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How does the British Airways Best Price Guarantee work?

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Not many people are aware that British Airways operates a ‘best price guarantee‘.  

British Airways claims that, if you find the identical flight cheaper on a competing website to ba.com, they will refund you the difference.

Whilst I have never made a claim myself, the general feedback we see is that British Airways does pay up without much difficulty.

British Airways best price guarantee

Hotel chains have worthless Best Price Guarantees

It is worth noting that the big hotel chains offer similar guarantees.  In general, with exceptions (Marriott is seen as OK), these are worthless.

They are marketing gimmicks which ignore the fact that many franchised hotels are quietly selling spare rooms behind the back of the chain and hoping that no-one will notice.

The hotel chains want you to do their work for them by sniffing out these hotels.  They are desperate not to pay you for your trouble, however, and will do everything they can to avoid compensation.  If cheapobeds.com is selling a room for £95 with a 3pm check-in and chainwebsite.com is £125 with a 3.30pm check-in, you can be fairly certain your claim will be rejected as the deals are not ‘comparable’.

The British Airways guarantee is good

In theory, airline price promises are different.  A flight is a flight is a flight and, as long as you bought the cheapest non-refundable ticket available, it is very clear if another website is selling the same ticket for less.

The British Airways Best Price Guarantee – which you can see here – says:

“If you book flights directly with us, you deserve the very best deal. Which is exactly what you’ll get with our Best Price Guarantee.

If you book with us, but find a qualifying British Airways flight for less elsewhere and let us know on the same day as you book, we’ll give you a voucher for the difference. Even better: if you’re a member of our Executive Club, we’ll give you double the difference.”

Note the last paragraph: you don’t get the price difference in cash.  You receive a voucher for ba.com which will be valid for one year.

However, if you are an Executive Club member, you will receive double the difference as long as your claim (including the bonus) is for no more than £200.  This isn’t a bad deal.

The £200 limit means that Executive Club members will only get ‘double the difference’ if the difference is £100 or less.  Claims of £100 to £200 will hit the £200 cap.  Claims above £200 are not doubled.

British Airways best price guarantee

When won’t British Airways pay up?

On top of the restrictions in the official rules, which we cover below, reader feedback over the years suggests that you will struggle to get a refund in the following situations:

  • when you bought a ticket and immediately upgraded it using Avios
  • when the cheaper seat is being sold by a codeshare partner under a different flight number
  • when you used a discount code or any other BA voucher to reduce the cost of your original purchase
  • when the cheaper flight is priced in a different currency to the currency you used to purchase your ticket

The last one is often the issue. Some travel agents outside the UK do have lower pricing on BA fares but are banned from selling outside their home country. These tickets would not be priced in Sterling and so not valid for a claim.

How do I claim a refund under the British Airways price promise?

British Airways needs you to send a screenshot showing:

  • date and time the screenshot was taken
  • full itinerary, including all flight numbers
  • a full breakdown of the individual fare for each passenger including any booking fees
  • the fare rules and conditions
  • website name / logo

You can only make your claim online and not over the phone.

British Airways promises to respond to your email within two business days.  Claims under £100 will be paid immediately whilst large claims may take up to 28 days as additional verification checks are done.

You can find full details, and a claim form, on this page of ba.com.

The price guarantee is only valid on BA operated flights, not on any flights operated by partner airlines.  You cannot claim if you used Avios to reduce the cost of your ticket or if you have a fully flexible ticket.  With the latter, you are expected to cancel and rebook and get the lower price that way.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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:

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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.

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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.

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

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (46)

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

  • Pb says:
    7 Jan7 January 06:08

    Cheapobeds.com takes me to Bunk beds , they may have a surge in traffic today .

  • Cwyfan says:
    7 Jan7 January 06:27

    That has told us the theory.

    Anybody able to relate to us their real life examples?

    • joelyp says:
      7 Jan7 January 06:51

      I have used the guarantee a few times over the years. The only occasion my claim was turned down was when I had used an eVoucher. Otherwise it seems reasonably reliable. If you booking is for more than one person on the booking, the claimant receives a single eVoucher for the full difference across the full booking (or, at least, I did).
      Note that any discount shown on the website with which you are comparing, and which is due to some kind of subscription with that website, will be ignored by BA for comparison purposes.

    • The real Swiss Tony says:
      7 Jan7 January 06:58

      I’ve done this a couple of times and have been surprised by the ease of it all. Also, the list laid out by BA of what’s necessary hasn’t been enforced – it’s often very difficult to get full breakdowns beyond “fare” and “tax” or the fare rules on an OTA for example and it hasn’t been a blocker for me.

      You are taking a bit of a punt and to me it only makes sense for those sub £200 claims if you’re an exec club member, as ultimately BA could refuse your claim.

      I’m also puzzled as to who funds this, but last month I booked a one way EDI-LCY in J. It was £165 on BA.com or £110 on Crystal. Claim submitted, took a little over 48 hrs but they did agree the pay out and I got a voucher for £110. So the flight essentially cost just £55 – it was better value to do that than fly easyJet.

      I guess the only downside is that because you can’t use a voucher to pay then claim under the guarantee, you’re unable to roll this forward indefinitely.

