BA flights to Marrakech

[Kal]

Hi all, hope you can offer some advice on my daughter’s flight (with her friend) from LHR to RAK that was scheduled for tomorrow. On hearing the tragic news, she contacted the hotel which was in a Riyadh near the Medina, and despite the cancellation terms said they would cancel the booking at no cost.

BA customer services said the only option was to cancel and lose all the money or re-schedule to a later date. Having spoken to the insurance company, she was told acts of god were not covered and if she wanted to cancel she would not get a refund. So she went back to BA and found that to re-schedule the flight to a later time, there was an admin fee of £50/person even though the rescheduled flight was £80 cheaper. The BA site states that if you are travelling to or from Marrakech before 24th Sept you can change the dates free of charge. However, the customer service rep and the web-site did not offer that option and both demanded the £50/person admin fee.

If there are acts of god, like the earthquake and in the absence of any direct instructions on the gov travel advice, what is the use of insurance, or using a credit card or booking with BA ? Is there any common sense approach that does apply that a person does not want to travel where there has been a natural disaster ?

Appreciate any thoughts or suggestions ? Many thanks in advance

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

This is the BA advice on the BA website

https://www.britishairways.com/travel/flightops/public/en_de?p_faqid=9016

When did she call? The above advice was posted on Saturday afternoon. If she called before then that policy wouldn’t have applied.

[SamG]

call back and ask them to refer to the customer guideline update of 9th September. She can either travel + 14 days for free or more than 14 days in the same booking class. You can request a eticket from the finnair website and see what this is but broadly flights same or cheaper should be free to move to

Unfortunately without FCDO updating their travel advice or flights getting cancelledthere likely isn’t anything else to do as this is disinclination to travel (as the situation for tourists is OK – for example TUI sent their flights today)

[Kal]

Thanks of the responses much appreciated. Yes she called BA after the website had been updated and despite what it says on the website the BA Rep said that the date change was not free as you needed 14 days notice. Go figure how that works. Anyhow, she paid the £50 admin fee per ticket so can visit next year and will be writing a complaint to BA. You would have expected more from BA, but not a great endorsement of their customer service based on this episode.