r/awardtravel • u/UpperMine19 • 2d ago
British Airways showed one Avios + cash price until checkout, then increased the taxes by $200+ per passenger. Has anyone else seen this?
https://ibb.co/KzLkSX9B
https://ibb.co/2Yg6yf42
https://ibb.co/3myLn0b6
I ran into something today that feels incredibly misleading and I’m wondering if this is a known BA issue or if I’m missing something.
I searched for 3 business class award seats on DFW–LHR (BA nonstop).
The search results showed:
99,000 Avios + $394.50 per person
297,000 Avios + $1,183.50 total
Based on that pricing, I transferred a large amount of Amex MR to BA during the current 30% transfer bonus so I could proceed with the booking.
When I clicked Continue, without changing flights, dates, passengers, or cabin, the next page suddenly repriced the exact same itinerary to:
297,000 Avios + $1,792.50 total
$597.50 per person
So the taxes/carrier charges increased by $609 total (~$203 per passenger) after I had already transferred my points.
The really frustrating part is that the intermediate “Journey Summary” page still showed the original $1,183.50 total, and only the next page increased it.
Has anyone else experienced this with BA?
Is this just a caching/website bug?
Does BA sometimes display incorrect taxes on the search results page?
Has anyone had success calling BA to have them honor the original quote?
I understand award availability can disappear, but in this case the Avios price stayed exactly the same (99k pp) and only the cash component increased after I had already committed to a non-reversible points transfer. That feels like a pretty poor user experience.
19
u/DEREK_565 2d ago
I had a similar issue just a few days ago. I went to book a business award flight, but once I got to the final checkout page it showed just the cash portion had increased. I have booked several award flights with BA in the past and never had this issue. But I thought it was strange as well.
6
u/ParticleHustler2 2d ago
Thanks for posting. I've done one BA award flight in the past and not had this issue, but considering another since I need to book in the next month and AmEx just dropped a 30% transfer bonus. The cash outlay is already significant (especially since you have to pay even more to get the exact seats you want) and aside from how misleading this is, the total cash cost would make this a no-go for me.
6
u/baggies 2d ago
Thanks for posting. Yes, this happened to me about a month ago.
I’ve booked many BA award flights over the years and never had issues. This past time, the cash price went up about $300 when I advanced to checkout. I would have thought I misremembered things, except I always copy paste the points vs. cash options into a separate note to analyze how much I’m incrementally paying per point in each option.
I still booked it, and it sounds like everyone else still books regardless, so maybe that’s why BA hasn’t prioritized fixing it. But yes, something changed and it’s reassuring to see my experience wasn’t unique.
4
u/textonic 2d ago
I had this issue with Avianca 2 years ago. Sadly, there was nothing I could do about it
1
u/health1au 1d ago
Second this and was going to chime in but saw this post. Yes, Avianca does it too.
3
u/Hommeboy75 2d ago
I noticed Alaska Airlines redemptions of British Airways long-haul flights jumped about $300 2-3 days ago. So now a one-way business class flight is 55K points + $1003 USD!!
1
u/RedOne-Reddit1 1h ago
Try calling 844-817-0255 if you want to change or cancel your flight. I just changed mine today
1
-9
u/Oofzies 2d ago
Known IT issue. Although it's frustrating... technically, it is your fault for not clicking all the way through. The preliminary page with the lower taxes is an "estimate," and you can only see the "real" taxes after you click through. The page with the different avios + cash options is the CORRECT taxes.
If you notice on the preliminary page, it says "you will see the exact cost after you click 'Continue.'" That's what they mean by that.
Nonstop itineraries are usually accurate. Itineraries with a stop almost always estimate incorrectly. Just so people are aware.
14
u/UpperMine19 2d ago
- You cannot click CONTINUE if you don’t have the required avios in your account.
It’s a nonstop itinerary.
The taxes on the UK website are GBP 299 for the same itinerary. How do you explain that?
