Make a booking FAQs

British Airways, BA Cityflyer or BA Euroflyer infant baggage allowance for a baby under 24 months without a seat, regardless of cabin, includes a 23kg bag checked into the hold. No extra baggage allowance can be purchased on a ticket for an infant without a seat.

There is no checked baggage allowance for you or your infant if you are both travelling on a hand baggage only (Basic) fare, and any additional hold baggage allowance cannot be bought for your infant.

Children and infants with a seat have the same free baggage allowance as adults. Find out what other items you can check in for your family.

You cannot pool, share or combine your checked baggage allowance with another traveller, even someone in your travel party.

For security reasons, you must only check in bags that you've packed yourself. You are responsible for any bag that is linked to your name in the booking.

For any single bag that is over the maximum weight or number allowed on your ticket, you may be charged a heavy bag or extra bag charge.

We offer a ‘Standard’ or ‘Plus’ fare that includes a checked baggage allowance, and a ‘Basic’ fare that doesn’t. These fares are available in our Euro Traveller and World Traveller cabins.

It’s not possible to make a booking with multiple fare types included, so if some passengers require baggage for their flight while others don’t, you’ll need to make separate bookings for each fare type.

Find out more about the fare types available for short-haul flights and long-haul flights. Once you’ve booked your flights you can choose to pay a fee to sit together on board.

Travel packages for students holding study visas, or similar official identification, may be available on some of our routes. You should search for student fares from the local ba.com website of the country where you’ll start your journey.

If no student travel offer is currently available for your journey, your ticket will still have our standard baggage allowance relevant to your route, as long as it isn’t an economy basic fare, where there’s no checked baggage allowance.

We don’t offer any extra free baggage allowance specifically for students on any other fares, but we do have discounted online rates for extra bags if you need to take more baggage on your flight. Check our extra bag charge calculator.

If you’re travelling on a specialist student fare, you must have your current official international student identification with you when you travel or you could be refused carriage.

You can book seats for all passengers travelling on the same booking.

If you want to sit next to someone travelling on the same flight but on a different booking, you can speak to a member of our staff when you arrive for your flight. We can’t guarantee your preferred seats as we can’t reassign seats from other customers who have already checked in.

Exit row seats are located either next to or immediately behind the aircraft’s exit doors. If you choose an exit seat, you’ll be expected to assist us in opening the emergency doors in the unlikely event of an emergency evacuation.  

For this reason, you must adhere to CAA safety requirements to be sat in this area. 

You must also:  

• Be over the age of 12 years old 
• Not be pregnant  
• Not have any accessibility needs or be Deaf/hard of hearing or Blind or have low vision 
• Be fit enough to operate an emergency exit door  
• Be able to understand printed or verbal instructions given in English, and be willing, as well as able, to assist in the case of an emergency evacuation.  

When requesting an exit row seat, ba.com or our support team will ask you to verify your eligibility. 

Once you’ve booked your flights you can choose your seats on board, either as part of the benefits included in your ticket or by paying for your seat choice. Find out more about choosing a seat and view our aircraft seating layouts. 

Our British Airways Club members can now use their Avios to pay for and reserve seats for British Airways flights in advance through Manage My Booking. This can be done with just Avios, or a combination of card payment and Avios. To do this: 

1. Make your booking as usual, without adding your seat(s) during the process. 
2.  Once your booking is confirmed and you have your new booking reference, go to Manage My Booking. 
3.  Choose “Select a seat on board”, then the flight you want to book seats on and follow the instructions. 

You can view your options to pay with Avios once you get to the payment page. 

If you want to pay using Avios, you’ll be asked to log in to your Club account. 

If you want to change your seat type in future, and you paid using Avios we'll only be able to take this extra payment in cash if there’s a difference in price and an additional amount to be paid. 

If you need to change a passenger within 24 hours of booking, and you booked with us directly, you can cancel and receive a full refund. You can do this via Manage My Booking if you booked on ba.com, or you’ll need to call us if you made your booking over the phone.

Some bookings aren't covered by this guarantee:

• Those with flights departing within 24 hours of booking
• Those where immediate payment isn't required
• Package bookings or flights booked with hotels, car hire, transfers or experiences These bookings have their own separate conditions. Please call us for more information.

