Bits: more BA strikes, BA (re)launches Flight Pass, triple Miles & More with Best Western

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• Alex W says:

  5 Aug5 August 05:57

  Could get a flight pass to your place in the sun, Harry?

  • Worzel says:

    5 Aug5 August 07:22

    The question is: Where exactly “is” Squills Towers?

    I’ve suggested Italy in the past- however Squills is a bargain hunter.

    Pretty sure he mentioned that flights were 7500 Avios each way.

    Get that cellar emptied quickly Squills-we are closing in on you! 🙂 .

    • Genghis says:

      5 Aug5 August 07:32

      Marbs?

      • Genghis says:

        5 Aug5 August 07:33

        Though certainly not cheap. Hmm…

        • the real harry1 says:

          5 Aug5 August 08:13

          ha ha! no cellar allowed thee days, Worz

          40C if that helps and the beer is for hydration purposes – doc says take 1 every half hour

        • The Original Nick. says:

          5 Aug5 August 15:13

          I’m pretty sure his place in the sun is in Spain somewhere.

    • JamesB says:

      5 Aug5 August 09:20

      He inadvertently let the cat out the bag one of the days he responded to my comments on relative value of avios and LCC. It was the key to the riddle and I was expecting somebody to seize it but nobody did…so his secret remains safe for a while yet, maybe.

      • James says:

        5 Aug5 August 09:27

        And who really cares?
        More guff from the usual suspects, wasting space.

        • Leo says:

          5 Aug5 August 09:53

          +1

        • Genghis says:

          5 Aug5 August 10:13

          I shall keep my mouth shut

        • Billy Buzzjet says:

          5 Aug5 August 11:28

          Yep. Nothing to say but want everyone to hear it ! zzzz yawn

        • Worzel says:

          5 Aug5 August 20:29

          James 09:27:

          Perhaps you, Leo, and Billy Buzzyjet should get together and name “the usual suspects” ?

          This site is the the first I look at in the morning.

          I am grateful to Rob(and Anika) for all the information provided.

          I don’t see a problem with a little banter here and there-it’s part of the HFP informative, vibrant, HFP “community” .

        • Billy Buzzjet says:

          7 Aug7 August 13:17

          One man’s banter is another man’s bilge and drivel. Cleary there are those in the ‘community’ who also agree.

      • Nick says:

        5 Aug5 August 22:06

        He’s just given it away again!! The news story about where it’s been 40 degrees this week. Plus a route with four flights a day from T3 (which he talks about a lot), one of which is inconveniently timed (which he’s also mentioned). I worked it out ages ago but have been keeping quiet as this is far more fun!! I’m assuming it’s where his wife is from, but will admit that bit is a guess.

• Murtaza says:

  5 Aug5 August 06:02

  In regards to the BA strikes, I booked a flight to Doha for my brother which was cancelled. I rebooked it on to one of the Qatar Airways planes which BA had borrowed only to find out that BA would not carry over the extra luggage I had paid for (£60 per piece as the Doha route only allows 1 piece in economy). They’d refunded the additional £60 without notifying me (I happened to check my credit card statement). I call BA and they said I’d have to rebook the extra luggage with QA (it’s $25 per kg!). After an hour or so on the phone and many arguments, I managed to book onto the next available BA flight which happens to be the August 16th…

  Now the new strikes are scheduled there’s a good chance I’ll rebook again! What can I do considering BA won’t pay for extra luggage on a rebooked QA flight?

  Thanks

  • Catalan says:

    5 Aug5 August 06:11

    BA have only ‘borrowed’ 9 shorthaul aircraft, none of which carry passengers between London and Doha.

    • Rob says:

      5 Aug5 August 07:53

      Finally saw one today, but didn’t get one. Perhaps next week ….

    • Murtaza Iqbal says:

      5 Aug5 August 09:11

      Maybe so but all the alternative flights were QA operated; not sure how they’ve planned it all.

  • JamesB says:

    5 Aug5 August 09:28

    Have you checked pricing on other airlines? If you can find a better deal then demand a refund from BA are rebook with another carrier.

