Workaround found. How to trigger an online British Airways flight refund using Google Chrome

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Our main article today is about BA’s unwillingness to let you claim an online cash refund for an Avios flight.

We have now found a way of triggering a cash refund – as opposed to a voucher – without calling British Airways (and waiting hours in the queue …..)

This next chunk of text is for getting a refund of your taxes on Avios bookings which have not yet been cancelled by BA.

For a refund on a CASH or Avios BA flight booking which has been cancelled, scroll down this page and read the PS. at the bottom.

If you have a CASH BA flight booking which is NOT showing as cancelled, do NOT follow any of the advice on this page. You are not yet able to get a cash refund. You either need to accept the British Airways travel voucher offered or wait until your flight is cancelled and then follow the steps above.

To be clear:

Got an Avios booking which is not yet cancelled? Read on

Got an Avios booking which is cancelled? Go to the PS at the bottom

Got a cash booking which is cancelled? Go to the PS at the bottom

Got a cash booking which is not yet cancelled? Sorry, there is no way of getting a cash refund. You need to accept the BA voucher or wait for your flight to be cancelled.

How can you stop British Airways forcing a flight voucher on you?

In summary ….. if you turn off JavaScript in Google Chrome then ba.com will take you to the full cancellation page.

Here’s proof it works:

This is how to do it, using the Google Chrome broswer.

Go into ‘Manage My Booking’ on ba.com and select ‘Cancellation options for this booking’. You must be logged in and using the BA account of the person who booked, ie the person who is named on the confirmation email.

You are taken to the ‘consent’ screen:

Do NOT continue the process, as you will only be taken to the ‘Future Travel Voucher’ page which you don’t want. In order to cancel, you need to first disable JavaScript in Chrome. (If you are not using Chrome, you need to find out how your browser handles JavaScript.)

This is how you do it:

Click the ‘three dots’ in the top right corner of Chrome

Scroll down to ‘Settings’ and click – this opens a new ‘Settings’ page

Click ‘Privacy & Security’ in the left menu – this brings the ‘Privacy & Security’ section to the top

Click ‘Site Settings’ in the ‘Privacy & Security’ section

Scroll down to the ‘Permissions’ section and click ‘JavaScript’

Turn off JavaScript by toggling the ‘Allowed’ button

Do NOT close the window as you need to turn it back on later. Switch back to the window where you have the ba.com ‘Consent’ page open. Tick the ‘Please tick here’ box and click ‘Continue’.

You will now be on the standard cash cancellation screen.

Turn JavaScript back on.

You can cancel your booking for a full cash refund of your taxes, and with your Avios returned.

But don’t forget …..

You will be still be paying the £35 per person cancellation fee on a long-haul booking. If you want to avoid this, you need to wait until BA cancels your flight automatically, assuming it does not operate.

If you paid for seat selection, you LOSE this money if you cancel. You may prefer to take the travel voucher as I believe the seat selection value is retained, either as part of the voucher or as a credit for free seat selection when you rebook.

PS. How to get a refund for a CASH British Airways booking

If you are looking to refund a CASH booking which has already been cancelled, this is an alternative set of steps:

1) Go into Manage My Booking on ba.com and select the flight shown as cancelled

2) Go into your browser’s settings and disable JavaScript – for Chrome, follow the instructions I outlined earlier in this article for cancelling an Avios booking

3) Go back to ‘Manage My Booking’ and click on the ‘Cancel and Refund’ button which is just under the cancellation notice

4) Confirm that you now see the correct cash refund form and not the voucher refund form

5) Turn JavaScript back on in your browser settings

6) Click on the “Yes” radio button to select that you are a person in the booking

7) When nothing happens press “Enter” on your keyboard. (this works in Firefox and Chrome). The page refreshes and shows an error at the top of the page “email address invalid”

8) Click on the “Yes” radio button again

9) Complete and submit the form

You will see this screen:

For absolute clarity, do NOT cancel a CASH flight if you have not received an email from British Airways saying that your flight is cancelled. If your flight is still showing as operating, cancelling means you lose EVERYTHING except a nominal amount in taxes.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Joseph says:

20 Mar20 March 15:15

This just worked! Thank you so much.
Scott says:

20 Mar20 March 15:21

I am getting to the end where it says they are refunding my tickets and it could take up to 2 minutes–and its never moving past that. Has anyone had success with the refund completing by leaving the browser at this stage?
- Shoestring says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 15:23
  
  no, see comments above, that has cropped up a couple of times, I think it was people either not re-enabling Javascript or not pressing enter
  
  if you scroll up you will see my point by point method
PAUL VICTOR TEMPERTON says:

20 Mar20 March 15:24

I tried that technique to get a cash refund of a ticket paid with Amex. It worked in the sense that switching off the Javascript, as described, took me to the cash redemption page instead of to the voucher page. But then I got stuck on a page saying “wait up to 2 minutes for confirmation” and it went no further.
- Shoestring says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 15:32
  
  see comments directly previous
  
  you probably didn’t press Enter/ re-start Javascript at the right point
  - MM says:
    
    20 Mar20 March 15:36
    
    @Shoestring worth noting that on my (single passenger) booking the following prompt did not get shown: “New page ‘Are you a passenger on this flight?’”, perhaps the flow is slightly different for some types of booking. Other steps were a great help though.
    - Shoestring says:
      
