A CCORDING to agents,
British Airways has
issued a recent spate
of ADMs for uncollected
date change fees for
amendments made to
bookings before they were
issued.
Standard practice in
the industry has always
been that changes can be
made without penalty to
provisional bookings with
fees only incurred after
issuance.
However TNW
understands that here BA
listed “charge not collected
for change in PNR before
ticket issue” as the reason
for the ADMs.
One source said his
agency had received a
handful of these ADMs
in the last two months.
They had been charged
the full change penalty
for the relevant fare class
amounting to between R1
800 and R2 000 per ADM.
According to the agent,
BA’s fare rule states,
“Charge R1 700 for reissue
or revalidation. Charge
applies per transaction per
passenger.”
When the agent queried
how they could reissue a
ticket that had not been
issued at the time, BA
allegedly responded saying
that the ADM would stand
and that the penalty should
have been collected as an
electronic multipurpose
document.
Sara Mokua, air
operations manager for
Flight Centre Travel Group,
explained that BA also
raised ADMs for any closed
changes made to PNRs
between issuance and
revalidation.
“We received an ADM
recently for doing multiple
changes in a booking but
only collecting the change
fee the day the ticket was
reissued. BA responded
that the penalty applied per
transaction per passenger
for every saved transaction
made,” she said.
Flight Centre only found
out about BA’s practice
when they received this
recent ADM, but Sara said
Lufthansa and SWISS had
introduced a similar policy
last year.
At the time of going to
print, British Airways was
unable to confirm what
their official policy relating
to these two issues was,
but a spokesperson at the
airline told TNW that no
recent amendments had
been made to their policy
on unticketed changes to
PNRs since 2011.
