British Airways launches new refundable ticket types – but only via travel agents for now

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• Lou says:

  28 Feb28 February 04:20

  I can’t remember the last time I paid much over £150 for a return short haul flight in economy for work….

• Genghis says:

  28 Feb28 February 06:48

  For business travel I always book restricted cheaper tickets even though it’s not policy. In the five years at my current place I think I’ve had to throw away two flights. Overall savings v easy to demonstrate.

• Maxime says:

  28 Feb28 February 07:10

  I think you keep referring to Select Plus whilst the fare is called Select Pro

• TeesTraveller says:

  28 Feb28 February 07:38

  For my SH business travel, I am always able to change my tickets (even cheap economy) at a cost of £30 anyway. We don’t have a special deal with BA or anything but use a corporate travel agent.

  Refundable tickets on short-haul are pointless unless you are a consultant who charges back all travel to the client. And the client wonders when they get a £300 bill for a LHR-MAN flight…

• pigeon says:

  28 Feb28 February 07:38

  The Atlantic Joint Business table suggests that all ex-US fares will have free changes and effectively be select fares (to compete with DL/UA), but the ex-UK tickets will be on different terms.

  It will be interesting to see how EasyJet responds. It might not be that expensive for them to maintain their free changes outside 14 days policy – could this be their opportunity to squeeze BA?

• TripRep says:

  28 Feb28 February 08:17

  Seems relevant to post here.

  Regarding…
  https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2021/02/25/british-airways-maldives-avios/comment-page-2/#comment-590589

  Anna thanks for the reply, just phoned BA Exec Club, great CS agent processed refund of 241 Companion voucher while I was on the phone, so it should be ready for me to use by tomorrow. So I might have a few eves of staying up to midnight during March…

  • Anna says:

    28 Feb28 February 15:45

    Glad you got it back and good luck at T-355!

• Zebrum says:

  28 Feb28 February 08:29

  Just make all tickets refundable, the constant penny pinching is tedious. We need a decent airline in UK that behaves more human, like Southwest, where you can cancel or rearrange at no cost e.g. you wake up that morning feeling like you don’t want to fly that day.

  • Erico1875 says:

    28 Feb28 February 08:49

    Ironically Michael OLeary studied Southwest business model when tasked with turning Ryanair in to a major player

    • Matarredonda says:

      28 Feb28 February 10:21

      Only ever but the cheapest Ryanair ticket and add seats, etc when checking in.
      Long-term works out cheaper as not expensive to ditch the cheapest ticket if things change and can’t fly

    • kitten says:

      28 Feb28 February 16:28

      You mean the airline Americans call “Southworst” ? 🙂

      • Lyn says:

        28 Feb28 February 21:30

        They actually seem to have a lot of very loyal customers. One of the ways they differentiate themselves is with free hold luggage.

  • Nick says:

    28 Feb28 February 09:24

    @zebrum so how much extra would you be willing to pay for that? Like it or not, those paying big bucks for flexible tickets subsidise those paying cheap fares… and if all tickets were flexible, that revenue would disappear and all tickets would go up in price.

  • babyg says:

    28 Feb28 February 11:37

    @Zebrum, that business model wont work long term, people “game” the system, they snap up multiple bookings for a single flight and then cancel last minute once they decide on which actual booking they want, this happens abit with reward bookings already.

    • Rob says:

      28 Feb28 February 12:54

      Indeed. When BA let Gold card holders cancel Avios tickets for free, many people would hold seats on multiple flights, eg book every Friday night over the Summer to Ibiza and then cancel all of them at short notice except one or two.

• Bluekjp says:

  28 Feb28 February 08:32

  ‘As you can see, Select and Select Plus both allow free changes to your ticket, albeit with the fare difference to be paid.’
  The above, as well as the table, implies that there is always a fare difference to be paid which may confuse some. It ought to be followed by, for example: (if any).

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