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.

Ian McDowall says:

5 May5 May 09:04

I had my avios flight with companion voucher cancelled in mid march. I got the avios back a week ago and still waiting for the 1.5k taxes and seat selection fee. This despite numerous calls to BA. I’m not sure what to do next. I think I’ll call BA again on Thursday and then follow it up with a call to Amex to see if they will refund me instead.
Any thoughts, anyone?
- sayling says:
  
  5 May5 May 09:24
  
  Unparalleled numbers of manually processed refunds are being handled by teams that are reduced in number, due to isolation, furlough and call centre closures imposed by home nations, ie India.
  
  It’s up to you how long you’re prepared to wait
- N says:
  
  5 May5 May 09:25
  
  Refund helper on FT got mine done in 48 hours after a 6 week wait
  - Michael C says:
    
    5 May5 May 10:00
    
    Yep, same here.
  - Isherwood says:
    
    5 May5 May 13:45
    
    Yes. Great service on FT – refunded avois and BA fees within 48 hours of contact. But I was told unable to sort out seat selection fees, although could confirm in progress. So had to wait further three weeks for the seat refund to come through to my card (6 weeks wait in total).
- Lashious says:
  
  5 May5 May 11:17
  
  in exactly same boat, price, time, and refund wise. Went thru amex, and still no refund. Meh
- Andy says:
  
  5 May5 May 14:12
  
  Virtually identical. Think it depends on the agent you end up with. After calling last week, I got the 2for1 and airmiles immediately, the hefty taxes 2 days later. He said it had been queued for weeks but not actioned. That said, in same called he refunded airmiles on 2 sets of cancelled May half term flights, which I saw immediately but still waiting for taxes on those ones to come back…so will have to call again
AJA says:

5 May5 May 09:27

This new policy is quite good but it requires you to have hooked fairly close to the date of your flight. It also requires BA to be flying the same cabin 12 months from the date of your original flight. In my case I used a 2-4-1 last September to book Tel Aviv in First for this July so this isn’t very helpful as I’d really like to just rebook to July 2021. But I’m not hopeful that BA will still offer First on the Tel Aviv route, nor can I book for July anyway as my ticket expires in September. I was wondering if BA would allow me to book in Club instead but the 12 month expiry doesn’t help. At this point I am waiting for BA to actually cancel and then consider my options. The e-voucher would at least be valid until Apr 2022 which would extend the validity of the 2-4-1 beyond even the 6 month extension.
- AJA says:
  
  5 May5 May 09:29
  
  Booked not hooked! Grrr. I hate auto correct.
- Dominic Barrington says:
  
  5 May5 May 14:21
  
  I fly TLV frequently. It is a major route for BA, and I’d be very surprised to see F disappear. It’s about getting the high end Israeli business market to the USA.
George K says:

5 May5 May 09:36

I’ve got an Avios.com redemption which was just cancelled yesterday (YYZ). Before the cancellation, I called to inquire as to the options (which at the time only went as far as May 31st) and was told by the agent that they can force cash seat availability if no reward seats are available. I could rebook for anytime, and to a different destination, but needed to be the same band.

I have yet to decide what I should do. Cancellation will bring a refund and the voucher back for another 6 months, so I could use this for bigger band redemption later on. Rebooking means I’m stuck to Band 5 destinations, most of which I’ve already seen….
Clare F C says:

5 May5 May 09:40

If my 241 booking is cancelled by BA will I be entitled to rebook for any flight within 12 months even if the voucher will normally expire before then?
- AJA says:
  
  5 May5 May 10:38
  
  Clare it’s any seat on the same flights within 12 months of original outbound flight subject to the 12 month validity of your original tickets. So if you booked and had tickets issued in Sep 2019 you can rebook until Sep 2020. If you booked in March 2020 you can rebook any seats on the same flights until March 2021.
  You can’t book any seat on a different route. In that case there would have to be reward seats available.
zaza says:

