A data point of BA’s “Avios Refund”

We covered British Airways’ new refund policy a week ago: it is official now, that in the case of flight cancellation you could request a refund in Avios instead of cash.

This a good thing for BA itself as they are obviously running short of cash at the moment, and also for the customer too: the rate for “buying” Avios in this way is excellent, so I’d imagine many would be happy to take this option over cash.

We’ve already seen many positive reports following flight cancellations. However there is a new data point that I’d like to share.

A reader wanted to try his luck and see if he could “buy” some cheap Avios. He went to purchase a September LHR-PVG ticket after reading my post, which was an educated bet. Even though BA hadn’t resumed any China flight yet, and given China’s “Five-ones” policy it’s virtually impossible for them to fly so frequently in the near future, BA was selling this route for EVERY DAY in September. Most of these flight were destined to be cancelled, if not all.

Coincidentally BA released their revised September LHR-PVG schedule the next day, and (un)fortunately his flight turned out to be one of the few that would actually operate! Luckily it’s still within the 24-hour cool-off period, so he called BA’s customer centre to cancel immediately.

To his surprise, the agent offered to make a refund in Avios, despite the fact that there’s no cancellation, and he happily accepted it.

So what is happening here? My guess is, you are entitled to a refund in Avios as long as you are entitled to a refund in cash, i.e. in the event of flight cancellation, or within the 24-hour cool-off. If you simply don’t want to travel anymore, on the other hand, it’s not applicable obviously.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *