Gorefundme
British Airways is in the news. Again. For all the wrong reasons. Again.
Now the UK Competition and Markets Authority accuses them of not refunding customers who couldn't legally take their booked flights due to lockdowns. In its defence, the company countered that it offered vouchers and rebooking. This may well be the case, but sometimes vouchers and rebooking are not what customers want or need.
The watchdog is concerned that during lockdowns in the UK, when most people were legally unable to fly, the airlines failed to offer refunds. But BA said it offered "highly flexible booking policies at the same time as operating a vastly reduced schedule due to government-imposed travel restrictions, and we have acted lawfully at all times". A spokesperson said: "During this unprecedented crisis we have issued well over three million refunds and helped millions of our customers change their travel dates or destinations and we're grateful to them for their ongoing support."
My own experience of trying to get a refund during the first lockdown was one of frustration and bitterness. BA's online system readily allows a rebooking, but in trying to get a refund I was sent around in circles. Eventually I had to telephone the overwhelmed customer support centre to get a resolution, but only after several attempts and a prolonged wait on hold. I can well believe that some customers found it too much to deal with.
So, while it's true that BA does offer refunds, at least in some cases, they don't make it easy. Certainly not as easy as booking a flight in the first place, or rebooking.
All of this was brought back to me this weekend, when BA cancelled my wife's flight to the UK. They helpfully
automatically rebooked her onto the next available flight…one week later, just in time to miss the event that she was travelling for. It seems that they're operating a bait-and-switch, whereby they take bookings and then cancel flights, automatically rebooking customers onto those that are selected to go ahead.
My wife will get a refund, because she's that type of person. And she's booked herself onto a Swiss flight instead.
We will not make the mistake of booking flights with BA again. As Oscar Wilde didn't quite say: if this is the way BA treats its prisoners customers, it doesn't deserve to have any.