British Airways Holiday Cancelled with no notification

jwatso13

Hi,  has anyone booked a holiday with BA (flights and hotel) and found this had been cancelled when the final balance was paid as BA returned the balance payment back to our credit card?  This occurred in September 23.  We have asked for compensation but BA do not respond.  We just get a standard response that they are very busy and pls be patient.
Our bank investigated and suggest it was a BA IT error.

mr_stripey

You got no email notification of the cancellation? And didn't notice the refund to you card at the time?

Mark_d

If you miss the due date for paying your balance, then the holiday gets cancelled and your deposit is lost.  If you later pay the balance it will be refunded, as you no longer have a holiday booking.

jwatso13

Hi,  we paid the balance on time though.  But is seems likely the BA IT system did not accept or payment.  Our bank checked their systems and confirmed they could see any problem.

jwatso13

We received no email confirmation and we did not notice the credit card refund immediately as we were not expecting this and do not check card daily as not a card frequently used.

Penguin_

What compensation are you due?

jimi_man

BA Holidays don't routinely cancel bookings without a very good reason which and even then they'll communicate with you as it states in their T's and C's. Personally I rate them (and I know I'm not the only one who finds that they are one of the best TAs out there). 

It sounds like your payment wasn't accepted and as you didn't pay the balance properly the holiday was cancelled in accordance with their agreement. 

'5.1.2. If we do not receive this balance in full and on time, we reserve the right to treat your booking as being cancelled by you in which case the cancellation conditions as set out in clause 7.5 will apply.'

You should only have lost your deposit which hopefully isn't too big. Not much else you can do I'm afraid. 

eskbanker

jwatso13 said:

Hi,  we paid the balance on time though.  But is seems likely the BA IT system did not accept or payment.  Our bank checked their systems and confirmed they could see any problem.

jwatso13 said:

We received no email confirmation and we did not notice the credit card refund immediately as we were not expecting this and do not check card daily as not a card frequently used.

Just to be clear, was it a payment and then a refund, i.e. showing as two separate transactions on your statement?  If so, then I'd have thought that you'd have had a decent chance of challenging the cancellation of your holiday, especially if there was no notification of either the payment being returned or the holiday being cancelled.

However, if this was all ages ago then that opportunity will presumably have been and gone - how long did it take you to notice what had happened and what did they say at the time when you phoned them to seek reinstatement of the trip?

jwatso13

Hi, it was a payment and refund on the credit card statement and no cancellation email received.  

It just by chance I found out as I emailed the hotel to check where our room would be on the resort.  They advised that BA had cancelled the booking.  I did call BA to try to rearrange the holiday but the hotel was then full and the flight costs had increased and by then we were so disappointed we did  it want to pay more for the flights or stay in another hotel.

bagand96

Did BA Holidays refund your deposit?  This would be an indicator of whether BA were treating it as a cancellation they made, or whether it was because of failure to pay the balance (as others seem to be assuming)