BA's Book with Confidence Policy has Ended

Butts

Just in case people were unaware any bookings made from 8th June this week are no longer covered by the above.

Bookings made prior to this date for Flights or Holidays are still covered by it's generous amendment/cancellation terms.

Back to fees for any subsequent changes - good while it lasted !!

silvercar

It was good while it lasted. Anything booked before 8 June for travel by end September is still covered.

makes the cancellation terms of Avios reward flights even more enticing as they can be cancelled for a max of £35 per flight upto 24 hours before travel.

Sandtree

silvercar said:

It was good while it lasted. Anything booked before 8 June for travel by end September is still covered.

makes the cancellation terms of Avios reward flights even more enticing as they can be cancelled for a max of £35 per flight upto 24 hours before travel.

The one advantage of Covid was that if you were willing/able to travel there was massive availability of reward (and equiv with other airlines) flights available... its the first time in a decade that our Avios points significantly went down within a year... unfortunately that ended some time ago.

jimi_man

Yes it's a shame. It was a nice policy and very popular with customers.

The only free changes now are if you change your flight on the same day of travel, which is still quite good - especially if you've had to book a time that you didn't want because the time you wanted was really expensive, then providing there are seats then you can change for free. 

Otherwise it's back to fees. 

Westin

Good whilst it lasted and a generous concession. 

I suspect there might have been some abuse of the flexibility in the BwC terms by some and ultimately it would likely have eroded into ticket sales of their normal flexible fare classes.  I can understand why they have ended it.

Butts

Westin said:

Good whilst it lasted and a generous concession. 

I suspect there might have been some abuse of the flexibility in the BwC terms by some and ultimately it would likely have eroded into ticket sales of their normal flexible fare classes.  I can understand why they have ended it.

What sort of abuse ?

Westin

Business travellers who used to have corporate flexible fares purchased for them by their businesses, being booked in cheaper fare buckets knowing they could cancel and obtain a future travel credit instead.   I suspect the BwC policy was to ally any fears with people contracting covid just before travel and unable to fly. The generous BwC policy could however be used to cancel a flight, receive a future credit, for any reason up to one hour before departure. Total flexibility on any ticket type, even the cheapest normally non-refundable ones.

jimi_man

It was designed for everyone - business and leisure travellers - since everyone was equally at risk of having their plans disrupted by Covid. Bearing in mind BA's most profitable routes are business routes, I doubt they didn't consider that risk. 

Sandtree

jimi_man said:

It was designed for everyone - business and leisure travellers - since everyone was equally at risk of having their plans disrupted by Covid. Bearing in mind BA's most profitable routes are business routes, I doubt they didn't consider that risk. 

But the reality is you could use it to change your plans for non-covid reasons too... you get a better offer on the day you were supposed to fly out you could simply get a refund for your flight if you wanted to.

jimi_man

Sandtree said:

jimi_man said:

It was designed for everyone - business and leisure travellers - since everyone was equally at risk of having their plans disrupted by Covid. Bearing in mind BA's most profitable routes are business routes, I doubt they didn't consider that risk. 

But the reality is you could use it to change your plans for non-covid reasons too... you get a better offer on the day you were supposed to fly out you could simply get a refund for your flight if you wanted to.

Yes that's correct, we did. Though of course the money still stays with BA - you couldn't actually get a refund.

I still think that BA were almost certainly aware of that risk but were probably willing to take it to attract customers to the brand at a time when the industry had suffered a huge setback. Bearing in mind that companies like Squeezy and Ryanair were awful in comparison (in relation to BwC) and the charter airlines even worse. It was only ever a temporary thing so having attracted people they can then go back to normal, having increased their business share. Having travelled to the US last week and going again next week, as well as numerous other flights this year, I can confirm that their planes are pretty full! My wife has done around 50 flights this year and says the same.

I still have several hundred pounds in vouchers which I need to use at some point and I'd imagine there are a lot of people in the same boat (plane!) all of which is business for them.

Sandtree

jimi_man said:
I still think that BA were almost certainly aware of that risk but were probably willing to take it to attract customers to the brand at a time when the industry had suffered a huge setback. 

Clearly it will have been done with eyes wide open and someone will have done the maths on the loss of flexible/semi-flexible tickets -v- the uptick in sales generally etc and decided that the numbers stack up. 

Not sure I would have called it "abuse" either but inevitably the openness of the scheme has probably hastened the demise... a more closed scheme would have required proofs and that would have caused a host of other challenges but could have extended its life. 

The only flights we've been on that were quiet were Q2 last year where you had to have a legitimate need for travel and have a declaration form (not that anyone checked them at all). Even when the flights were fairly full there was still plenty of reward seats available though which was great for making dents in our Avios and Airmile counts.