British Airways will swap vouchers for refunds following travellers’ fury
British Airways (BA) has agreed to refund customers after hundreds of thousands complained about the airline offering vouchers.
The carrier has decided to repay customers who cannot use their vouchers online, those who used ‘complex’ booking systems such as Avios air miles and BA Holiday vouchers, the Daily Mail reported.
“While this has been an incredibly difficult time, we’re proud we were the first UK airline to offer customers the unprecedented flexibility to change their plans during the pandemic by providing them with vouchers for future travel,” a company spokesperson told City PM
“Customers can use these vouchers right up until September 2023 to give them as much time as possible to re-schedule their trips. So far, we’ve issued more 3.3 million vouchers (alongside more than 4.2 million refunds).”
Despite the airline’s promises several people took it to Twitter to complain about missing refunds.
“On 9 May BA cancelled my flight and I immediately requested a refund as I needed [to] make a booking with another airline. That was two weeks ago and I have heard nothing. No refund no communication. Do I call Sean Doyle to get something done?” one user tweeted while another complained about the company taking too long to get in touch with single customers.
The complaints come at a turbulent time for the company as last month BA was forced to cancel hundreds of flights because of a combination of industry labour shortages and a peak in Covid infections amongst its staff, City PM reported.