British Airways offers bumper refunds for those with cancelled flights in the form of Avios points: Is it a good deal?

Recent figures from BA revealed 47,400 passengers were still waiting for refunds for cancelled bookings earlier this month, with 921,000 handed out. None of the UK's 10 biggest airlines were providing refunds for cancelled flights within the seven days they are supposed to do so, according to consumer group Which?. BA is offering vouchers online which are valid until the end of April 2022, but customers who want either a cash refund or the new Avios refund, provided they are a member of British Airways Executive Club, will either need to phone BA or contact it through social media if they can't get through. To put this in context, frequent flyer website Head for Points said the most generous rate they had ever seen offered by BA in an Avios deal was around 92p. However, there are of course a couple of caveats.  The first of course is that if you are worried about the future of BA, or its parent International Airlines Group, or uncertain about when you might next to be able to fly on holiday abroad, you might feel a lot safer with the cash in the bank. In the future, there is the question over whether it will be harder to find flights which you can purchase using Avios due to more people with large points balances fighting over fewer available spaces, as a result of what some feel is an inevitable upcoming contraction of the airline industry. Head for Points editor Rob Burgess said the answer to this question 'really isn't clear', but said he leaned towards the idea that it might actually be easier to find reward flights, with fewer travellers meaning more empty seats.

Komentar