BA Flights

robertsk24

How much notice does BA have to give if cancelling your flight.  Due to travel 1st September to the USA for a cruise. Cruise has been cancelled but nothing about the flights.

eskbanker

robertsk24 said:

How much notice does BA have to give if cancelling your flight.  Due to travel 1st September to the USA for a cruise. Cruise has been cancelled but nothing about the flights.

There is no minimum notice period - flights can be cancelled right up to departure time, as can be seen on departure boards in any airport.  Were the flights booked together with the cruise as a package, or did you make independent bookings yourself?

Edit: I see it was a package, as discussed at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77346009/#Comment_77346009, so the advice remains the same, i.e. once the cruise was cancelled, the package provider (your travel agent) is obliged to refund the whole holiday cost in full, regardless of whether or not the flights are cancelled.

robertsk24

Thanks for your reply.  We have said this to our Travel Agent but they are insisting that because we paid for the flights before the balance was due in order to book our seats, they cannot refund as they had ticketed the flights. Should we still be entitled to a full refund.  Thanks

eskbanker

robertsk24 said:

Thanks for your reply.  We have said this to our Travel Agent but they are insisting that because we paid for the flights before the balance was due in order to book our seats, they cannot refund as they had ticketed the flights. Should we still be entitled to a full refund.  Thanks

They're making it up as they go along!  Ticketing makes no difference at all to their legal obligations, which are clearly defined in the PTRs - assuming it's definitely a package then any significant change requires that they offer you a choice of an alternative or a full refund, as per regulation 11(8):

(8) Where—

(a) the traveller terminates the contract pursuant to paragraph (5)(b), and

(b) the traveller does not accept a substitute package,

the organiser must refund all payments made by or on behalf of the traveller without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days after the contract is terminated.

robertsk24

Thanks very much for your reply very helpful.... It gets better, I contacted BA direct as couldn’t access my booking they told me BA has cancelled our direct flight to Miami and should be on the Travel Agency’s system.   Travel Agent still adamant nothing they can do as flight been ticketed and still pushing for us to move the cruise to next year.  We will be visiting Travel Agent next week to seek our refund.  Thanks again