Manage booking FAQs

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.

You can cancel your booking in its entirety through the Manage My Booking section of our website. The cancellation fee specific to your booking will be displayed as part of the process, so you can make an informed decision in choosing whether or not you want to cancel.

It’s not currently possible to make voluntary changes to package bookings on our website. You’ll need to contact us by telephone. For UK customers, details on notice periods and any cancellation and amendment charges that may apply can be viewed here. Cancellation and amendment penalties can increase as you get closer to your travel date, so we recommend you contact us as soon as you feel you may need to cancel or make changes.

If a flight booked as part of your British Airways Holidays package is cancelled, you’ll receive notification and can use Manage My Booking to change to an alternative flight or request a full refund of your entire package.

For more information about your legal rights and our obligations, see our Terms and Conditions and General Conditions of Carriage.

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 would like to change or cancel your booking and are unable to do so in Manage My Booking, please contact the airline or agent you booked with. 

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. 

Your tour operator has all the information on your baggage allowance, meal services and seat plans for your charter flight. They’ll also be able to help you with any special requests you have or to arrange extra help you may need during your journey.

For charter services leaving from regional airports operated using BA CityFlyer aircraft, additional baggage, seat selection and other flight extras may be booked in advance online. For all other British Airways charter services, please contact your tour operator directly with your query.

Charter flights don’t appear in our schedules or timetables online and as your booking is held with the tour operator, you’ll be unable to view the details on Manage My Booking or use online or mobile check-in. You can view your flight's real-time departure and/or arrival information.

If you booked your flight through British Airways and are travelling on a partner airline and require special assistance, please get in touch with our accessibility team. 

Go to the website of the airline operating your flight, enter your booking reference and request a special meal.

If you need assistance or if you cannot find your booking reference, please contact the airline you booked with.

If you have an AirTag in your baggage, you can easily and securely share a location link which may help us find your delayed items quicker.

Once you’ve generated a Share Item Location link using the Find My app on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, you can add it to your delayed baggage report. 

We’ll only use this to help find your baggage, and the link will be used only by those we authorise to assist with reuniting you with your baggage.

The shared location will be disabled as soon as you are back in proximity with the AirTag when you receive your baggage. It can be stopped by you at any time, and will automatically expire after 7 days

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.

We’re really sorry your baggage has been delayed, and we’ll do everything we can to get your items back to you as soon as possible.  

If you’re still at the airport, you can quickly and easily create a delayed baggage report by speaking with an agent or, where available, by using a self-service kiosk in the baggage reclaim area. 

If you’ve already left the airport, you can report your delayed baggage using our online baggage portal.  

You’ll need to provide the baggage tag number(s) you were given when you checked in, details of all flights taken in your journey, a description of your baggage, your contact details and a delivery address.

The time it can take to get delayed baggage back to you depends on a number of factors, such as where your baggage is arriving from and the delivery distance. 

In most cases you’ll be reunited with your baggage between 24-72 hours after creating your delayed baggage report. 

You can provide a temporary address, such as your hotel, when creating your delayed baggage report. 

If you’re travelling to more than one place during your trip, log back in to the delayed baggage portal when you have changed locations, select ‘Manage an existing report’ and then update your new temporary address. 

Your delayed baggage details will be entered into the WorldTracer baggage tracking system, and we’ll get to work finding your items immediately. 

When you create a report you’ll receive a reference number, which you can use to track the status of your delayed baggage in our online baggage portal.

As soon as we locate your baggage, we’ll contact you to let you know and return it to your chosen address at no extra charge, subject to local customs requirements. 

You won’t have to fill in another customs declaration form if you’ve completed one at the airport, if you didn’t travel, your flight was cancelled, or your journey was entirely within the UK. Otherwise, we’ll contact you to complete a local customs declaration form if it’s required. 

Check what you’re allowed to bring into the UK.

You can check in up to 10 additional bags when you pay to increase your baggage allowance, so long as these bags contain items for personal use only. Any commercial items should be shipped via IAG Cargo.

If you are travelling on our hand baggage only (Economy Basic) fare, you are charged extra to put any bags into the hold as these fares do not include checked baggage.

The cost of each additional hold bag depends on your destination and how many more bags you want to check in over your hold allowance.

