TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission that helps contribute to the running of the site. Traveling For Miles has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Traveling For Miles and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. For more details please see the disclosures found at the bottom of every page.
Towards the beginning of the current crisis, British Airways managed to hit a new low when it removed the option to request a refund for a canceled trip from its website. The airline attempted to claim that this had something to do with its website’s inability to process refunds but, as this had never been an issue in the past, it was obvious to most people that this was just a tactic being employed by British Airways to make it as hard as possible for customers to request a refund.
Since early March, customers have had to put in a call to British Airways if they wanted a refund for a trip that the airline had cancelled but now, finally, British Airways has brought back the option to request a cash refund online. The option to request a refund on an Avios booking has yet to be brought back online and the availability of the cash refund option is far from obvious, but it’s there.
British Airways is still being incredibly sneaky about letting customers know that there’s an option to request a cash refund online so if you have a cancelled flight, the primary options that will be presented to you are the options to change your booking or to request a voucher. If you’d like to request a refund you’re invited to “call us” to discuss your options.
If British Airways has cancelled your flight and is offering you an alternative, you’ll be given the option to accept the new flight, to change the booking, or to request a voucher. Once again, you’re promoted to “call us” if you’d like to discuss your refund options.
Fortunately, these aren’t really all your options. As Head For Points has noted, you can now request a cash refund using the form found via THIS LINK. Initially, you’ll be asked to log in to your British Airways account but once you’ve done that, the refund form will appear.
The form says that “[y]ou will need the email or text message confirming the cancellation” but as there’s no field in the form where you’re requested to input information from any communication from British Airways, I suspect this is just to make sure that anyone using this form to request a refund has genuinely had a flight cancelled.
Be careful. If British Airways has not canceled your flight do not use this form.
There’s a very clear warning at the bottom of the refund request form which states that if the form is used to request a refund for a flight that the airline has yet to cancel, “you will not receive a full refund and your booking will become ineligible for a voucher“.
If you no longer wish to travel and your flight has not been cancelled, you can request a voucher for future travel (which will be valid for travel through April 2022) via the form found on this British Airways page. If British Airways has canceled one or more flights in an Avios booking, you should call the airline to have the Avios returned to your account and the taxes and surcharges refunded.
Bottom Line
The British Airways website is once again offering customers the option to request a cash refund for a cancelled flight but it’s far from obvious that this option is available. In an ideal world, the airline would now add a link to the refund request form at the bottom of all bookings that include a cancelled flight but, as this is BA that we’re discussing, I don’t expect this to happen any time soon.
Please spread the word that a cash refund request option is now available on the British Airways website – for some reason the airline appears reluctant to let everyone know that it’s back.
