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Can you cancel the return leg of an Avios redemption after flying outbound?

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I thought it was worth digging out an interesting story which we first ran a couple of years ago and which highlights a quirk when it comes to cancelling Avios reward flights.

A reader had flown to Australia with his girlfriend for an extended trip.  They decided to stay for an even longer period and no longer needed their return flight.

The couple had paid 250,000 Avios for a Club World redemption to Sydney, using a British Airways American Express 241 voucher.

Can you cancel the return leg of an Avios redemption flight after flying outbound?

Don’t ask how he managed to snag the seats, given how tough Sydney is to get.  He didn’t say!

The outbound had been flown.  They wanted to cancel the return flight and get 125,000 Avios back.  The BA agent said ‘No’.

Was this correct?

My first thought was that the call centre agent was wrong.

You can definitely CHANGE the date or time of your return Avios flight after the outbound has been flown.  I have done this myself.  It is a handy feature if a better-timed flight opens up at the last minute, or your trip is going very well or very badly.

It seemed logical to me that full cancellation would also be possible.  I was wrong.

You cannot CANCEL the return leg of an Avios ticket, after the outbound has been flown, for a refund.

One reason you may need to cancel – apart from if you decide not to return at all! – is if you want to change dates but there is no Avios availability. In such a scenario you may decide to pay cash for a return ticket on a different date and refund your existing Avios return leg, or use miles via a different loyalty programme.

Can you cancel one way Avios redemptions

When should you book an Avios flight as a return trip?

It’s not really clear! All of my short haul Avios travel is now booked as separate one way tickets.

This means that changing a flight is easy. If a better timed inbound or outbound flight opens up, I can simply make a new booking for that leg and cancel the original flight online.

As for other possible reasons for not booking your trips as one-way flights:

  • you don’t book a return flight to save on cancellation fees, since BA appears to be keeping cancellation fees – at least on short haul – at 50p per person for now (this only applies to BA redemptions, not partner flights, and note that this could end at any point – the T&C still say that Avios cancellations are £35 per person)
  • you don’t need to do it if you are using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher – it is now possible to book each leg separately although the process is fiddly as I explain below
  • you don’t need to do it because surcharges are higher when booking 2 x one-way tickets, because this no longer the case unless you are booking First Class

Booking two x one-ways flights can even save money

Booking a trip as two x one-ways can, in some cities, also save you a substantial amount of money.

Sao Paulo and Hong Kong are two cities where local rules on surcharges should make two x one-way tickets cheaper than a return. This still applies despite the launch of Reward Flight Saver.

Here is a one way Club World flight from Hong Kong to London for example, with just £36 of taxes and charges:

Low Avios taxes from Hong Kong

How can you use a 2-4-1 voucher whilst still booking each leg separately?

If you want full flexibility to cancel the return leg of a flight booked with a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, this is what you do.

You book the outbound leg as a one-way flight, using your 2-4-1 voucher.

You book the return leg separately, paying the full Avios cost. This requires you to have enough Avios in your account to do this.

You call British Airways Executive Club and ask for half of the Avios for the return flight to be returned to you. This will be done without a problem. Note that BA will charge a £35 per person amendment fee for doing this unless you are booking right at the edge of the window, at 355 days before departure.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (111)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Gordon says:
    12 Jun12 June 07:43

    This is a timely article for me, (Loosely) I am touring SEA next year, with my son, around 4 to 6 months, departing sept/Oct, the problem is, the 2-4-1 may not arrive in time, as I would need to book J fairly close to the 355 days ahead, as the few destinations we want to fly into are popular, (BKK,SIN,DPS,SGN,MNL). Due to uncertainty on how long we will stay, is there a similar option to achieve two one ways with the Barclays upgrade vouchers! If not I’ll just bite the bullet, commit to a timescale, sit and wait for decent ex eu flights to pop up. I did look in the Forums, but could not find anything….

    • Colin_MacKinnon says:
      12 Jun12 June 07:58

      The big advantage of the 241 is the extra availability from non-London UK airports. So you don’t have to worry about midnight calls! I find about six months out is good, even for the most popular routes.

      With a 241, your BA choices to SE Asia are India, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, China and Japan.

      So no BKK, DPS, SGN or MNL to use a 241 on (and I don’t think Iberia fly there either).

      Your Barclays voucher is only useful ex-UK, so to get back to the UK you’d need two vouchers – one for you out-and-back and one for your son, out-and-back. I’m not sure on how/if you can change the return.

      • Gordon says:
        12 Jun12 June 08:12

        BA are returning to BKK in Q4 this year. I will dig a little deeper and see what I can find, Avios is not an issue for me, so I could look at QR to Asia via Doha, I’m not keen on the limitations of the upgrade vouchers tbh, thanks for the reply Colin.

    • drdan says:
      12 Jun12 June 08:07

      Book a fully cancellable room at eg. Hotels dot com to take you over the finish line. 2-4-1 not retracted on refunding.

    • BJ says:
      12 Jun12 June 08:26

      SIN in particular is prone to award seat dumping so it may not require T-355 booking. If you don’t mind stopping AY and QR will be cheaper thanks BA even with a voucher wben considering the combined value of avios and fees. They are also better airlines than BA overall. A further benefit of QR is free seat selection; seat selection on AY is not free but some readers reported it may be via RJ MMB.

      • Gordon says:
        12 Jun12 June 08:44

        Yes, I believe BA have two flights to SIN, one continues to SYD, I will be looking at cash options, if some decent ex eu fares come up as they have been doing. I had to use the seat selection option on RJ for an IB booking, so I guess that could be correct. Thanks BJ. I’ve noticed that your as keen as me to travel east as oppose to west?