• Sam wardill says:

  5 Aug5 August 06:18

  Who says you don’t get compensation under EU261 for strike cancelled flights? I think you do. A strike is only an ‘extraordinarily circumstance ‘ that allows BA to avoid compensation if it could not be prevented. BA made a commercial decision not to yield to the demands of their crew. They could prevent the strikes if they wanted to

  • C77 says:

    5 Aug5 August 06:53

    I imagine BA wouldn’t want that argument being tested in court either. In typical BA fashion, I envisage the claim would be denied, you’d instruct MCOL proceedings, they’d say see you in court and in the days prior to the hearing BA would fold and pay up…. perhaps with a silencing clause attached to prevent you telling others what had happened.

    • Sam wardill says:

      5 Aug5 August 06:56

      Agree. They know they’d lose because you ARE entitled to compensation!

      • the real harry1 says:

        5 Aug5 August 08:18

        glad you raised this

        CAA guidance says strikes outwith the airline’s control are extraordinary circs – ie internal strikes don’t count

        I, too, would take this to MCOL – or if you are lazy/ timid – just instruct Bott & Co

        • joelyp says:

          5 Aug5 August 13:19

          I’m in the middle of an argument with BA over an EC/261 domestic flight cancelled due to their strike, with 48 hours’ notice. Interestingly BA rang me to deny the claim, meaning I didn’t have written documentation of reasons for denying the claim, which I need to pursue arbitration. I have bounced it back to BA for a written reply, and they have yet to reply. The only reason given over the phone for denying the claim was that BA cannot prevent people their right to voice their opinion by striking! They failed to answer any of my reasons the claim should succeed, including the arguments people have made today.

  • Paul says:

    5 Aug5 August 13:22

    Of course you will receive eu261 compensation. The strike is not an extraordinary circumstance. Of course BA will try to disagree first but MCOL or Small Claims Court will quickly sort that out.

    • Rob says:

      5 Aug5 August 15:10

      It won’t. AFAIK the EU261 legislation specifically states that industrial action does not count.

      • Paul says:

        5 Aug5 August 18:33

        Its their own staff that goes on strike. This would be avoidable by the airline so its not extraordinary. Its a bit more tricky with 3rd party ground staff and extraordinary with ATC strikes.

        • the real harry1 says:

          5 Aug5 August 20:07

          yep I think you’re wrong, Raffles

          only proven true by taking it to legal

      • Sam wardill says:

        6 Aug6 August 07:02

        It also states that ‘unexpected flight safety shortcomings’ MAY be regarded as extraordinary. Case law has demonstrated that they rarely ARE.

    • Fred says:

      18 Aug18 August 08:09

      A UNITE strike is definitely not unusual !

      If you lost one due to UNITE electing a sensible leader mind, that would be excluded.

• Nick says:

  5 Aug5 August 06:42

  …sorry, should read, any tier Platinum, or above, should get you the upgrade.

• Anna says:

  5 Aug5 August 07:06

  https://londonairtravel.com/ba-cabin-crew-strike/

  The London Air Travel website lists routes affected by the strikes.

• Anna says:

  5 Aug5 August 07:30

  OT – BA’s pricing system for redemptions with a connecting flight seems to defy all logic at the moment. Today it’s showing the taxes and fees for MAN-LHR-IAD in CW as £1100 per person if you want a stopover on the outbound route. It’s also making it very difficult to find availability with connections as unless you book the flights separately (incurring extra avios & charges and also having to collect your bags between flights), it will only show availability in CE for the connecting flight, regardless of availability in WT or in CW on the long-haul sector. So if there are only 2 CE seats available on the connecting flight, it will only show this, even though there may be 4 CW seats available on the long-haul. There’s no option to book WT on the connection, unless you book it separately.

  • Mike says:

    5 Aug5 August 08:00

    When you click through to the next page of the booking process it will show the correct amount of tax – it’s being doing this for sometime and has been discussed on FT.

  • Alan says:

    5 Aug5 August 08:33

    Probably need to call them to sort – no issue having mixed class for the redemption like that but website doesn’t always play ball.

  • JamesB says:

    5 Aug5 August 09:50

    Anna, It’s not clear to me if you are aware that you can generate your connection by opting for a stopover and entering the same date for for both your domestic flight and your flight from London? If you do this it will show you all the flights on a given date and will let you select whatever flight and class you want for the domestic sector independently of flight and class for the longhaul sector. Having done so, proceeding to the next page should calculate pricing properly as Mike states. Sorry if I’m restating something obvious for you. Are you still seeing those crazy differences in price depending on departure airport you reported a few days ago? I assumed you had resolved that by booking via avios.

