bad news is that you will need to re-dial the main BA number to get any customer service.

Again, those numbers:

Inside the UK ring 0800 727 800 or outside the UK, ring +44 (0)203 250 0145

From there it was a matter of navigating the menus to see what happened. The menus are not skippable, as the airline wants you to hear their announcements. It took three attempts for me to get through – with the first two being disconnected. The third call finally got through to an agent.

From there, it was a matter of going through security (Booking reference, address, last four digits of the credit card), confirming the itinerary had been cancelled throughout. With that, I was offered a refund to my payment method.

I accepted it – and the value of the booking of £611.26 was refunded. I was told that there would be a wait of up to 14 days to refund this, so I sat back and waited.

Well, more accurately, I was heading between site to sit to pick up equipment – but that’s another story completely.

On a quiet Friday morning, I checked my bank balances, and lo and behold – a refund was sitting on my statement.

One refund had hit my account has hit my account 4 business days after I had requested it.

Opinion: Make it easier please airlines

I get that airlines are bleeding cash hard right now and hanging on to your money – by the form of issuing a voucher – is a great way for an airline to have a free interest free loan on your cash and boosting their reserves.

However, consumer rights do come into play – and if your flight is cancelled,  you are entitled to a full refund to the original form of payment within seven days (although for some airlines – this can be more of a struggle than they would admit). Vouchers can be accepted as a refund mechanism as is a rebooking.

And for airlines this is critical. Whilst they are playing hard to get for refund, they are not above the law and must follow it.

Right now, passengers are having to go out of their way to obtain refunds, spend time on the phones and so on or use workarounds as described on Head for Points.

But it shouldn’t have to be this way.

Least of all, the time is now to build goodwill – rather than resort to methods to cling on cash.

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