    • Metty says:
      7 Jan7 January 07:22

      Here’s one of mine booked the other day. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/v9ku0q75m999d8mciwmce/ABRFXKtxBgAwjyEIj3s0bLA?rlkey=iea8gij1c88yy6drwz6y52jap&st=noj16rwa&dl=0

      Newcastle-LHR-Newcastle in Business, £152rtn on ba.com, £104 for same flights on travelup. BA sent e-voucher for £100 a couple of days later.

      Not bad for 80Tier Points!

      I find that any BA sale is the time when the OTA prices are lowest and as mentioned above, only refusal has only been when I tried ‘double dipping’ using an e-voucher, otherwise 100% success.

  • SharonC says:
    7 Jan7 January 06:32

    Why bother? Why not fly with a cheaper, better airline? QR is often cheaper than BA anyway, albeit with a Doha stop.

    • The real Swiss Tony says:
      7 Jan7 January 06:50

      Because the last time I looked, QR didn’t fly – for example – LON-EDI, Sharon…

    • Zain says:
      7 Jan7 January 08:25

      Sharon – why limit yourself to QR and Doha then? Surely it makes more sense to fly CX via HKG and get access to the Pier. LHR-HKG-MAN sounds very enticing….

    • George says:
      7 Jan7 January 09:17

      Can’t see myself wanting to travel to other parts of Europe via Doha.

      I fly with the cheapest airline from Heathrow anyway. Sometimes it’s BA, sometimes it’s not

    • CJD says:
      7 Jan7 January 11:39

      EDI-DOH-LHR doesn’t feel like a particularly efficient use of my time.

  • Neil says:
    7 Jan7 January 06:55

    I wish BA applied the guarantee to their own website to protect against price fluctuations

  • Stuart L says:
    7 Jan7 January 06:59

    BA allow you to cancel a new booking, booked directly with them, within the first 24hours for a full refund. So if you find the flight cheaper within one day of booking, you can simply cancel the BA booked flight and rebook the cheaper fare.

  • Reney says:
    7 Jan7 January 07:00

    You can only claim it on the day you purchased the ticket, if in your research you found a cheaper seller why would you not buy from them but risk buying from BA and your claim being rejected?

    I had the exact same issue with buying a fridge last night, John Lewis cost £200 more for the same fridge and offer price matching. Although I do prefer JL’s service did not want to risk spending £200 more and getting my claim rejected as a fridge is kind of big to return and buy again. And JL’s claim comes with more T&C now….

    • tony says:
      7 Jan7 January 07:15

      Because as noted, no one (yet) has said “BA didn’t pay out”. I was sceptical but have tried it twice and been impressed with the free money outcome. There’s also an opaque area here if the employer pays for the ticket but the employee books & makes a claim. Agree, not really worth it if the saving is so big you don’t get the double discount.

    • Gavin says:
      7 Jan7 January 07:47

      I thought it was generally a widely held opinion that buying flights from an OTA is a bad idea? I always book directly with the airline so that I can deal with them directly in case of cancellations etc. I’ve used the BA best price guarantee vs. Travelup OTA several times, always successfully. I’d much rather book with BA instead of Travelup!

      • Metty says:
        7 Jan7 January 07:53

        Do not buy from Travelup or the OTAs, you just book on ba.com and send BA a screenshot of the price for exactly the same flights/dates/class with a timestamp on same day. If you book on an OTA the price promise will not work.

        • SammyJ says:
          8 Jan8 January 21:33

          Absolutely agree with do NOT buy from TravelUp!
          Always best to book with the airline, also try codeshare partners, and then possibly trusted agents (Netflights were able to hold their heads relatively high after Covid), but do not ever book with TravelUp!

  • John says:
    7 Jan7 January 07:04

    Has no one read the room before posting this article.

    • Metty says:
      7 Jan7 January 07:30

      @John yes, because this is why HfP is an excellent resource and helps those that aren’t on private Telegram etc groups. Yes BA can change their policy if they want to, but it’s not a loophole as such, just the average Joe wouldn’t know what to do or want to take the risk.

      If I hadn’t read the helpful price match suggestions in the HfP forum a while back I would never have tried it.

      • CarpalTravel says:
        7 Jan7 January 18:54

        Not asking to be spoon fed or publicise, but am curious to get an idea of what/how you found any decent Telegram groups please, if possible? I would have PM’d if I could!

    • Zain says:
      7 Jan7 January 08:28

      What’s wrong with collecting TPs and securing status for the 2025-26 term before BAEC changes to BAC? Unless you’ve found a better way to accumulate status?

    • George says:
      7 Jan7 January 09:18

      Why? I don’t care about tier points but this is useful information for me.

  • planeconcorde says:
    7 Jan7 January 07:28

    After 1st April and making a claim will the tier point earning be reduced by the amount claimed?

    • Robert Newel says:
      7 Jan7 January 07:40

      Will anyone still be collecting tier points after 1st April?

      • Metty says:
        7 Jan7 January 07:51

        Yes of course they will if there’s no choice; buy BA fare with BAEC number, do price match and get the e-voucher. Then change BAEC number to the Oneworld carrier chosen to replace BA in one’s quest for equivalent Oneworld status as a consequence of BA’s purge of their own Gold/GGLs.

        • Robert Newel says:
          7 Jan7 January 07:53

          Then you wouldn’t be collecting tier points. You’d be collecting QPoints or similar.

    • The real Swiss Tony says:
      7 Jan7 January 07:47

      Applying that logic, then any compensation paid by way of an e-voucher post-flight could also see your TPs reduced. So please don’t give BA any more ideas…

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

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