The new HFP chat thread – Wednesday 29th April

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• Michael C says:

  29 Apr29 April 13:01

  Euronews correspondent Oliver Miočić has discovered that a dozen EU countries are to ask the EU commission for a temporary suspension of passengers’ rights to a refund for flights cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

• Richie says:

  29 Apr29 April 13:08

  I booked a First class flight with BA from LHR to LAX in May (booked in January) – it was a bargain deal and was looking forward to it. Unsurprisingly, the flight has been cancelled and BA are saying “take a voucher, or (begrudgingly) take the cash”… I don’t want either! I want the same first class flight with BA but in future, when things resume. Is there a way to do this? I thought something under 261 said they had to get me there when convenient for me. I wouldn’t normally be so fussed, but never flown first class and suspect I’ll never get this bargain price again. Any one have any ideas?

  • Andrew says:

    29 Apr29 April 13:47

    I think under the new rebooking rules, this is possible, but you have to elect the date for the future travel now, not put it on hold as Emirates are offering. But my understanding of the rebooking policy for BA now is that you can book the same journey in the same cabin up to 355 days later than currently ticketed.

    • AJA says:

      29 Apr29 April 17:23

      +1 That is correct. You can book any available seat in First until 355 days into the future as per your original itinerary. If however you want to book for dates further than 355 days out ie any dates from 356 days until the end of April 2022, the expiry date of the e-voucher, you will then have to rely on finding award seat availability which for First Class is an issue since BA don’t guarantee to release any award seats in First. Not sure what happens if you downgrade to Club whether you get a prorata refund of Avios.

      • AJA says:

        29 Apr29 April 17:25

        Edit; I see that it was a cash booking. Ignore my comment about award seat availability, I think in that case you merely have to have First class seats available even 356 days out.

  • SLee says:

    29 Apr29 April 17:02

    Answering from my own experiences in the last couple of weeks, the answer is almost certainly yes. But it’s not straight forward. BA would typically agree to change to a date within a month or two. But when cited EC261 (….to a date convenient to the passenger), they refer up to a supervsior. 2 out of 2 of my requests were successful (Apr and May to Oct and Dec respectively). Overall, if the fare class is available, they will rebook to your new date. Also, if you don’t get the answer that you want, do a HUCA. (The Gold and Silver line agents are more receptive than the main call centre.)

    • Richie says:

      29 Apr29 April 20:16

      Thanks, everyone!

• Stew564 says:

  29 Apr29 April 13:18

  Just playing around looking at Avios tickets towards the end of the year. Does anyone know why taxes to JFK for an economy ticket are £50 from Heathrow? Is it an error?

  • Rhys says:

    29 Apr29 April 13:20

    Not an error, article today or tomorrow 🙂

    • Genghis says:

      29 Apr29 April 13:39

      I saw that on London Air Travel (the hat tip on the JV article).
      I then priced up an economy ticket: 60k avios return and £100. Is that really the price? Seems v toppy? Is the £100 not just a lowering of the taxes and an increase of the avios rather than any particular special offer?
      (I don’t normally look at economy so don’t know).

      • Lev441 says:

        29 Apr29 April 13:50

        So basically getting around 0.005p per avios using more avios to pay (based on 50,000 off peak return). Not great value but ok for the avios rich in peak times, but then again that’s the only time when economy redemptions were worthwhile..

        Side point – Economy one way from JFK-London on BA is around the £45 mark booking via iberia plus (BA was a little more, around £65) and 13,000 avios. Did this a few times last year for some friends and once for myself (regretted it when I didn’t have a row of 3 seats to make a make-shift CW bed in economy!)

  • Anna says:

    29 Apr29 April 16:07

    Is this an extension of the current RFS options of more Avios/less money?

    • Rob says:

      29 Apr29 April 16:47

      BA is trialling RFS on JFK.

      • Spaghetti Town says:

        29 Apr29 April 20:25

        Why are BA starting RFS on long haul?

        • Rob says:

          29 Apr29 April 22:03

          To shaft you. See our numbers tomorrow.