5 May5 May 09:43

I have had a CW flight to Toronto Sun 14th – Sat 27th June, 2x adults and 1x infant, cancelled half an hour ago, booked using Avios and a 241.
I can confirm that:
– I can rebook the outbound flight at any time up to Fri 25th June 2021, ie 1Y from my return leg
– I can only book off-peak days, as my original booking is off peak
– I can book any off-peak day – they are all available as far as I can see
– I cannot book past the expiry of my 241
- zaza says:
  
  5 May5 May 09:44
  
  All via Manage My Booking. They will allow rebooking onto a peak date if you call them. I have screenshots if it would be useful.
- pauldb says:
  
  5 May5 May 10:36
  
  How do you know you can book all the way to June? I can see similar on my bookings, but only up to late April 2021: 355 day, which is well beyond 12 months since booking (in June 2019) and I think beyond the 241’s validity.
  - zaza says:
    
    5 May5 May 10:41
    
    They changed it at 10am and put an interstitial up with a much less convenient rebooking tool – which appears to be broken as it is showing no availability for any date as of now. Previously they had a standard date picker and text saying “You may book any date up to 25th June 2021”.
    Given that I booked in Feb 2020, and my 241 expires in Aug 2021, it seemed that this was their choice.
    Wouldn’t be the first change of mind though……
- Rob says:
  
  5 May5 May 10:41
  
  Thanks!
  - Beardysuhz says:
    
    5 May5 May 11:46
    
    I had a similar situation:
    – Booked a 241 in First LGW-BGI 2nd June to 9th June 2020 (off -peak)
    – Made the booking on 20 November 2019
    – Had the cancellation email from BA
    – Used MMB to change the booking online and managed to to change the flights to 3rd April 2021 to 11th April 2021 (peak)
    – waiting for ocnfirmation e-mail but booking on BA seems to have semi updated
    - Jamie says:
      
      5 May5 May 13:54
      
      Has this rebooked you into a cash fare class which earns TP + Avois?
      
      Thinking there’s some good arbitrage to be had here using my 241 and buying some Avios for an LAX first in June, gambling on it being cancelled (worst case lose £35), and then rebooking when I actually want to use it, earning 30k Avios and 420 tier points each. Any flaws in this plan?
      - Mikeact says:
        
        5 May5 May 14:00
        
        Only the potential abuse angle highlighted elsewhere.
      - Adrian says:
        
        5 May5 May 15:01
        
        Another downside is that LAX was one of the 13 USA airports that were still open so your flight may still go, SAN, LAS, PHX etc a lot less likely to go ahead
      - Jonathan says:
        
        5 May5 May 16:12
        
        Won’t work. You’ll be rebooked in a cash fare bucket but the system has the underlying redemption status hardwired into it. If you’d booked an underlying cash fare in a cheap bucket & get rebooked in this type of scenario or during bad weather etc. then you do get the Avios/Tier Point boost if new booking in a flexible bucket.
Neil says:

5 May5 May 12:16

Apologies if this has been answered…

Flights booked MAN-LHR-TLV RTN Business Class on a 241 Voucher from 15th June to 22nd June 2020 and has now been cancelled. 241 Voucher was due to expire Sept 2021. However, when I go to MMB, it only gives me an option to rebook up to 21st April????

Is this a glitch?
- zaza says:
  
  5 May5 May 13:56
  
  It’s probably the 25th Apr 2021 and that’s 355 days from today, which is the standard max for an Avios booking.
  Earlier, they had opened it as far as a year from original booking, but they appear to have scaled it back. They’ve also put in some process whereby you have to pick a date and then push Find Flight, and every date for me now returns “no flights available”.
  I think they have broken it at present.
GB says:

5 May5 May 12:26

If the booking includes a GUF2 voucher, can flights only be rebooked for dates up to the remaining validity of the GUF2 voucher or for the full 12 months (given validity of the GUF2 voucher is “book by)

Thank you
Michael says:

5 May5 May 13:31

When you choose to get a voucher for an Avios booking, will the voucher only work on days when there is reward seats or on any day as long there is still cash seats?
- Rob says:
  
  5 May5 May 14:08
  
  Need reward seats.