British Airways: managed to get a refund

PlantMan

Yeah I am booked through a 3rd party agent, and still waiting for a decent response!

onashoestring

onashoestring said:

Thanks OP, I had a BA Holiday booked for mid May, I’d paid the deposit only ; with the balance due this week. The day before the rest of the money was due I received an email informing flights were cancelled & BA would be “in contact with me to discuss my options” 
I followed the steps in your post within 24 hours had an email confirming that BA are “processing a full refund. This will be returned to your original payment card within the next 7 - 10 days”

I recommend this to anyone who has had a BA flight cancelled.

Follow up :
Yesterday received full refund from BA for holiday cancelled by them . Money in my bank a/c 14 days after e-mail cancelling trip ( that included 2 bank holidays ) . I had not been able to get through on the phone, I did send DM on Twitter, I didn’t get a reply so I don’t know if it was that or just their policy now to refund ? 

Firemunchkin

@QuangoSurrey
Thank you so much for posting this. I have been pulling my hair out wondering what to do - can never get through on the phone and I must have tried 50+ times at different times of day! Those of you who have been lucky enough to get through I am jealous!! 

I have gone to their Twitter page and they are actually telling people in exactly my situation (BA cancelled flights but can't get through to request refund) to do precisely what you said. You also have to provide some identification info in the message. I've not had a non-automated response yet but fingers crossed it will be seen by someone!

Thanks again. 

HarryL53

Thanks for the tip  It worked for me. Over £800 back in my account. Another satisfied customer of the forums.  But a dissatisfied
customer of the shyster behavior of BA.

Ricicle

My flights were cancelled. I tried to call to get a refund and the call kept on getting cut off as they seemed to have turned their lines off. I stupidly applied for a voucher, thinking I could change it in to a refund at a later date due to the issues getting through.
I managed to get through today and i was told in no uncertain terms I can not change my voucher in to a refund. I even spoke to a manager, she was rude and unhelpful and showed no compassion whatsoever. She even called me a liar at one point because I said I felt I had no choice in applying for a voucher due to the phone lines being down. She said that's not true! How rude! absolutely no soft skills at all.
I won't be able to go on holiday in the next 12 months, as now, I simply can not afford it, due to the pandemic.
I have lodged a complaint with them online, but I'm not sure whether I will receive this refund. It means that I will lose £470 of much needed money because they have put a ridiculous time limit on these vouchers and are inflexible in their arrangements.
I came off the phone very upset and she handled the call very badly, even though I was polite but insistent. Is this an infringement on consumer rights or something like that? I would like to follow up my complaint with some sort of legal knowledge as I really don't think this is fair at all. I feel like they have basically robbed me and are taking advantage of the current situation to claw back as much money as they can regardless of fairness.
I do feel for them I really do, but I work in a call centre as well and I would NEVER speak to a customer they way I was spoken to.

Life__Goes__On

What method of payment did you use to buy the tickets?

AlexMac

BA seem to be improving; they emailed us a couple of weeks ago to advise cancellation of a June 6th 2020 flight, promising to advise later on next steps... 
Then today, still well before the travel date, they emailed me promising a refund within 10 days to the originally used credit card, without the need for any further action on my part.  We'd only paid a £150 deposit for the 2 tickets, and the balance of £200 odd wasn't yet due.  I'd assumed they were doing customers with imminent departure dates 1st, and I knew they were busy and so I didn't even waste my time trying to ring them. I'd have risked a voucher if that was all I could have got, but the refund is obviously better!  

Thrugelmir

Ricicle said:

She even called me a liar at one point because I said I felt I had no choice in applying for a voucher due to the phone lines being down. She said that's not true! How rude! absolutely no soft skills at all.

Must be frustrating and wearing when trying to do your job that customers make unfounded accusations. After weeks of irate customers having a go. Hardly surprising that people are getting snappy. There is only a limited amount of capacity at any given point of time. Whether it be telephone lines or staff. Something that's been repeated endlessly over the past few weeks. Common sense really if people bothered to listen. 

rosiesposies

I am extremely sympathetic  to the contact centre advisors at the minute. they are doing their jobs and bound by policy and processes way beyond their control. I cannot imagine the mental and physical implications that some of these, LOW PAID staff are facing at the minute. I also know that none of them are home working, and all facing risks by travelling to their Newcastle and London offices each shift. 
The industry had never faced something like this before, and after all of this is over or somewhat over, the thanks a lot of these employees will get is redundancy due to financial recovery by the big bosses and holding groups. 

Ducamantova

My wife bought tickets to fly Manchester-LHR-New York on 1st June and return a week later.  The return New York -LHR has been cancelled, but the rest are still supposedly happening.  She has had no offer of a refund yet, but has received an email saying the Manchester-LHR flight time has changed and asking her to accept it.  Is this some sort of trap ?  What are our rights ?