Dear Alex,
In August last year, I bought a British Airways first class ticket in A class [a promotional tariff code] from Mauritius to New York JFK via London.
In July, I was about to use the return portion when BA told me it no longer provided a first class cabin on the London-Mauritius sector, and suggested I fly business class on this leg (taking first class between New York and London) and accept that no refund was due. Is that correct?
Gool Santchurn, Mauritius
Alex replies:
BA withdrew first class from the London-Mauritius route earlier this year. Had you booked a point-to-point ticket – say, for Mauritius-London-Mauritius – then there would have been a refund.
But as I explained in “Why have I paid more?” in the May 2009 edition of Business Traveller, the situation is not clear-cut when travelling between two destinations via London using one ticket. That is because the price you pay when transferring in London can undercut the rate that travellers starting in London must pay.
That’s what has happened here. At the time you wished to travel home, the return fare on ba.com for a London-New York return was about £8,000, while the price to fly Mauritius-London-New York return (based on business/first class flights) amounted to £5,336 (R278,409).
Better still, ba.com displayed a first class routing from Mauritius to New York via Johannesburg and London (with business class Comair links between Mauritius and Johannesburg). Had you opted to book that routing, you would have paid only £4,519 (R238,916) return. So that is why, unfortunately, no refund is due.
