British Airways (BA) cabin crew are set to strike. They’ve voted to take action before the middle of March this year, causing yet more frustration for anyone planning to travel over the next few weeks.

The Unite union represents the majority of cabin crew and they will reveal details of the action later this week. At that time, passengers will be able to find out if they’re affected.

But this time, BA has had a chance to plan and has said it will operate as many services as possible during the strike period.

So what do you need to know if you’re planning a trip before the end of March?

The union cannot organise a strike until seven days after the news is issued. That means if you’re booked to travel before March 01, your flight will be safe.

Once the union reorts when it intends to strike, BA will contact affected passengers. You should make sure the airline has up-to-date information in order to contact you.

Customers can check their information is correct on the BA website, just visit the Manage my booking page.

Once the strike dates have been revealed, any passengers planning to travel during that time will be able to rebook flights at a different time, as long as they travel within 355 days.

You won’t be able to demand a refund without your specific flight being cancelled, unless your ticket allows a full refund, which most tickets don’t.

Bear in mind that if you book an alternative flight just now, you could end up with two bookings and be unable to claim either of them back.

So, unless you can afford to lose the cost of a ticket, it’s best to wait until strike dates are published before making alternative plans.

If your flight is cancelled as a result of the strike action, BA will allow you to rebook onto another flight within 355 days of the original date, subject to availability.

Alternatively, you could rebook onto a different BA flight heading to or from the nearest alternative airport – for example, if you’ve booked to or from Boston, you could rebook to or from New York.

If neither of those options suit, you can simply cancel your booking and receive a refund.

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Virtually anyone will find that the price of flying has risen this week thanks to an increase on the tax of air travel by the government.

The amount the tax has been raised depends on the distance of your flight, so people flying to most destinations in Europe (Up to 2,000 miles on a single flight) will find that taxes only increased from £10 to £11. However, those travelling more than 6,000 miles to countries like Australia and Argentina will be paying £15 more in tax per person.

People flying in premium classes will pay even more – double the costs above.

So for a family of five flying to Australia, that’s a £75 rise in tax for the flight – quite a significant amount of cash. Meanwhile the same family flying across Europe will only pay £5 extra.

All flights from the 1^st of November onward come under the new tax, even if they have been booked in advance.

As you can imagine, this has lead to outcry from families and airlines alike. Virgin Atlantic CEO Steve Ridgway said: “These increases will tax many hard working British holidaymakers out of flying altogether.  The Government seems to claim this is an environmental tax despite a total lack of evidence to support this claim.”

As a tax there’s no special way around paying for this – short of flying for one of the few provider that will pay the tax for you on a promotion offer. However, you can still use the power of online comparison sites and combined holiday packages to keep the cost of your flights down as low as possible.

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