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British Airways Cancels Kuala Lumpur Return
With just a month until the anticipated return of the popular direct London to Kuala Lumpur route, British Airways has cancelled all flights until April 2025 at the earliest.
BA has a chequered history of flying to KL with regular suspensions. They returned to KL in 2015 after 14 years of not serving the route. Then COVID-19 caused a temporary suspension and it is now suspended again due to issues with their fleet.
Why?
BA have cited issues with their Rolls-Royce engines as being the main culprit, particularly on their Boeing 787 aircraft. The airline is working closely with the engine manufacturer however they are not confident this will be resolved quickly so they wanted to give passengers as much notice as possible to make alternative arrangements.
What should you do if your flight has been cancelled?
At the time of writing British Airways has not confirmed what they intend to offer passengers on reward bookings or flying First Class. This should be updated within the next 48 hours.
The easiest option for British Airways is for you to cancel your trip and obtain a refund however if you still want to continue with your trip, you have some options.
The next thing BA will offer is to fly you to and from KL via Singapore. Of course, there will be no charge for this but it does add a little time to your flying itinerary.
If you are on a cash ticket in business class British Airways are rebooking some passengers onto Qatar Airways via Doha. For a lot of people this would be classed as an upgrade as their Q Suite is a great business class seat.
A couple of facts for those worried about their travel plans
- They must offer you the same class or higher (higher is very unlikely).
- They have to re-route you should you wish.
- Avios bookings have to be rebooked as if they were cash bookings and not reliant upon reward availability.
- Changes have to be at the passenger’s convenience and not the airline’s.
I absolutely love KL so it’s a shame this has happened but it’s happened with plenty of notice and within a couple of days BA will make a plan to help those passengers who have had their flights cancelled. I would expect by Tuesday or Wednesday next week there will be policy guidelines for all staff to follow.
If you are flying at a busy time such as Christmas and New Year I would advise you to call as soon as possible to secure a rerouted travel plan. Likely via SIN but these are going fast so don’t hang around.
Are British Airways Thinking About Changing How You Earn Tier Points?
A reader recently wrote in with a screenshot that showed 3 different levels of Tier Point earnings in Business Class which showed:
- Lowest Fare = Earning reduced tier points.
- Low Fare = Earning reduced tier points.
- Flexible Fare = Earning full tier points.
Since then I have not been able to recreate it myself until last night.
Earlier this year BA changed the way we earn Avios. Instead of it being based on a set distance, we now earn our Avios based on the amount of money our ticket costs. BA was quite late to the party with this as several other airlines adopted the same policy years ago such as American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.
We know a lot is happening behind the technical scenes at BA but is this their famous IT playing up or is there something more behind this popping up more frequently?
I think it’s very unlikely that BA would introduce this, however, it begs the question of why someone, somewhere has produced this and why it’s then been allowed to go live.
Let’s hope it’s a non-story
Would you be happy with this change?
18 comments
This screen appeared months ago when I was booking some flights. I exited the system and started gain and it didn’t reappear
Im sure I have seen the “fewer tier points” options for a long time and have always chosen the cheapest fare option that goes with it. Result – just the same number of tier points to my account as a fully flex ticket so nothing to be fretting about!
Im not sure why anyone would fly out East direct with BA when you can go with Qatar via Doha, from regional airports, and get double the tier points and on a far far better plane!!
Same thoughts exactly. I never fly east with BA as it makes no sense, off the back you are getting 560 points, before adding on the positioning points if you are doing an Ex-Eu flight.
+1 – I think this has been there for years.
+ ( another) 1
This has indeed been there for years. I ‘think’ it’s appearance has something to do with how you land on search. Yes there are several different versions dependant on how you choose to you the site and what for.
It’s certainly, and without any hint of a doubt, very old
Same as Barbs and Nigel, would only buy cash fare East Ex Europe with Qatar. Bought a pair last week to fly next month FCO-BKK £1600 each, so hope no change to tier points soon! Would only fly BA East on reward fare.