      • Max says:
        12 Jun12 June 09:28

        Just redeemed AY usign Avios and the seat selection is free when done on finnair website.

  • Matt says:
    12 Jun12 June 08:08

    In relation to this, I have just booked a return flight outbound in first, return in prem economy to Shanghai…but I only need the outbound leg. It was cheaper to book a return rather than 1 way in first. Once I have taken my outbound flight, if i cancel the return element will there be a cancellation fee and would i still receive avios/tier points for the first leg?

  • PeteM says:
    12 Jun12 June 08:26

    My experience is that the online cancellation fee of 50p only works on short haul flights, not long haul. Just me?

    • NorthernLass says:
      12 Jun12 June 08:35

      Yes, and also only if you’ve paid less than £35 in RFS fees to begin with, according to other readers.

      • Scandinavian traveler says:
        12 Jun12 June 09:11

        Incorrect. I have a few bookings with the highest cash and lowest Avios amounts and they offer cancellation at 50p per person.

        • NorthernLass says:
          12 Jun12 June 09:43

          You don’t say whether these are short or long-haul, plus people have posted that they have been charged £35 recently, so it seems to vary by booking.

          • Rob says:
            12 Jun12 June 10:21

            Doesn’t vary by booking. All short haul are 50p at all levels of cash and Avios as long as its a BA operated flight. Less sure about long haul because I don’t cancel many (any) of those.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            12 Jun12 June 12:51

            Cancelled a BA Long Haul the other day completely online and was £35

    • Alan T says:
      13 Jun13 June 08:38

      Atm I’ve been charged £100 cancellation fee for a short haul 2-4-1 as BA have not refunded anything…….will chase up again next week when I call about adding an inbound.

  • NorthernLass says:
    12 Jun12 June 08:30

    I’ve long been a fan of having separate outbound and inbound sectors for the added flexibility. In Jan last year we were due to fly home MIA-LHR-MAN as the return leg of a 241 booking on a separate PNR. 2 days before our return flight, award seats on Virgin appeared from MCO-MAN direct, which suited us far better. I booked these then cancelled the BA flight via MMB online for the standard £35pp and got the rest of the cash and all the avios back.

  • NorthernLass says:
    12 Jun12 June 08:33

    Also – there are anecdotes in the forums of BA refusing to refund the 50% avios altogether if the inbound wasn’t booked at T-355, not just charging £35, although HUACA has been known to work!

    • Mark says:
      12 Jun12 June 09:05

      I was going to say exactly the same thing. I don’t believe there is anything in the terms and conditions that commits them to do it at all, and I suspect that if/when it becomes possible to add a return sector to an existing booking online the option will disappear.

    • Mark says:
      12 Jun12 June 09:45

      Also be aware that booking the outbound and return at different Avios and cash combination levels is likely to result in refusal to refund the 50%.

  • Will says:
    12 Jun12 June 09:22

    Hello, does the Barclays avois cabin upgrade voucher work as well by booking separately and then joining it together to reduce the return leg taxes?

    • NorthernLass says:
      12 Jun12 June 09:45

      There’s no reduction of taxes because RFS price applies both ways – which is always the lowest option with the Barclays voucher. If you have a look at the dedicated Barclays avios threads in the forum, you’ll see various posts about people adding the return leg.

    • Mark says:
      12 Jun12 June 09:54

      I’ve no idea if they will refund the Avios cabin difference afterwards for an upgrade voucher if you book the return separately online. Its unlikely to make any difference in the total cash payable though unless you’re returning from somewhere like Hong Kong which limits the fees payable on itineraries originating in their jurisdictions.

      I seem to recall reading that someone had been denied a 50% Avios rebate on return from Hong Kong (where they had booked it separately it to take advantage of the cash saving), although that may well have been a case where the outbound was booked after the return seats were released.

  • Definitas says:
    12 Jun12 June 09:28

    You can definitely cancel the return leg after the outbound has been flown and get a refund of the Avios and fees. We had a LHR-MIA return, using a 2-4-1, in March 2022. Whilst in Florida we realised there was a great deal on a transatlantic cruise going into Southampton. I contacted BA Refund Helper on FT who confirmed that a refund is possible and I went ahead and cancelled and received the pro-rata refund, minus £35pp fee

    • NorthernLass says:
      12 Jun12 June 09:47

      Did you cancel online or did BA refund helper do it for you? Was it all on one PNR or separate bookings?

      • Tariq says:
        12 Jun12 June 18:36

        May have been during Covid refund leniency too.

      • Definitas says:
        13 Jun13 June 14:01

        It was all on one PNR and I’m afraid I can’t remember If I did it myself or if he did it. It was in March 2022 so post Covid

  • Joe Bloggs says:
    12 Jun12 June 09:30

    Does anyone have experience with delaying the return flight rather than cancellation? I went through the process of booking a 241 return separately but I’m now in a bit of a pickle:

    Both flights booked at -355.
    BA refunded 50% of Avios for return flight via Twitter.
    Holiday plans now extended by two weeks.
    Return flight can be changed for usual fee (and no extra Avios) online.
    But selecting a new return date more than 10 days later produces the error ‘This date is more than a year after booking date’.

    If I cancel the return and book the later date separately, I’m assuming there is no chance that BA would apply the Avios discount again?

    • Mark says:
      12 Jun12 June 14:31

      You will probably need to call BA to discuss. I would imagine it’s very much a manual process, so the chances are it will be fine if they understand what has happened and that you’re not trying to get the 50% discount for two inbound flights on the same voucher.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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