After this 24-hour period, flight-only tickets are non-transferable. To change a passenger on the booking, you’ll need to cancel the original booking and make a new one at current ticket prices.

If you only have one first (given) name and no last (family) name, you can still book a flight with us online.

When you need to enter a last (family) name during booking, please enter your first (given) name in the "Last name on the passport” box. Then, type your Title – for example, "Mrs", Miss or "Mr" – into the "First name on the passport" box.

If you have two first (given) names and no last (family) name, please write both your first names in the "Last name on the passport" box and then your Title in the "First name on the passport" box.

Finally, when adding your Advance Passenger Information, please place your first (given) name in the “Last name” box, and type "FNU" ("First Name Unknown") in the “First name” box.

If your name is too long for the space provided on ba.com for your first (given) or last (family) names, please call us. Our Customer Services team will be able to make your booking with your full details. We’ll enter your name exactly as it is on your passport until we run out of space to add any further characters.

It’s also possible to book online if you have a machine-readable passport. We recommend that you use the names shown in the coding/chevrons on the bottom of your photograph and personal information page.

If you only have a last (family) name, you can still book a flight with us online.

When entering your details on our website, please write your last (family) name in the "Last name on the passport" box, and then type your Title – for example, "Mrs", “Miss” or "Mr" – into the "First name on the passport" box.

When you add your Advance Passenger Information, please place your last (family) name in the “Last name” box, and type "FNU" ("First Name Unknown") in the “First name” box.

If you only have one letter in your last (family) name, please type that letter twice in the "Last name on the passport" box on ba.com. A minimum of two letters are required to submit your information.

When adding your Advance Passenger Information to your booking, you’ll be able to type the single letter of your name, as per your passport.

If you have changed your name for any reason, including marriage, divorce or by deed poll, the names on your ticket and passport must match in order for you to travel.

All your other required travel documents must also be in the same name as your flight ticket, including visas and ESTAs.

If you need to change your name on an existing ticket to match the name on your passport, you can use our live chat service to talk to one of our agents or contact us.

There's no charge for this type of change, however if the taxes, fees and carrier charges on your ticket have changed since you made the original booking, you’ll need to pay the difference. You may also need to provide us with proof of your identity to make this change.

Your ticket and passport details must match each other, so you can’t travel with a ticket booked under your married name and a passport that uses your maiden name.

All your other required travel documents must also be in the same name as your flight ticket, including visas, ESTAs and COVID-19 documents.

If you need to change your name on an existing ticket to match the name on your passport, you can use our live chat service to talk to one of our agents or contact us. There's no charge for this type of change, however if the taxes, fees and carrier charges on your ticket have changed since you made the original booking, you’ll need to pay the difference. You may also need to provide us with proof of your identity to make this change.

Please complete our accessible holiday request form prior to booking, so we can research your preferred arrangements and ensure your holiday meets your individual requirements. 

Accessible hotel rooms and fully-adapted accessible transfers are available to book online in many destinations. 

Read more about available disability assistance or contact our Accessibility Team. 

Many of our flight-inclusive holidays are financially protected by ATOL – but not all of them.

Your trip is ATOL protected if you see a link to a ATOL certificate in your e-ticket. If any part of your trip isn’t listed on your ATOL certificate, it won’t be included in the coverage.

To be ATOL protected, your package needs to include a flight and one of the following travel services:

• Hotel accommodation
• Car rental

Both need to be during the same trip and the overall length of the trip needs to be 24 hours or longer.

Adding extras like paid transfers, excursions, sightseeing tours, theatre tickets or general attraction tickets only creates a package if they account for a significant proportion of the value of the trip.

They must also be advertised as, and do not otherwise represent, an essential feature of the combination.

Please see our booking conditions for information.

Yes, you can book transfers at the time of booking your hotel or add them at a later stage. Booking or adding transfers can be done online or by contacting us. If you're making a new booking online, transfers are offered after you've selected your hotel.

If you’ve got an existing booking, transfers can be added over the phone or through the Manage My Booking section of our website. If you’re using Manage My Booking, a separate booking reference will be created for the transfers.

