Dear Alex,
Earlier this year I bought a return business class ticket with American Airlines to fly Bahrain-London-Miami-San Juan. The total online cost was £3,000. [Note: Some of these flights are operated by British Airways under a codeshare arrangement.]
I had to cancel the trip owing to the political situation in Bahrain at the time. But when I applied online for a refund, it was blocked by a proviso that the ticket was non-refundable.
I cannot believe an airline can walk away with your money when you have a valid reason to cancel. It is not as if I had booked with a budget or low-cost carrier. What recourse do I have?
Colin Clarke, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
Alex replies:
Business Traveller is receiving a growing number of reader complaints about these non-changeable and non-refundable business class tickets. It seems some carriers are happy to take travellers’ cash but adopt an inflexible attitude if matters change through no fault of the customer. (See “BA inflexibility” forum thread, August 30, businesstraveller.com/discussion.)
Reader Nigel Saperia missed his Rome-London Heathrow British Airways flight, which was to connect with an onward BA service to Buenos Aires, because a lorry shed its load on the Naples to Rome autostrada, causing horrendous traffic delays. Not only did he have to spend almost £400 on a new ticket to London but, back in the UK, BA insisted he pay a further £900 to reinstate the Buenos Aires sector because he had broken the ticket rules.
He wrote: “The other pole to BA’s attitude is that of [Brazilian airline] TAM. I bought a non-flexible business fare for London-Sao Paulo with TAM but turned up at Heathrow on the wrong date. TAM staff could not have been nicer and booked me via Rio de Janeiro [the direct flight was fully booked by then]. When I asked what the change fee would be, I was told there was no charge.”
Not so long ago, any long-haul business class ticket offered flexibility. Restrictions on changes, cancellation and so on were usually the preserve of cheap economy class tickets. The policy change came about during the economic downturn. Many airlines started discounting their premium class tickets to make “up front” travel more affordable. But these cheaper first and business class tickets came with restrictions.
Back to Colin Clarke’s problem. My advice was to claim a refund by speaking directly to American as, at that time, governments were advising against travel to Bahrain and, as a result, airlines were refunding all tickets. I believed it was only fair that airlines should also refund tickets for travellers flying from Bahrain during this exceptional period.
The good news is that he got his money back but it took several months. He writes: “The refund was a slow, cumbersome process that required a number of calls to the US and UK. Getting hold of a human voice was the greatest challenge.” It means travellers must be on their guard even when booking premium tickets. At a time when extreme weather or other events can disrupt travel, it might be worth choosing airlines on the basis of flexibility. KLM and Lufthansa are two examples of carriers far-sighted enough to offer tiered pricing, allowing passengers to buy the level of flexibility needed.
This case also demonstrates that you may have to fall back on old-fashioned methods of communication to secure a satisfactory outcome. All in all, it’s another case of caveat emptor.
