BA introduces option to hold flight price for a fee
Back to Forum- This topic has 14 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 21 Aug 2014
at 14:29 by TimFitzgeraldTC.
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passionateflyerParticipantBA has today introduced the option to hold a fare for up to 72 hours (excluding award bookings). More details available on
£5 per person for short haul/£10 per person for long haul. No exceptions that I can see for exec members of any tier. This fee will be refunded if you go ahead and purchase the flights within the 72 hour window.
Significant exclusion is that it’s not valid on flights departing within 21 days, or for flights departing from certain countries.
Cathay Pacific offer customers to hold fares for 24 hours for free (introduced recently).
Thoughts anyone?
19 Aug 2014
at 15:25
TimFitzgeraldTCParticipantWell it is offering a service that agents can do in most cases for free – and with exclusions that agents don’t have. So basically it is trying to replicate the service an agent can offer whilst charging for it.
19 Aug 2014
at 15:36
openflyParticipantSo now that BA have increased the credit card fee to £5, will they charge this to pay the £5 reservation fee??! Bet they do.
It’s amazing that Little Red and Easyjet are charging minimal amounts for credit card use. Just paid 81 pence cc charge for a £53 Little Red fare. And BA are charging £5 per person on the booking…unbelievable. It must really annoy BA that they can’t charge for credit cards ex-Europe.
19 Aug 2014
at 21:04
MartynSinclairParticipantI thought BA Golds can cancel on line tickets within 24 hours of purchase, but do obviously then have to wait for the refund…
19 Aug 2014
at 23:21
MartinJParticipantWell done, BA! This is a really useful feature. It does away with the chicken and egg problem of having to find a good fare (often non-refundable) and arranging meetings. @ Tim: travel agents rarely work for nothing and I prefer paying 10 quid to BA rather than 40 to my t.a. if holding the booking for 72 hours is all I need.
20 Aug 2014
at 07:04
canuckladParticipantMorning Jordan
Let me put it another way…….I’m assuming you have a favourite popular restaurant or indeed a hotel.You phone up to reserve a table/ room for Saturday the 20th of September for 2. They ask for a deposit, in case you don’t turn up as they are very busy. Fair enough you say.
Tomorrow, you discover that your plans have changed; you phone up and do the right thing by cancelling your booking, to be told you’ve forfeited your deposit.
Do you think your table or room is going to be empty on the 20th?
And when I think about it, will this stop BA overbooking flights and bumping people off?It’s a marketing tool that actually plays on our brain. Once you pay for something, even a deposit your brain believes you’re committed to the purchase. Hence the reason I suspect that they have differentiated between short and long haul . So very clever from BA marketing, not so clever from BA customer service.
Now if it had been to hold a seat within 21 days I might have thought otherwise!
So I stand by my “money grabbing” statement20 Aug 2014
at 07:45
passionateflyerParticipantI do think some of the responses seem quite disproportionate! You don’t HAVE to pay this, it’s an optional service for something BA didn’t offer before.
You still have 24 hours to cancel a booking and receive a full refund regardless of fare rules (an option open to all passengers). If you choose to hold the price for 72 hours and then go ahead with the booking, they will refund you the holding fee. Most people who hold the flights will go ahead with them IMO and will benefit from having time to get all the money together etc (groups of friends travelling most likely) and as they’d be likely to go ahead they won’t actually end up paying the fee as it will be refunded to them.
@openfly There are no credit card charges on the holding fee.
Slight technicality, the holding fee is not taken off the price of the ticket, it gets refunded as a separate transaction as soon as you book.
20 Aug 2014
at 08:13
CwyfanParticipantIt takes a long time for a refund to return in my experience, so not having to pay and reclaim, might be a good deal in some circumstances.
AA offer the same, but are very kind with award flights, with a 5 day window, allowing you to buy extra miles if needed in that time. That would be a useful service from BA too, and might even be a revenue generator!
21 Aug 2014
at 10:41
TimFitzgeraldTCParticipantHi BA744fan
My guess is that sale fares will not be extended beyond the last date of a sale fare. It does state that if you don’t see the “Hold Booking” option then it won’t offer it for the seats one is looking at (might also apply to some of there instant purchase economy fares).
•If you don’t see this information then, unfortunately, you cannot hold the booking.
So my guess is that you won’t be able to do this. But until someone tries I don’t know the answer to that as it doesn’t say in the T&C’s.
21 Aug 2014
at 14:29 -
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