BA - where do I stand?

Krista1977

My son went to Kuala Lumpur with BA in January before this whole Covid 19 started to become major. He was there at uni for six months - so had his return flight booked for June 11th 2020. Obv whilst he was there, Malaysia closed its borders, uni closed and told him to go home. This was on 17th March 2020. He tried to contact BA for a good three days asking if they could change his 11th June flight to an earlier one as he has been advised by uni to leave. They never got back to him. He called them, tweeted them and messaged them... not one reply!! This led to him being stuck in Malaysia, so I booked him a flight home with Etihad as that was the only way he could get back. Obv now he is back he does not need that flight home on 11th June 2020. Although I can’t get hold of them for a refund, and online you can only get a voucher. He does not want a voucher, and I would not want him to use them again, as when he needed that flight home they would not help. So - do they have to give him a refund? I know people say that they do not if you chose to cancel - which I do understand. But he took half the flight and did not really chose to cancel the return leg - he was told he had to return to the UK, with no help from BA. So a return flight is no good to him at all now. He paid £1,300 for the flight so it is a shame to lose that money to a company that would not help him when he was not able to get home. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Westin

If he looks in Manage My Booking on BA.com he can see and follow the status of his 11 June flight.

At the moment I suspect it may still be showing as live and operating.  If so, he has no recourse from BA at this time. The booking is valid and unless his ticket fare type permits, no refund would be due.

If BA cancel the flight from their schedule he will likely receive an email to tell him of his options.  As a part flown ticket, if cancelled, he may be able to at that point apply for a partial refund, although BA would need to manually calculate that value.

I suspect a case of having to sit tight and wait. 

Glad that that your son has made it home safely.

benjus

Don't know if this still works, but I heard about it from someone at work:

https://travelingformiles.com/how-to-force-the-british-airways-website-to-offer-a-refund/

Due to BA being famously bad at IT, you can (or could) coerce their website into re-enabling the refund option.

Westin

If that work around is still active, it only would apply if the BA flight is cancelled.   

I suspect the flight in mid-June that the OP refers to is still currently operational (for now) in BA's system.

benjus

Westin said:

If that work around is still active, it only would apply if the BA flight is cancelled.   

I suspect the flight in mid-June that the OP refers to is still currently operational (for now) in BA's system.

Ah sorry, I didn't read the OP properly. I'll leave the link in case it's useful to anyone else...

veryintrigued

Westin said:

If that work around is still active, it only would apply if the BA flight is cancelled.   

I suspect the flight in mid-June that the OP refers to is still currently operational (for now) in BA's system.

Work around worked fine for me on lots of non cancelled flights a week ago

Krista1977

Thanks for your help - It seems wrong that they would not get him home, so he had to book another flight - making the return flight useless - he was told to leave the country - so could not wait for the flight in June and now not there to take that flight. I did not know because he had started his journey with BA if he would be covered. Thanks for you help