Avios flight cancelled? You can rebook for ANY date, even if Avios seats are not available

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We haven’t covered the great British Airways refund saga for some time, but we are returning to it today.

There is some good, potentially great, news.

If your Avios flight is cancelled, you can now rebook your trip via ba.com for any date even if Avios seats are not available.

You can see confirmation of this here – see the 28th April update. I admit that the wording is not clear, but this is what the terms mean.

Avios wing 14

None of the HfP team have any ‘cancelled but not refunded’ Avios flights at present so we haven’t been able to test this personally. However, this is what we understand happens.

Simply go into ‘Manage My Booking’ and select the rebooking option. You should be offered a flight on the same route on any day where a service is due to operate, up to 12 months from the date your ticket was originally issued.

This rule could catch you out, since you cannot move your flight more than a year from, give or take a few days, the day you made your booking. If you booked 355 days ahead then you’re stuffed.

We are still unsure of the exact rules. However:

if you are using a 2-4-1 voucher, it seems that you must still be operating within the validity dates of the voucher

if your trip was on off-peak dates, you will only be offered off-peak dates to rebook

If you don’t see this for any reason, you will need to call up and potentially quote the rule change referenced above.

There must, obviously, be cash seats available for the flight you want. You are rebooked into a cash ‘bucket’ which may even earn you Avios and tier points back. A reader sent me an example where he was offered a BA codeshare on Loganair for rebooking, which cannot ever be booked with Avios.

Remember that this policy only applies if your flight is cancelled and you have not selected a ‘Book with Confidence’ voucher instead. If your flight is not cancelled but you no longer wish to travel, your only option is to take the ‘Book with Confidence’ voucher or a standard refund, paying the £35 fee.

This new policy is obviously open to abuse but it is a generous move by British Airways and hopefully it will be used as intended.

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.

Sue says:

5 May5 May 06:51

Who / what is BArefundhelper. Sorry if this is a dumb question.
- Secret Squirrel says:
  
  5 May5 May 07:35
  
  Can anyone post for me the Whatsapp number for Virgin flying club please. Tried SMS this morning but the reply was to call them. Thx
  - Secret Squirrel says:
    
    5 May5 May 07:36
    
    Sorry wrong thread!
- Jo says:
  
  5 May5 May 08:08
  
  Sorry how to contact this BArefundhelper I tried searching on flyer talk and got no hits.
  - Rob says:
    
    5 May5 May 08:26
    
    BA Refund Helper, with spaces
Richard K.F. Stevens says:

5 May5 May 07:18

Interesting re avios flights cancelled by BA. Do you think as well as being able to rebook the same route up to 12 months from original issue it will be possible to make a name change at no cost?
- Rob says:
  
  5 May5 May 08:29
  
  No
  - Richard K.F. Stevens says:
    
    5 May5 May 08:43
    
    What will a name change cost?
    - Richard K.F. Stevens says:
      
      5 May5 May 08:50
      
      This from the BA website…..
      
      Outside this cooling off period, flight-only tickets are non-transferable and you will need to cancel the original booking and make a new booking for the new traveller (at current ticket prices). Please call us if you’d like more advice and assistance.
      
      But, they will be cancelling the booking which surely means when I make a new booking I can just change the name???
      - Lady London says:
        
        5 May5 May 09:44
        
        No
        Name changes ar very rare to be allowed on any airline, at any time.
        
        Not sure why you’re insisting.
      - Mikeact says:
        
        5 May5 May 10:30
        
        I guess if BA cancel, you’re stuck with the original names.
        I would cancel if it were me, pay the cancellation fee, get your Avois back and start again with correct/new names.
Clive Watts says:

5 May5 May 07:19

Hi everyone
I just tried to do this bu the BA agent that I spoke to would not allow me to book on a date without Avios availability. She explained that the rule on 28th April requires the new flight to be on the same class (and not cabin). Class includes the avios redemption. My original class was an Avios redemption to the new class has to be too. If the wording was “cabin” and not “class” then I could have done this. Feels like they are splitting hairs here!
Thoughts?
- Anna says:
  
  5 May5 May 07:45
  
  Clive – have you tried to do this via MMB and got the same result? Sometimes it can take a while for new rules to be rolled out among all the staff.
- Alex W says:
  