See your baggage allowance and cost of extra bags using the calculator. More bags can only be paid for and carried when space is available, and excess baggage is permitted, on your flight. In some destinations, additional local taxes may also apply for additional bags carried in excess of your ticketed allowance.

If you need to travel with extra bags, you’ll get the best price if you add them online via Manage My Booking before checking in for your flight. You can pay for up to 10 extra checked bags at our discounted online rate by card, using Avios or with a combination of both. After checking in for your flight, extra bags can only be added at the airport at the airport rate and you won’t be able to pay using Avios.

Booked through a travel agency/online travel website? The option to pay for additional bags will only be available once the booking has been finalised by the agent. Contact them directly if you cannot access Manage My Booking.

If your journey includes a flight with another airline, the number of checked bags allowed per customer may be different. Check before you fly.

British Airways will refund any pre-payment of the extra baggage charge that is cancelled online before check-in. British Airways is unable to accept any refund claim, or any changes to the pre-payment of extra baggage, once the flight has departed. Unless otherwise stated, British Airways will only make a refund to the credit card used to pre-pay the extra baggage charge. Delayed, lost or damaged extra baggage will be dealt with in accordance with the General Conditions of Carriage, clauses 15 and 16.

If you bought your ticket directly from British Airways, please complete this form and our dedicated team will produce your receipt as soon as possible.

Please note that we can only issue duplicate ticket receipts addressed to the payment cardholder. This means if you're claiming expenses back for somebody else after you've paid, we’re unable create a document in their name containing your ticket information and breakdown.

British Airways will refund any pre-payment for extra baggage that is cancelled online before check-in. British Airways is unable to accept any refund claims, or any changes to the pre-payment of extra baggage, once the flight has departed. Unless otherwise stated, British Airways will only make a refund to the credit card used to pre-pay the extra baggage charge.

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 don't need to add your middle names when making a booking with us, providing your first (given) name and last (family) name are correct and match your passport.

If you provided your middle name and it’s now joined together with your first (given) name on your booking confirmation/ticket receipt, this isn’t a problem. Our systems can't show the characters or spaces that separates names, so they'll always appear as one long name.

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.

You don’t need to do anything if you’ve provided your name correctly but there’s a hyphen or apostrophe is missing. Our systems can't show the characters or spaces that separate names.

Airport security and passport control staff are used to seeing this and won't query that your boarding pass/receipt differs very slightly from how your name appears in your passport. For example, it's easy for them to identify that "Sarahjane" is the same as "Sarah Jane" on a 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.

You can select your seats in Manage My Booking for some of our partners. 

If this isn't possible, please go to the other airline's website, enter your booking reference and select a seat. 

If you cannot find your booking reference then please get in touch with us. 

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. 

You can upgrade flight-only bookings made directly with us any time before you travel, subject to seats being available on your flight and the rules associated with your ticket. You can do this with tickets booked directly with us by logging in to Manage My Booking and selecting 'Upgrade'. The cost of upgrading will vary depending on the destination, cabin and the ticket you originally bought.

If you're not able to make the changes you need within Manage My Booking and you bought your ticket on ba.com or over the phone with our Customer Services team, please contact us. If you upgrade a Reward flight at the airport on the day you travel using a debit or credit card to pay the upgrade amount, it won’t be possible to earn Avios and Tier Points on that transaction.

If you booked with a travel agent, please contact them to discuss upgrades, as they have your full ticket details and are responsible for making any changes you need.

There are a small number of ticket types that it’s not possible to change, however your travel agent will be able to confirm if your booking can be upgraded or not.

You can use your Avios balance as payment to upgrade your ticket to the cabin above the one you originally chose on bookings made directly with us, or by contacting your travel agent.

You can also use mileage from our partner airlines American Airlines and Iberia’s frequent flyer programmes, but only if you booked your British Airways flight with them. Call American Airlines and Iberia directly to do this.

If you purchased your flight with British Airways and would like to upgrade your cabin on a flight operated by one of our partners, please call us.  

If you bought your ticket directly from British Airways, please complete this form and our dedicated team will produce your receipt as soon as possible.

Please note that we can only issue duplicate ticket receipts addressed to the payment cardholder. This means if you're claiming expenses back for somebody else after you've paid, we’re unable create a document in their name containing your ticket information and breakdown.

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.