BA refusing flydrive refund

lensgirl1234

Hi
We are due to fly to Florida on 4th September and initially at booking I paid the £150 deposit, however in January I paid the balance in full. The balance is not due until 31st July. We now wish to cancel our booking, but they are not answering the phone to cancel and I have received one tweet DM that says I will lose my £150 which I am happy with, but another person has now responded and say im not entitle to a refund. Their T & C online are very vague and I just cant believe that I wont receive everything back, apart from the deposit. Is this right? I have responded to the DM asking to see the T & C where it says that i will lose everything i have paid and I have also queried why I am getting two different answers. They took 24 hours to respond to this and if they don't answer their phone (it doesn't even put me on hold, I got through messages and then they cut it off) I cant get any sort of straight answer. I have never paid in full before a balance is due, and thought I was being really sensible this time making sure that we didn't spend the funds we had.

Penelopa.Pitstop

Just wait closer to travel time. There's a chance flight will be cancelled and then you will get full refund for everything. Right now, BA is re-shuffling August's schedule, so they will get to September's probably in 4-6 weeks.

AlexMac

They are probably simply not coping with the volume of problems;  I was getting contradictory signals about a flight I had booked for June I I tried online for a voucher, failed, then got a total refund, unsolicited; without even asking.  But then, my flight was cancelled- only 5 weeks beforehand however.  So I echo Penelopa's advice to wait.

In fact I wouldn't even try ringing in; they're probably making it up as they go along, and their call centre satff won't yet have a clue abot the status of flights to the USA in September.

Maybe closer to the date an email might be more useful  - you could try customerservices@messages.ba.com 
or their online form at https://www.britishairways.com/travel/askbainter/public/en_gb
(assuming you are in the UK?)

Good luck

JGB1955

According to the BBC It is unlikely there will be an air bridge arrangement with the US before December.  The chances of your holiday being cancelled are high.

Mrsn

BA are really hard to speak too, messaging does seem to be the easiest (which I appreciate it’s anything but) way to communicate with them.

I don’t see how they can keep any of the money that isn’t deposit related. You’ll have to keep persevering I’m afraid.

rosiesposies

If they cancel they will refund you. If you cancel first then you lose. Wait and it will cancel then refund owed. If you cancel now you can get vouchers if that is suitable 

oscarward

i have a trip to canada due in october with flights booked direct with BA in Nov 19.  Managed to get through yesterday after about 10 minutes hold.  Bottom line is because I booked before march I can't do anything except to wait and see if

a. is flight cancelled.

b. goes ahead.

c. the change to t&cs may be extended to October departures  but I'm not holding my breath.

Our preference is to delay  .......

rosiesposies

Canada is nearly returned to normal, and by Oct will be even less stringent. If you are flying into TO or Vancouver the flight will not cancel, the daily flights from Heathrow are set to resume on or around Aug 1st

US is totally different matter and looks a disaster tbh and I cannot imagine the US/Canada border being open by then. 

oscarward

rosiesposies said:

Canada is nearly returned to normal, and by Oct will be even less stringent. If you are flying into TO or Vancouver the flight will not cancel, the daily flights from Heathrow are set to resume on or around Aug 1st

US is totally different matter and looks a disaster tbh and I cannot imagine the US/Canada border being open by then. 

BA are flying from London to Vancouver 16/7 according from their website , however as a foreigner I am currently not permitted entry and no date is mentioned on border website of when that will change.  Have BA any advance information or will they only allow permitted passengers onboard?  Do the border agency give advance notice of when things will change?

Streaky_Bacon

rosiesposies said:

Canada is nearly returned to normal, and by Oct will be even less stringent. If you are flying into TO or Vancouver the flight will not cancel, the daily flights from Heathrow are set to resume on or around Aug 1st

US is totally different matter and looks a disaster tbh and I cannot imagine the US/Canada border being open by then. 

You may well be right, but I would suggest that it is far too soon to predict what will be happening in two weeks, never mind Oct.

Any country that believes it has beaten COVID is, I think, somewhat deluded. Unless they have magically made their populations immune all they have currently done is suppress it, probably with restrictions that they won't be able to enforce indefinitely. New Zealand is a good example. Yes, it is currently under control, but only because they've closed themselves off from the rest of the world. How long can that last?

With Canada, there are at least two big problems, firstly the border with the US is not closed to cross border workers (of which there are very many). Secondly, once travel does start in earnest, any country is going to be inundated with asymptomatic carriers, and almost certainly reinfected. So, if travel to Canada is far less restricted at the beginning of Oct, that probably just makes a spike at the end of Oct far more likely.

None of these countries have solved COVID, they have just had differing degrees of success with sticking plasters.