Is British Airways’ Best Rate Guarantee worth a look?

If you are not familiar with the term, Best Rate Guarantee, or usually referred to as BRG, is a special service that hotel groups and airlines (as well as many other businesses) offer to entice customers to book direct instead of via third-party channels. If you find a lower price elsewhere, they will match it and sometimes provide more incentives.

Compared to hotels, it’s usually much easier to find lower third-party prices for airline tickets. However, the BRG rules of airlines are usually convoluted and less rewarding, which is why you are probably better off just booking through the travel agent instead.

However, British Airways does offer a pretty solid BRG programme, link here. Note that BRG rules are dictated by the departing country of your ticket, and this content applies to UK departure only.

In order to make a claim, you should:

1. Find a lower price online for your flight-only itinerary, and take a screenshot – it needs to contain certain information including date/time, website name, price breakdown and fare conditions and so on
2. Book the same itinerary on ba.com
3. Submit the claim using the provided form on the same day

You should expect a response within two working days. You do not need to upload the screenshot at this point, but if BA has difficulty validating your claim they will request it.

As you can see the process is fairly simple, but the catch is you don’t get a refund, but a voucher instead. Oh vouchers, I know how people hate them nowadays 😛

Don’t just be put off yet though. If you are an Executive Club member, you may be able to double the value of the price difference, depending on how much the difference is:

• If the difference is no greater than £100, your voucher is doubled up. For example if the third-party price is £50 cheaper, you get a £100 voucher.
• If the difference is between £100 and £200, you still get a boosted voucher, but up to the value of £200 only. For example if the third-party price is £120, you get a £200 voucher instead of £240.
• If the difference is greater than £200, you only get a voucher equal to the price difference.

Obviously there’s no point claiming it if the difference is greater than £200, but for a smaller difference under £100, you are essentially getting a double compensation which is not bad at all.

I’ve tried BA’s BRG only once, and it went very smoothly. I received an approval email the next morning and received the doubled voucher (£30) straightaway, without the need to provide my screenshot.

As far as I know, flights purchased with party-pay-with-Avios are also qualified for BRG. However, those purchased with a BRG voucher don’t.