British Airways, the UK based airline, is offering an online deposit payments option for its package holiday customers.
Available only to the airline’s customers that book their holiday package on the BA website, the facility will allow vacations to be booked with a deposit of £150 per booking, and payment of the balance 10 weeks before departure.
Claire Bentley, the managing director of British Airways Holidays, said, ‘Following customer feedback, we are delighted to be able to introduce this new function on ba.com which will really assist holidaymakers and allow them to take advantage of all the benefits that deposit payments give.
Customers will have the ability to pay a deposit now, secure the price and then save for the remainder of the balance which they will then pay closer to departure. This will benefit both families looking to budget for their 2013 holidays as well as those looking to book a special occasion like a honeymoon or luxury holiday.’
The new facility will not be available for booking flights only, or for any other type of booking, all of which must still be paid for in full during the booking process.
The company is predicting that in 2013 the most popular holiday destinations will be Orlando and New York, in the US, and Barbados in the Caribbean. Customers will be able to book ATOL-protected holiday packages for an extensive variety of worldwide destinations.
The airline has previously reported entering into a code sharing agreement with Canada-based, low-cost carrier, Westjet, as well as a partnership with Japan-based Japan Airlines (JAL) for services between Europe and Japan.
Riding on a post Olympic boom, the airline has also recently announced a 5.1 percent increase in traffic for September 2012. The increase in traffic was mostly due to premium cabin sales, which have seen an increase of around 8 percent in September 2012, from the same period in September 2011, while economy class traffic has increased by 4.6 percent during the same period.
