Bits: 10% off pre-ordered BA duty free, should BA use EU261 as a marketing gimmick?

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• Ro says:

  15 Mar15 March 08:45

  This year ive flown singapore/qatar/BA/ryanair in economy. BA flight was pleasant enough, but singapore and qatar are way ahead, even in economy. Even the thought of potential eu261 wouldnt make me choose BA over the other two.

• John says:

  15 Mar15 March 08:57

  This reminds me of when BA launched Bronze tier. Being a little short of benefits, they stated you’ll get priority if they lose your bags. Trying to turn a negative into a positive

  • Alan says:

    15 Mar15 March 22:17

    I’d also take it with a few truckloads of salt if the ‘priority treatment’ given to a GGL friend of mine after a lost bag is anything to go by!!

• jhk says:

  15 Mar15 March 09:11

  10% we should have 30% discount because their prices are crazy!!! go shopping on internet
  and normaly these prices should be without tax !!!!

• Nick says:

  15 Mar15 March 09:33

  Some facts:
  – EU261 is strictly by OPERATING carrier. The company whose colours are on the piece of metal you’re sitting in. This means that KL MSP-AMS does count, but AA planes on BA tickets do not.
  – The time for compensation is the time the first door is opened on arrival. This does not have to be a passenger door, a cargo one counts. Take off, pushback, wheels up/down… all irrelevant. Modern aircraft (basically Airbuses and 787s) record this automatically, for older ones it’s entered manually in a system.
  – BA would never market this as a benefit even if they were allowed to as most people don’t bother claiming – their bill would simply go up!

  And a question…
  – Does right of care really not count if it’s someone else’s strike? True there’s no compensation but surely hotels are universal?

  • Carlos says:

    15 Mar15 March 10:28

    Hi. Sorry to ask, but I’m in the middle of a claim with BA. When you say that time for compensation is upon arrival, does that mean that if the flight TOOK OFF from origin more than 4 hrs late but somehow made up some of the time during flight and ended up being just this side of the EU261 window, I can claim nothing?

    My flight out of Mexico City was scheduled for 9:20pm, left after 1am in the morning. Awful per se, but we were travelling with my daughters (ages 3 and 1 at the time), so not just an annoyance. However, we landed in Heathrow about 2h50-ish late, literally a breath under 3 hours. Do I have a case for a claim?

    • the real harry1 says:

      15 Mar15 March 10:29

      no

      • Michael Jennings says:

        15 Mar15 March 13:55

        It’s a swings and roundabouts thing, if you fly a lot. Two for me from last year:

        – Back from Bordeaux to Gatwick on a Sunday evening on Easyjet. Flight was delayed. I was stuck in the extremely spartan budget terminal at Bordeaux. No facilities at all, uncomfortable seating, and no air conditioning. I had to be at work the next day, and I just wanted to go home and go to bed. Flight was just under three hours late. No compensation.

        – Flying from Geneva from LCY on a Saturday morning reasonably early on BA. Flight was delayed over three hours. The late departure was announced at about midnight the previous evening, probably because the aircraft was stuck somewhere else and would have to fly in in the morning. I thus got to spend an extra two hours in bed, didn’t have any significant wait in the airport, got to Geneva in time for why I wanted to be in Geneva, and got paid 250 euros compensation.

        I think I’ve mentally filed the money as compensation for the first delay rather than the second.

        • Michael Jennings says:

          15 Mar15 March 13:57

          Actually the Easyjet flight was from Lyon rather than Bordeaux, which I inexplicably typed instead. (I’ll just correct myself before someone attacks me for defaming Bordeaux airport).

        • Aeronaut says:

          15 Mar15 March 16:06

          @Michael Jennings

          Well Bordeaux airport also has a spartan budget terminal (called Billi)!

    • Rob says:

      15 Mar15 March 11:05

      Correct. Aircraft doors must open more than 3 hours after stated arrival time.

    • Alan says:

      15 Mar15 March 22:20

      Only counts for final flight – of course with connecting flights this can work to your advantage sometimes. I had a flight back from Athens via LHR – only delayed by 2h but that was enough to miss last flight to EDI therefore put up in hotel overnight and compensation given arrived at final destination the following day. OTOH have also had massive delays where connection cut from hours to minutes but no compensation due as arrived at final destination on time, just missed out on lounge time en route!

  • Rob says:

    15 Mar15 March 11:07

    You have ‘right of care’ in a strike – airline must provide hotel, food etc.

  • Ro says:

    15 Mar15 March 15:57

    Depends where the passengers have been stored 😉

• @mkcol says:

  15 Mar15 March 09:35

  I don’t pre-order duty free as I’ve been told (like special meals) it blocks the ability of their computer to do any operational upgrade, coz the order then won’t follow you to your new seat.

  No idea if that’s genuinely true or not, but I’m not willing to risk missing out on an op-upgrade.

  • Nate1309 says:

    15 Mar15 March 10:23

    Does it also then block a potential downgrade though? Thinking way round the 241 problem.

    • the real harry1 says:

      15 Mar15 March 10:31

      doubt it but I see where you’re coming from

• Stuart says:

  15 Mar15 March 09:36

  Can Finnair claim “Extraordinary Circumstances” for a 20 hour delay at Helsinki for my flight to Singapore when one of the pilots was apparently taken ill. They refuse to pay but as this is their home airport, is this really extraordinary circumstances, shouldn’t they have a plan in place for such an event?

  • Paul says:

    15 Mar15 March 09:55

    They can claim anything they want but its already been through the courts that ‘crew sickness’ is not extra ordinary. Keep at them…they are just chancing their arm.

• jamie says:

  15 Mar15 March 10:11

  am no apologist for ba( we have had plenty of run-ins over the years!) but given the amount of negative ba stuff that appears in the comments on hfp, thought I would mention this.

  have had cause to claim 261 compo on 2 occasions in the last year, once on atl – lhr, and once on lcy – flr..on both occasions full compo sitting in my bank account within a week, no discussion.

  • Anon says:

    15 Mar15 March 12:47

    Impressive you even got an acknowledgement within a week, never mind payment! Maybe there’s hope I’ll hear something by next week….

    Did you do an online claim, a fax or over the phone?

    • Rob says:

      15 Mar15 March 15:12

      My brother got €3,000 within a week (5 pax) and Anika got hers in 9 days.

    • Scottydogg says:

      15 Mar15 March 16:04

      My parents BA flight to Florida was delayed for about 8 hours , they tried to claim something back from them direct but had no joy after lots of phones calls etc . I said I would try and claim it back for them , I used the website ‘Resolver’ and BA paid up pretty quickly to be fair to them

• Terry says:

  15 Mar15 March 10:13

  My wife has done pre order on cosmetics and it worked fine. Interesting comment above re upgrades though.

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