Is British Airways Ignoring Its Own Policy Change?

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Despite having flown with British Airways for years I still consider myself a novice when it comes to the airline’s rules and regulations.

Because most of my British Airways flying has been on inconsequential short-haul flights and because, up until now, my flights have all been credited to the American Airlines AAdvantage program, I’ve been a bit lax when it comes to keeping on top of how BA does things.

I say all this because right now I’m a little confused.

British Airways had a popular baggage policy which was supposedly changed without notice back in October of last year but, based on what I’ve been seeing, it looks as if the policy is still in effect. Is BA ignoring its policy change or am I missing something?

Here’s what I’m talking about:

British Airways used to have a policy whereby a passenger’s checked-baggage allowance was determined by the highest allowance the passenger had on his/her itinerary. BA called this the “Most Generous Baggage Allowance Policy”

Put simply, if you were booked to fly in Economy Class in one direction and Business Class in the other BA would give you a Business Class baggage allowance for your entire trip.

This was a genuinely generous policy but one that BA told us it was scrapping back in October 2017 (as I wrote about here). But has the policy really been scrapped?

Here are two recent experiences I’ve had:

• In late December I had a trip with British Airways which involved an outbound flight booked into Economy Class and an inbound booked into Premium Economy
• I held no status with British Airways at this point and it was my British Airways Executive Club number that was associated with my booking

Under the new rules my baggage allowance for my outbound flight should have been just one checked bag with my allowance on the way back increasing to two checked bags due to the higher cabin of service. But that’s not what I was given.

I actually had a 2 bag allowance for my entire trip:

I confess that I didn’t give this much thought at the time and I put it down to a website glitch (BA has them all the time).

Fast forward to the other day when I was reviewing a short-haul itinerary I have coming up with British Airways.

I’m booked in Economy Class in both directions but BA.com is offering me an upgrade (for a price) on the return segment and it is the baggage allowance that has caught my eye.

The offer is clearly saying that by upgrading one leg of my trip to Business Class I would have a Business Class baggage allowance for my “entire booking”.

That’s exactly how things used to work under the old policy and not how I expect things to work now.

Interestingly, when I dig down into the details of the upgrade rules, this is what I can see:

This wording is clearly at odds with what the headline upgrade offer is saying but it’s what I would expect the rule to be now that BA has rescinded its “most generous baggage policy”.

So what’s going on?

I genuinely have no idea…but I’d love to know if anyone else has seen anything like this, if this is a known glitch or if anyone has had been given the most generous baggage allowance since the policy was supposedly rescinded in October.

This isn’t exactly something major but as I’ve made use of the old policy on a number of occasions I’d love to know if it’s still hanging around despite what BA have announced.