      20 Mar20 March 15:46
      
      yep I knew that – for example, with our 2 cancellations, we never got the consent page in the article – our consent tick box was on the final page you fill in with email address etc
      
      there are a few small variations but people with absolutely all variations of booking have got it working, with the exception of the greyed out ones where you have to call or wait a few days
  - PAUL VICTOR TEMPERTON says:
    
    20 Mar20 March 19:15
    
    Thank you so much! Now it works. Everything sent back to my BA AMEX card instead of getting vouchers. Very much appreciated but, frankly, disgraceful behaviour by BA.
- MM says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 15:33
  
  Same here – I then worked out that in some cases (eg mine) you then had to re-enable Javascript before clicking the final confirmation button. Maybe bookings with 1 traveller are different?- as this is what mine was. Anyway after re-doing the process but turning JS back on at this stage, I had Avios back in my account within 2 minutes. Cheers Rob/Shoestring/all!
LouiseT says:

20 Mar20 March 15:29

Thank you so much for this guidance! Just worked for me, now to work out how ot claim my cash & Avios for the seat reservations!
mt says:

20 Mar20 March 15:41

Does this only work if they have cancelled your flight? mine hasn’t been cancelled yet can i still do it|?
- Shoestring says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 15:46
  
  you can still do it but lose your cancellation fees
Ken says:

20 Mar20 March 15:42

Doesn’t work for me. I accessed the Manage My Flight page and selected the flight in question. However, all the links at the foot of the page concerning changes and cancellations are greyed out and can’t be selected. I did try a variation on the steps above which took me to a screen asking if I was travelling on the flight but the only visible button on that screen was “Return to Manage My Booking” which took me back to where I started. I am using Chrome browser on an Apple Mac.
- Shoestring says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 15:47
  
  @Ken that has come up a couple of times and you probably have to call them or check again tomorrow if it’s still greyed out
  - Ken says:
    
    20 Mar20 March 16:05
    
    I think the option is greyed out because one leg of the round trip has already been cancelled. Just looked at all my other booked flights (which have not yet been cancelled, or partially cancelled) and the Cancellation option is working fine. So, it’s clearly no longer an option if part of the round trip has already been cancelled. Guess I’ll just have to call them. Hopefully I won’t have to pay the £35 per person charge.
AJA says:

20 Mar20 March 16:11

Cancelled flights cash refund application without calling.

Just seen this posting by Willmatt on FlyerTalk where he found a way to get a refund for cancelled flights paid for in cash.

“I found a workaround for cancelled flights to enable you to get a refund even if clicking on refund takes you to the voucher page.

It is similar to the JavaScript workaround already mentioned in relation to Avios bookings but it includes an extra step.

1) From your MMB page where the flight is shown as cancelled go into your browser’s settings and disable JavaScript.
2) Click on the cancel and refund button.
3) Confirm that you now see the correct cash refund form and not the voucher refund form.
4) Turn JavaScript back on in your browser settings.
5) Click on the “Yes” radio button to select that you are a person in the booking.
6) When nothing happens press “Enter” on your keyboard. (This works in Firefox and Chrome)
The page refreshes and shows an error at the top of the page “email address invalid”
7) Click on the “Yes” radio button again and this time it will allow you to select the name of the traveller and complete the rest of the form.

Hope this is helpful. I’ve not tried it as I don’t have any cancelled flights.
- Adam Huszka says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 16:20
  
  yass, you’re the man! thanks so much!
- Sarah says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 16:38
  
  Thanks for sharing, most helpful as BA just cancelled my cash paid flights but would only take me to the voucher page. It works!
- Genghis says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 19:57
  
  Posted on HfP first
Adam says:

20 Mar20 March 16:13

doesn.t work for me, the cancel/refund button takes me straight to the voucher site, if I switch off JS it takes me to the refund site without a continue or submit button. any suggestions?
- Shoestring says:
  
  20 Mar20 March 16:33
  
  cheat sheet
  Full sequence:
  Google Chrome
  MMB, logged in as a/c holder who paid
  Find booking (put in reference & name)
  Turn off Javascript
  Click ‘Cancel & refund flights’
  New page ‘Are you a passenger on this flight?’
  Turn Javascript back on
  Tick ‘No’
  Hit Enter button
  New page ‘Error please enter a valid email address’
  A new option now appears below ‘Are you a passenger on this flight?’
  New option is ‘Did you pay for this booking’, tick yes
  Fill in details to claim refund
  
  or try this link https://www.britishairways.com/travel/webforms/execclub/_gf/en_gb?eId=120002&wfpId=mmb_ticket_refund
  - Adam says:
    
    20 Mar20 March 16:54
    
    thanks mate, worked like a charm.
    - Lisbeth Samaniego says:
      
      20 Mar20 March 17:31
      
      The link provided takes me to a fill out page to provide my flight information and that’s it?
      - Shoestring says:
        
        20 Mar20 March 17:40
        
        the kink came out after I got our 2 cancellations done doing the long method (2 mins! 🙂 ) so I don’t personally know
        
        if you do it & get the confirmation email a minute or so later, it works fine
      - Lisbeth Samaniego says:
        
        20 Mar20 March 17:57
        
        Never mind. It worked!! Thanks