The highs and lows of booking – then cancelling – a flight

This is a version of the article first published for This Is Money I had to cancel business class flights to San Francisco but BA won’t refund my £386 to choose seats, what can I do?

It can be very difficult getting money back from BA! As we saw with airlines including BA refunding people vouchers instead of full refunds in COVID related matters. See Getting a refund for a COVID flight cancellation. But it’s not impossible. (See links below.)

Tracy writes for the money saving travel blog Mind over Money Matters blog where she shares her tips on how to maximise joy and value.

She planned a luxury trip and researched ways to save money on various areas of the trip. This included booking two flights, for her and her husband, Taz, to San Francisco for April 2020. She used Avios points to save £1000s and because you can cancel or amend bookings and get fully refunded (less a small fee) up to 24 hours before the flight. This isn’t the case when you book directly with most airlines, you’ll get just the taxes back.

Tracy booked business class flights on the A380, a double decker plane. She immediately pre-booked the seats, upstairs for the outward flight and coming back downstairs in one of the “together” seats which converted to a double bed, at a cost of £386.

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, the flights had to be cancelled and she had to ask for a refund. However the seat bookings were non-refundable. BA told her that she had signed the terms and conditions when she booked the seats. She tried by ‘phone, online and on Twitter but got the same response. After 6 weeks she had got nowhere.

The Complaining Cow starts refund from BA

She then got in touch with me.

I read the BA booking terms and conditions and thought they were unfair. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 creates a “fairness test” to stop consumers being put at an unfair advantage. It would be considered unfair if something tilts the rights and responsibilities in favour of the trader. Also, it may be considered a breach of The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Under these regulations a practice would be considered unfair if it harmed, or be likely to harm the economic interests of the average consumer.

This protects a consumer from making a purchasing decision they would not have made had they been given accurate information or not put under unfair pressure to do so. It could be that a court would consider that someone is put under unfair pressure if they have no alternative but to agree to the terms and conditions.

I advised Tracy to go straight to the top and write to the British Airways CEO, quoting the laws and her belief that they were in breach. She got a standard email back that said ‘Pre-booked seats are non-refundable’ with no reference to her reasons. This made me quite cross! So I advised her to write back changing the subject line to “email before action” and saying the same as before.

That got Tracy a call from the CEO’s office. She said she had a friendly discussion but still the representative would not budge. He appeared to have never heard of the consumer laws, incidentally, saying “I don’t know anything about that”. She even said she would be happy to change the pre-booking to the new flights but he said that this would not be possible. That is quite clearly just profiteering.

Really quite cross now, I told Tracy that the only options open to her were either to let it go or to test it in court. It is important to note that no-one has yet taken a travel company to court for refunds of a seat booking charge, so it would set a precedent either way.

I was delighted that Tracy chose to go to court. She submitted her claim through Moneyonclaimonline. British Airways notified the court of its intention to fight the claim. Hurrah!

Persistence pays off

The case was filed 12 August 2019. Tracy received notification on 28 August from the court that BA intended to defend the case. The following day she received an

email from BA to say:

As previously explained, pre-booked seats are non-refundable as per the terms and conditions.

The terms of the contract were clearly set out and there was no breach of contract or any other legal course of action which would enable you to recover the amount for the pre-booking. As such BA is not liable to pay any sum to you and liability for your court claim is denied.

However, BA does not wish to remain in dispute with you and on this occasion only, BA has raised the amount of £386.00 to be sent to you by way of cheque in full and final settlement of your claim. This will put you back in the position that you were in before the payment for the seats was made.

Please note that this is a goodwill gesture and does not reflect the legal position.”

This out-of-court settlement was a great result, eventually. Tracy received the cheque on 1 September 2019.

BA response to not taking the matter through court

I asked BA for a statement regarding this case. Why did it say it would defend the case and then decide to pay out? A spokesperson for BA said

It clearly states in our terms and conditions, which a customer must agree to before booking, that a refund is not due for pre-booked seating if they choose to cancel their flight. On this occasion, we offered our customer a gesture of goodwill.”

I tried several times to get a statement about BA’s change of mind on defending the case in court but it just repeated its statement above.

Tracy said;

BA have the worst customer service ever. They must be trained to ignore and frustrate customers until we give up. This was about the principle – how could I not be refunded for something that didn’t exist anymore?”

Paying for booking seats in this way has still to be tested in court. But it does show that it IS worth trying to get the refund and even going as far as starting on small claims court action. You’ll either get a refund or make your mark in setting a legal precedent!

All together now…

On a similar note, many of us have faced the “Do I pay to sit my family together on the plane or risk it?” I recently had a run in with TUI who said I had to pay to sit my family together to guarantee it. I quoted regulations at them, yet they still tried to charge me. I explained the EU regulations about the seating of children and the CAA statement on the issue. I didn’t pay to sit my family together. But that story is for another day!

It just goes to show that sometimes you really need to persist to get the outcome you want. Companies will often try to fob you off. How many people have been caught like this and how much additional profit are these companies making through these unfair charges?

Further help with complaining about flights and holidays

How to book and complain about holidays/flights/travel lots of various posts regarding your consumer rights when travelling.

For more advice, tips, information and template letters covering holidays and more: GET THE BOOK! How To Complain: The ESSENTIAL Consumer Guide to Getting REFUNDS, Redress and RESULTS!

Want to get better at complaining? See 101 Habits of an Effective Complainer.

Save yourself time and effort finding the laws and wording a letter of complaint and download a template, fill in your details and get that redress.

Purchase downloadable templates to gain redress.

Holiday, flight and event complaint templates to get you redress for most situations, just fill in your details to get that redress.