We had a booking to go to KL in February next year through using a companion voucher, cash and avios. When I received the cancellation message I called the gold helpline immediately. My concern was that I had only been offered a refund which I did not want since I had connecting flights and booked hotels organised.
When I spoke to BA staff they were very helpful and honest, telling me that they had been in a meeting with their operations team who had yet to establish a clear policy about what to do!!
I was offered to rebook via Malaysian Airlines and Singapore but was told that I would have to do that myself as it was not a codeshare?? Or I was offered flights with Qatar via Doha.
I took this option and they rebooked for me. Interestingly I was told that it could only be done as reward flights so availability was limited.
I was lucky and managed to book the right flights which actually got us to KL earlier in the day than the original direct flight, at no extra cost.
When the booking came through, the first leg to Doha was with BA ( and the new club suites) and then the second was with Qatar but operated by Malaysian Airlines… slightly bizarre but it turned out ok in the end.
Although I have noticed this, but I feel that it’s really a bad move. It is not really that ” cheap” outside of doing a TP run to gain status. I can understand the reason for this but in the long run I believe it is just going to drive your customers away especially with onboard service and so many issues in general when selecting BA. They only dominate the routes to US but to the east, service is so infrequent with so few options available.
That tier point option has been there for as long as I can remember. I think it only applies to Y bookings. I certainly have taken return flights where the Avios and tier points awarded have been different on the two legs because my trip booked into different fare categories (the letters they use to indicate the fare). I think J bookings generate standard points awards, as I have never encountered a problem with them.
At least not with BA; LH group P category fares in J generate much confusion as the award rate varies wildly depending on which programme you try and credit them to.
this and no extension of double tier points on BAH and suddenly BAH would find their business collapsing, so they need to realise this. Customers aren’t mugs, and I’ve told them this in a personal survey already that my 3 holidays would go elsewhere if the BAH offer doesn’t get extended.
Regarding the BA website and Tier points. That has been there as long as I have been an Executive Club member, 2009. The second choice is a misprint. It is low fare with full tier points.
We received the KUL cancellation notification on Friday for our holiday in January. Manage My Booking had both options; find another flight or refund. Our options online were quite extensive for both the outbound and inbound flight – around 10 combinations each way – all had a connection in DOH, with sectors operated by QR, BA(LHR-DOH) MH(DOH-KUL) but all with BA flight numbers which, I understand, is important for the double tier point deal.
We were unable to confirm our choice online but after a quick call via BA to the BA Holiday help-desk we were rebooked on to our preferred flights.
It was all very painless and we were surprised by the number of options that were offered.
If it’s in the BA IT booking system, it’s probably waiting for the button push at any point. This will result in the TP runs costing a hell of a lot more to achieve status.
A very bad sign…
I had an Avios booking in Business to KL for next March, switched from QR to BA when Reward Flight Finder told me there was a seat available. When I called the Gold helpline I was offered QR in Economy, Business to SIN, but not onwards, or a refund. During that conversation I re-booked on QR, in Business on Avios, but it’s 40,000 Avios more. I am interested that others were offered better options. I am digging in, doing nothing with my BA booking until I see what else might be available.
Those options for TP earning have been there for a long time. Take a look at the Avios calculator and it clearly shows that economy fares have two TP earning buckets, depending on the booking class This has always been the case so how this is suddenly news, I dont know. Did anyone do any research before posting the click bait?
Agree econ reduced tier points have been there for ages whilst J bookings currently have fixed tier points irrespective of booking class.
But I did not know one of my econ wd only get reduced tier points at time of bookin. Had I known wd have tried to change booking class.
A lesson for the future.
Perhaps Eugene never travels econ so had no experience of this.
For the TP thing, it is worth adding that the new version of BA.com now lets ba sell a the “select” fare which sits in the middle of a normal and full flex ticket, so the extra box just lines up with that new middle option.
I have a question around this statement: “Avios bookings have to be rebooked as if they were cash bookings and not reliant upon reward availability. ”
can you site the rule/ law that says this? I have a booking to KL using a companion voucher and just want to know when I call that they have to offer me not based on avios availability.
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