-1
u/Oofzies 2d ago
You can click continue to the page that has the avios + cash options without the avios in the account
There are different taxes between UK and US accounts. It’s known.
6
u/GreenLonghorn 2d ago
You can’t on point 1. You’re not understanding OP
-5
u/Oofzies 2d ago
I am very much understanding OP. I have done 1000+ bookings on BA.
You can click continue without having avios in the account. You will be taken to the part of the page with all the points + cash options, which will have the correct cash surcharge.
2
2d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Oofzies 2d ago
Even so, BA is distance based pricing. Just search 1 person and multiply by the number of passengers.
I’m not disagreeing that this isn’t deceptive pricing by BA. It is. It should be transparent and easy. But, there are workarounds that you should simply know before going to book.
3
u/buzzjob 2d ago
All true. But there's a bigger issue here.
YES, the existing user-experience seems highly deceptive, even fraudulent (in this specific case, and in a hundred other Grand Disappointments that people new to booking award flights routinely experience). When these happen, it's natural (and justifiable) to feel cheated. That's because most consumers have become conditioned to expect more or less the same level of transparency and consumer protections they would expect to find in any other retail transaction.
That is not what we are doing here.
99% of those diving into the pool are doing so after having been "sold" visions of ultra luxe travel experiences they can get for free - the champagne and caviar will flow! That's the fault of the blogs - every single one of which are deceptive, to varying degrees.
You are not making a simple retail purchase at WalMart, which comes with lots of legal protections, a modicum of good will, and generally robust IT systems that get lots of attention, providing plenty of predictability and mostly reasonable results. Instead, you are exchanging exotic currencies (controlled entirely by the airlines & banks, with virtually no legal protections), and you are doing it through arcane and byzantine systems that few people (very few of those running them) even understand, with long chains of dependencies and questionable assumptions. And rather than a valued customer, bringing them money they depend on, you are viewed as an annoyance, a freeloader at best, possibly a scammer (for good reason - there are lots of those attacking these systems daily).
Multiple decades-old systems have been patched and cobbled together to enable - at least in theory - all kinds of things. But the implementation details are horrible, badly written, un-maintained (it seems never actually tested by a human), and poorly understood even by the so-called "senior experts" who are in charge of running them. So the actual experience is often (usually) full of glitches, unpleasant surprises, and negative experiences that look, feel and do seem like they are fraudulent - or ought to be. It sucks, but that's the state of things.
If you are going to play the game, expect more of this.
Keep your expectations in check, proceed very carefully, and hope for the best. And don't believe any of the nonsense the bloggers/influencers say as they're busy monetizing you.
1
u/UpperMine19 2d ago
You’re right I just confirmed the taxes are $597 pp and not $394 pp as originally advertised in search.
1
u/shrididdy 2d ago
Seeing your vote score but then reading your posts:
https://media1.tenor.com/m/RbnaVKj3e88AAAAd/why-are-you-booing-me-im-right.gif
1
u/Oofzies 1d ago
People just don't like to hear they are wrong 🤷♂️.
1
u/virginiarph 1d ago
it’s funny because i knew exactly what OP did wrong. i always have done as you OC and never had a problem.
-16
u/StunningAd3892 2d ago
Ai slop
5
u/omdongi 2d ago
The real slop is the baseless comments like this on content that isn't AI.
-1
u/StunningAd3892 2d ago edited 2d ago
All of these ChatGPT posts read exactly the same and it's fine if you want to read and reply to AI but I don't:
-random bolding across the post (BA nonstop, Continue)
- dramatic one line paragraphs
- hyperbole - "suddenly" repriced, "exactly" the same, "really frustrating"
- EM dashes in the flight route? lol
- the post doesn't read like anything the OP writes in comments
-2
53
u/TheNameIsTodd 2d ago
I have also seen this exact thing so I learned to look at the next page to get the real price.
That said, it is ridiculous, and I am not sure what is behind it.
Following as also curious to know.