Where transfers are included within the hotel price, this will be clearly stated within the hotel details section during the booking journey. Once booked, any included transfers will be noted on your hotel voucher. To view this, go to Manage My Booking and select the ‘print all vouchers’ button, then the ‘print voucher’ link next to your hotel name.

For the majority of our hotels, transfers aren’t included in the hotel price.

If you stay within the qualifying dates, the discount will be automatically applied to your booking.

Yes, you can create a customised itinerary. Find out more.

Yes, you can cancel your booking in Manage My Booking, where you’ll also find the cancellation terms and conditions you agreed to at the time of booking.

No, amendments cannot be made online at this time. Contact us to change your booking.

You can book a flight up to 355 days ahead of the departure date.

Flight-inclusive packages can also be booked through our website 355 days in advance. For UK residents travelling to certain destinations, our sales agents can book some hotel and car products (not inclusive of flights) more than 355 days in advance. To take advantage of this service, please contact us by phone.

ATOL is a protection scheme for holidays and is managed by the Civil Aviation Authority. Our ATOL number is ATOL 5985.

ATOL protects you from losing your money or being stranded abroad in the unlikely event that British Airways Holidays goes out of business. If you choose to use Avios as part-payment for your package, ATOL does not protect the Avios but you would still benefit from protection from being stranded abroad.

If you booked your British Airways ticket directly with us and your insurance company or employer need proof that you did or didn’t travel with us, please fill out this form and our team will be able to help you. Your confirmation will include detailed fare or price information and anything that has already been refunded to you.

Unfortunately, we can only help when your booking was made directly with British Airways. If you booked through a travel agency or third party, please contact them.

If your browser doesn’t display a confirmation page and booking reference, it’s likely that your booking was successful, but the confirmation page has failed to load. If this happens, please check your email inbox, including any trash or junk folders, to see if you’ve received the email receipt confirming your booking.

If you've not received an email within two hours, please contact us.

UK travel agents can book you on a First Great Western train from one of 11 stations in the South West to London Heathrow Airport, on the same reservation as your British Airways flight. 

The 11 stations include Bath, Bristol Parkway, Bristol Temple Meads, Cardiff, Exeter, Oxford, Par, Penzance, Plymouth, Swansea and St Austell. 

Once you’ve booked to travel on a First Great Western (FGW) train to or from Heathrow, your train and its route will show in Manage My Booking. You'll receive a connecting Heathrow Express train journey between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport to complete your journey. 

You need to check in online for your FGW train journey within 72 hours of your train's departure and print out your rail ticket to show at the station.  

If you have any queries about your train journey or booking, please contact the agency you booked through. Our Customer Support team aren’t able to make any changes for you.  

Yes. Even if your credit card is issued and billed in a different country from where you're departing, you can still pay for your booking online, over the telephone or at an airport desk. However, there may be some different regional restrictions on payment options depending on the country you’re travelling from.

You can book a flight up to 355 days ahead of the departure date.

Flight-inclusive packages can also be booked through our website 355 days in advance. For UK residents travelling to certain destinations, our sales agents can book some hotel and car products (not inclusive of flights) more than 355 days in advance. To take advantage of this service, please contact us by phone.

If you don’t tell us in advance about any changes you need to make to your journey and choose not to travel on one of your flights, you’ll be considered a ‘no-show’ and all remaining flights in your journey will be cancelled.

If you need to change or cancel all or part of your journey and your fare type allows it, we can recalculate the new fare for your proposed change, or any refund you might be eligible for. Visit Manage My Booking to make changes or call us for more help.

If you booked with a travel agent or a third party, please speak to them about making changes to your booking.

If you’d like to book a return flight but you’re not sure which date you’d like to travel back on, please call us. It’s not possible to make these types of bookings online.

You've got access to almost 1,000 destinations in more than 150 countries across the world, plus a range of ticket types, thanks to the oneworld® alliance.

Find out more about Round The World tickets. 

We operate waitlists for our flights. These are available to passengers who book our flexible/non-restricted fare types.

Our fully automated waitlist system offers any seats that become available on your chosen flight up to 48 hours before it’s due to depart. Seats are offered in priority order, based on your British Airways Club membership tier.

If the flight you're looking at is full and you’d like to see if you can add yourself to the waitlist, please contact us.