BA now charging £35 (or the taxes you paid if lower) to cancel short haul redemptions

The first fruits of the new British Airways IT system are now here!

For the first time in a long time (since 2019 actually) you will be charged the contractual £35 fee for cancelling a short haul Avios redemption.

There is a way around this, but it comes at a different sort of price.

First, some background.

The contractual cancellation fee for an Avios redemption has been £35 per person for a l-o-n-g time.

It originally matched the £35 taxes and charges figure on short haul Euro Traveller redemptions. It made online cancellations very easy, because the amount you were due to be refunded matched what you had paid, so no refund was due.

However, in 2019 British Airways introduced ‘virtually no cash’ redemptions. You had the choice of using more Avios but less cash. (It would have been no cash, except that BA’s IT system couldn’t cope with a £0 fare – and it later realised that making you pay a nominal sum was also good for fraud prevention.)

It was now possible to book an Avios redemption and pay as little as 50p each way.

What do you do about refunds when people are only paying 50p?

BA had four options when it came to refunds:

• force all refunds where the cash element was less than £35 to be done over the phone, with the phone agent manually taking the £35 cancellation fee (this is what Lufthansa does)

• change the IT so that the cancellation fee was calculated as the lower of £35 or the cash element paid

• change the IT so that ba.com charged the £35 cancellation fee separately before fully refunding the original booking

• cut the cancellation fee on short haul redemptions to 50p each way, because this is the lowest amount that someone could pay and so all refunds could be processed using the existing IT

Luckily for you, BA went with the final option. Whether this was by choice or due to IT limitations is a different question.

This is now over

Here is an example screenshot. For this flight, I deliberately chose to pay MORE cash and use FEWER Avios because I felt it was a better deal, so the cash element was £47.50:

Since 2019, cancelling the booking above would have resulted in a 50p charge, resulting in £47 coming back to me.

As you can see, I am only getting £12.50 back. The full £35 cancellation fee has been charged.

Can’t you avoid this by picking the ’50p cash’ option when booking?

Yes. If you pay less than £35 per person in cash, your cancellation fee is still capped at the amount you paid.

However, there’s a snag.

On short haul flights, the option which only requires 50p each-way of cash is almost always the worst deal. Take a look at our ‘1p method’ which is how I decide which cash and Avios combination is best.

For example, if you look at this typical one-way Euro Traveller Avios redemption:

…. the best deal is 5,250 Avios + £17.50, if you value an Avios at 1p. However, you would now be on the hook for a £17.50 cancellation fee. Choose the poor value 9,750 Avios + 50p option and your cancellation fee will be 50p.

This means that you now need to make a decision each time you book:

• If you are 99% certain to be taking the flight, you are likely to be better off choosing one of the ‘more cash, fewer Avios’ options and not the 50p option

• If you think that there is a good chance of cancelling the flight, you may wish to book the 50p option (or any option requiring less than £35 to be paid) to reduce your cancellation fee

Think carefully before booking 2 x one-way tickets

For many years I booked all of my short haul redemptions as 2 x one-way tickets.

Frankly, with cancellation fees at just 50p, it made total sense. If I wanted to amend one leg of the booking, I could cancel it and rebook without touching the other leg or getting the call centre involved.

This could now become expensive, because it increases your cancellation fee to £70 per person for a return flight if you pay at least £70 in cash. Booking each flight as a return would cap your cancellation fee at £35 per person.

Conclusion

The era of minimal cancellation fees for short haul Avios redemptions is now over.

You will now pay the lower of the cash element you paid or £35 per person, whichever is lower.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.