Cancelled BA Holidays Flight

firefocus

Could anyone help please, I booked a return flight with car hire to Kuala Lumpur travelling at the end of April 2021 and like so many people had the flight cancelled as BA has suspended the route indefinitely. BA emailed me with my options, and as I wanted to reroute I attempted on numerous occasions to get through to Customer Support but gave up as the phone lines were always busy. I then used the YouFirst contact form but in the meantime BA had issued a refund. When I finally managed to speak with an agent she told me that as I’d booked car hire I had to contact BA holidays, as she couldn’t put me through directly,  a few days later I did get to speak to a BA holidays agent and after a lengthy conversation I was advised that as the flight was booked through BA holidays the rules are different as I had only paid a deposit and so rerouting is not an option. What this now means is that I have to rebook either through Malaysia Air at a much greater cost, or start from scratch with BA and book a flight to Singapore and then pay for a short haul flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur with a local airline, obviously this cost has to be borne by me too. Could I ask if anyone else has had the same experience and if so how did you get it resolved?

Caz3121

terms and conditions for BA Holidays are here  https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/legal/package-booking-terms-and-conditions

Westin

The phone agent is correct. Your contract is with British Airways Holidays. You had a ‘package (holiday)’ trip.  BAH can cancel the package arrangements and refund - and they will probably will very quickly. No rerouting right. You will need to as you say start from scratch.

CKhalvashi

BA are correct legally.

BA and Malaysia Airlines are both OneWorld alliance partners, so if they say no to this, it may be worth asking (nicely) if they will put you on the Finnair or Qatar services (also OW), which may work out a little cheaper for you.

Due to the pandemic situation, I doubt there is much point having too much competition into KL from any one alliance unless another alliance is pushing hard, which as far as I've noticed hasn't happened so far, and therefore this is the reason for the reduced choice.

Butts

Quite correct, the big difference between booking a Package (Car and Flight in this case) and just the Flights is the amount of money you have to layout upfront.

With just Flights it would be the whole cost whereas with a Package probably £150 or even less. I note the OP had not even paid the Balance at time of cancellation so is only entitled to their Deposit back and nothing else.