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          29 Apr29 April 23:20

          😀

• will says:

  29 Apr29 April 13:38

  Seems fitting that Brandenburg is finally opening in the middle of a pandemic which has decimated air travel:

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52470012

  • will says:

    29 Apr29 April 13:39

    “Germany’s new Berlin airport set for take off, nine years late”

    Sorry assumed title was in URL

    • J says:

      29 Apr29 April 18:17

      I will still be a bit surprised if it opens this year. Will miss Tegel when it finally closes.

• Lewis King says:

  29 Apr29 April 13:48

  Now been waiting 45 days for a refund from Qatar. Put in a dispute with AMEX too, not heard much from them either.

  • Genghis says:

    29 Apr29 April 14:30

    I waited 28 days then submitted claim. Amex refunded me after 3 days of their investigation. Case now closed.

    • Lewis King says:

      29 Apr29 April 15:40

      Annoying. I’ve been waiting on Amex for a while now too.

  • Reeferman says:

    29 Apr29 April 15:14

    I had the same experience – and submitted a S75 claim which was settled very promptly and case closed.

    Today, out of the blue, I got an email from Qatar saying
    QUOTE
    Thank you for booking with Qatar Airways.
    Kindly note that we have received a dispute notification/alert from the bank regarding the payment for your booking reference XXXXX
    Qatar Airways takes your payment information security seriously. It appears the payment card was not authorized by the card holder for this booking and as a result, we had to cancel the booking.
    If you have any further questions concerning this matter, we kindly request you to contact your card issuing bank.
    UNQUOTE

    Qatar’s communication(or lack of) throughout has been woeful.

• Don says:

  29 Apr29 April 14:03

  TravelUp chargeback is on the cards. I understand retrospectively changed the T&C explicitly allowing them to charge an admin fee. A term that was not in the previous contract where a full refund was stated. Is that pretty much the gist of it?

  • Rob says:

    29 Apr29 April 15:03

    That’s what the Flyertalk thread says (on the BA forum) and there are screenshots of the before and after rules.

    • Don says:

      29 Apr29 April 15:29

      I just got off the phone to Amex and the amount was credited back in full. I believe TravelUp might fight that so I have got them to add all the info about the change of terms and the legal implications from that.

• guesswho2000 says:

  29 Apr29 April 14:06

  Hoping someone can sense check my thoughts here – I have a complicated routing on several tickets in June which is almost certainly not going to happen. My understanding of canx/refunds is (all award bookings) as below. There’s only one flight I believe which is currently, formally canx, and I’m about 5/6 weeks from departure.

  SQ using Krisflyer miles – can request a refund online of both miles and $;
  CX/KA using BA Avios – need to call and deal with their contact centre, probably have to pay a cancellation fee (strangely the only option I’m getting is for a voucher, not sure how that works with Avios); and
  JL using AAdvantage points – waiver of the usual redeposit fees in place, can call for canx/refund.

  If I’m mistaken, can someone point me in the right direction? I’ve booked heaps of these confusing itins, one was bound to collapse eventually 😂.

• WC says:

  29 Apr29 April 14:12

  Has anyone made a S75 claim with Barclaycard? I have sent the summary as requested almost a month ago, but I still haven’t heard anything.

  It’s a claim against GoToGate, who initially emailed me on February saying that the flights have been cancelled, and they will refund me with 8 weeks, but of course, they still haven’t refund me.

  Thanks

  • Pierre says:

    29 Apr29 April 14:59

    Same. Submitted the claim docs 5 weeks ago. I received a confirmation text from BC around 4 weeks after submitting, thanking me for my claim, saying that they’re working on it, and to expect a response in 21 days.

  • Jody says:

    29 Apr29 April 17:47

    Pretty much the same here. Filled out the online stuff on 1st April and posted documents off to them on the 2nd. Yesterday I had a message on the online secure message bit to say they are investigating, but no timescales were mentioned. They also haven’t suspended the transaction and credited it back to my account, which is what has happened with other claims I’ve done on other cards.

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