  5 May5 May 07:53
  
  T&Cs say:
  “Rebook onto a British Airways operated service on the same routing into the same class as the original flight or lowest available in the same cabin”
  
  Surely even if you are on a redemption class they should still be able to book you into the “lowest available [class] in the same cabin”
- Rob says:
  
  5 May5 May 08:29
  
  What happens if you rebook online?
- Charlieface says:
  
  5 May5 May 09:25
  
  EC261 regulations says cabin not class
Dave says:

5 May5 May 07:23

@shoestringo – glad he refused to help just because you were too lazy to call up like the rest of us. The more stupid requests like this that he gets, the longer it’ll take him to deal with people who do need refunds chasing and increases the likelihood that this valuable service will be withdrawn completely.
- Secret Squirrel says:
  
  5 May5 May 08:06
  
  Back at yer! 😉
- Chrish says:
  
  5 May5 May 08:31
  
  Most people are tooooo lazy, why do you think they are on here lol,
  Most of what people want to know is easily available to find out
  with a bit of effort. But by asking here they can continue to be “Lazy”
  knowing that someone will find what they want to know !
- sayling says:
  
  5 May5 May 09:35
  
  Isn’t that half the trouble with the calls to the BA call centres at the moment, too?
  
  Things like trying to cancel bookings for November because of anxiety to travel…
Luke says:

5 May5 May 08:02

What’s the latest on reward flight refunds? If you have a flight which BA have yet to cancel, can you still request a refund for the points and cash? (Minus £35) and has anyone actually managed to speak with anyone at BA? No matter what time I ring, I get the automated message and get cut off. It’s getting beyond infuriating.
- Save East Coast Rewards says:
  
  5 May5 May 10:54
  
  You can always cancel Avios bookings (as long as it’s sooner than 24 hours before departure) for a fee and get your Avios back. This has nothing to do with coronavirus.
  
  If you have a gold card try the gold card line, if you don’t you might still get some success if you try the gold line (or they may tell you to go away). Otherwise try calling early morning or late evening. Calling during the day tend to be busier particularly if a batch of cancellation emails has just gone out.
  
  Also if you keep trying to get through eventually you should hit a queue.
- Lady London says:
  
  5 May5 May 14:02
  
  Not sure why you’re not doing this online.
  - Luke says:
    
    6 May6 May 15:52
    
    unfortunately it defaults to the voucher, and i think the workaround has now closed
Annih says:

5 May5 May 08:05

A little frustrating that this took so long to come out. We had to use another space release and more tax cash to avoid losing a space release. This would have allowed us to avoid tying up twice the amount with BA.
Robbo says:

5 May5 May 08:17

“ If your flight is not cancelled but you no longer wish to travel, your only option is to take the ‘Book with Confidence’ voucher.” Can I get clarity on that statement, are you still not able to cancel an Avios booking and get the cash and avios refunded (inc a 241 voucher) less the £35 fee per booking? I appreciate this is not possible to do online, but surely you can ring (which can take days I know) and get the refund?
- Rob says:
  
  5 May5 May 08:25
  
  Yes, you can do that. Article was not clear, sorry.
Sergio says:

5 May5 May 08:19

OK, so I received an email from BA on 5e 29th April to say that my Companion 2-4-1 voucher booking (flight) was now cancelled. I phoned BA on the 30th April and the agent refunded me the total Avios points, reinstated the 2-4-1 voucher and processed a full refund for the taxes paid on my Amex card. Although this I was told would take between 4-6 weeks to appear on my account. So.. can I go back to BA and book flights on the same class (if available) ?
- Rob says:
  
  5 May5 May 08:24
  
  What do you mean? You can obviously make a normal booking if seats are available. You can’t book any day as you’ve already taken the refund.
  - Sergio says:
    
    5 May5 May 08:45
    
    Rob. The seats we had were….First Class out and Club World back.. Although Avios Club are usually available 355 days out, it is very rare for First to come up, if they do it can be weeks after the initial booking was made. It’s a shame that BA did not offer this to me when I called
    - Charlieface says:
      
      5 May5 May 09:16
      
      You should have insisted. It was your right. Probably too late now
- Ian McDowall says:
  
  5 May5 May 09:06
  
  Hi. Have you got your taxes back yet.?