    • Liz says:

      5 Aug5 August 10:05

      James, I didn’t know this – we paid more taxes for the EDI-LHR-EDI part of our Oz trip because it booked us in to business automatically when I would be happy to be up the back in economy on the domestic leg for less taxes. Will bear this in mind when booking the next long haul flight. Still learning something every day!

      • JamesB says:

        5 Aug5 August 10:30

        I didn’t think that there was much difference in tax tbh, I must pay more attention to this in future thanks. Also, need to take care to look out for pricing differences reported by Anna. Be aware that if you are creating your itinerary using a same day stopover it will not ticket if the connection time is too tight, IIRC T5 domestic – T5 international needs to be 90 minutes. There was a time when those in the know used to exploit this for same day returns to London for the price of a single!

    • Anna says:

      5 Aug5 August 11:41

      Thanks James – it’s going to be on a 2 4 1 so needs to be via BA.com, unfortunately. I’ve been booking connecting flights with an overnight stop at Heathrow for years now, but when I priced it up this morning, selecting the MAN-LHR leg separately was making the prices go crazy (extra cash and extra avios) – and this was going through to the payment page as well. Fortunately I have a couple more weeks before T-355 for my dates so will keep testing the system to see if it rights itself in the meantime, otherwise, yes, I’ll have to pick up the phone!

• Polly says:

  5 Aug5 August 07:36

  If we didn’t collect avios, that flight pass would be gold dust for me and my OH back and forth to DUB. Plus you can include a second person.. ESP the 4 hr option which allows you to change date/ time for a few £ more. Used to have the old BMI one years ago. It was so flexible. I did look at a DUB one on BA a few yrs back but it was impossible to understand it. Think they have tweeked it better now. Imagine if you are commuting weekly back and forth between Lon and DUB, lots do. Very useful tool.
  Plus you would be at 440 TPs with all those flights very useful target towards silver, presuming you didn’t have a QR EX EU sale J tkt booked to Asia anyway. That’s if they did give you 20 TPs per sector.

  • JamesB says:

    5 Aug5 August 09:54

    It might be a good idea if folks like yourselves and Harry sent BAEC an email suggesting the possibility of making and surpass available as an avios redemption option.

    • Polly says:

      5 Aug5 August 17:17

      JamesB, that’s genius! What a great idea. Just checking the dates here, and it only covers Nov to Feb. But still very useful for our family. Wonder if it’s a possibility at all? Have already shared it with some friends who might avail of dub and gla. Rob, anynthoughtnon who we might approach?

• Chris says:

  5 Aug5 August 07:36

  Can someone please tell me how the BA crew on strike are surviving without months of salary? They’re demonstrating for more money but appears they can live on well…fresh air?!

  • Rob says:

    5 Aug5 August 07:52

    They £60 per day strike pay, not taxable, from Unite. Stripping out travel costs etc, it seems some are better off.

    • Chris says:

      5 Aug5 August 07:59

      Thanks for confirming Rob. Is there a website keeping track of cancellations does anyone know? Travelling on a really special holiday with parents in Sept and getting slightly nervous.

      • the real harry1 says:

        5 Aug5 August 08:10

        FT BA freds are covering cancellations day by day

      • Rob says:

        5 Aug5 August 11:20

        3 cancellations a day apparently. Wouldn’t get too worried.

        However …. crew are restricted to 100 rostered hours (not flight time) per month and 900 per year. Those at work are doing longer hours and, the longer it goes on, the more will hit 900 and must be stood down.

        • HAM76 says:

          5 Aug5 August 22:59

          You are not saying that crew is working only 900 hours per year for their salary, aren’t you?

        • CV3V says:

          6 Aug6 August 20:37

          Don’t know the union rules now, but in the old days there was a rule that if BA called a member of crew on a rest day then you could insist they reset your rest days back to day 1. Remember a friend advising someone from BA rostering about this, they hung up as fast as they could!

      • Anna says:

        5 Aug5 August 13:02

        https://londonairtravel.com/ba-cabin-crew-strike/

        Gets updated daily.

  • The Original Nick says:

    5 Aug5 August 14:50

    Strike money. Members pay a weekly/monthly sub to their representative (Unite) to cover these issues when they arise. Also covers for industrial accidents etc etc.

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