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When another British Airways ex-Europe trip goes wrong ….

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Last weekend I ran two stories by Head for Points readers (here and here) who had booked British Airways long-haul flights starting elsewhere in Europe.  This saved them huge amounts of money, but for one reader it had not been entirely trouble free.

Some readers commented that the ‘trip which went wrong’ did not go badly wrong.  It was, after all, only the last leg back to Dublin which was a problem.

Reader Anto sent me his own story of a British Airways ex-Europe trip which went wrong.  This was potentially a far more messy situation, albeit that the problem was one of his own making!

British Airways 350 2

As Anto explained:

“A few weeks ago, I was travelling to Phoenix, AZ to visit my sister for her graduation. When booking the tickets, I found to no surprise that it was significantly cheaper to fly ex-EU than ex-UK.  As I was going to be playing gigs in Chester and Manchester either end of the trip, it made sense to fly out of Dublin and back into Manchester via Heathrow each way.

The (economy) flights were ticketed through American Airlines.  However, all of the flights were on British Airways planes except for one leg on US Airways (Phoenix to Newark) on the return journey. As I was only travelling with carry-on luggage, I booked myself a little £25 Ryanair flight from Manchester to Dublin to connect to the British Airways flight from Dublin I had booked.

Unfortunately, things got a little ‘messy’ after the gig in Chester, and I missed the flight to Dublin. Oops.

In the back of a cab racing me to Manchester airport three hours after I should have been there, I frantically searched for last minute flights to Dublin so I could make the connection. There were none. On arrival at Manchester, I ran to the American Airlines ticket desk and explained my predicament.

The AA staff were very sympathetic, and spent about forty minutes trying on their systems to somehow reticket me on a flight I could actually catch. This included phoning their call centre in the USA, who explained that because the ticket was originally booked in euros (being ex-EU), it simply wasn’t possible to reticket in sterling. All this time, I was watching the clock, aware that as soon as the gate for my flight from Dublin to London closed, the rest of my ticket would die. Not good.

After the American Airlines ticket desk admitted defeat, they suggested that I try the British Airways ticket desk a few feet away. The staff there were quite busy but, after I explained the situation to them, set about industriously poking at keyboards and picking up telephones. I detected a definite professional rivalry on the part of the BA staff (“Well, if it’s an American ticket, why can’t they just… *rolls eyes* anyway, let’s see what we can do…”), which I’m pretty sure worked to my advantage.

After twenty minutes or so of button bashing, the member of staff helping me managed to find a way to put me on the next Manchester to Heathrow flight, in time for my onward journey to Phoenix, albeit at a further cost of £200 (economy). At this point, as you may imagine, I was quite happy to pay.

I’m not sure of exactly what mechanism they used to swap out the Dublin to Heathrow sector of my ticket for this new one.  She assured me that it was quite unusual and that I should check at every airport I visited, on departure *and arrival* that I would be able to check in for the next leg of the journey.  This did not help my nerves much at all.

As it transpired, the ticket was just fine, and the rest of the trip went very smoothly; I even managed to grab a shower in the Galleries lounge in Terminal 5 thank to my airberlin Gold card, gained via a status match from Aegean!

The moral of the story is: don’t miss the first flight of your multi-leg ex-EU trip. I definitely got lucky – this story could have had a much, much sadder ending.”

Thanks Anto.  I think you were very lucky to get away with this one, to be honest!

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (56)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Stu says:
    6 Jun6 June 06:48

    Surely the real moral of this story is “don’t go out and get p****d the night before any flight”, and you’ll get to the airport on time! 😉

    • Ralph says:
      6 Jun6 June 07:30

      +1

    • TJ says:
      6 Jun6 June 11:22

      -1 again, you get yourself to the airport that night, whilst mullered, stay at one of the many on-site hotels and buy yourself an hour on the right side of (minimal) sleep!

      • JQ says:
        7 Jun7 June 06:58

        Not sure about that, if you can wake up to get on your flight, you can wake up to get yourself to the airport (unless it’s a 7am flight of course)

  • Ts77 says:
    6 Jun6 June 07:41

    What would be interesting to know (as this was an economy ticket), would be, how much of a saving over starting in London after paying the £200 ticket from Manchester to London?

    • Jason says:
      6 Jun6 June 07:46

      Probably 4 figures I imagine 🙂

    • Antonio says:
      6 Jun6 June 08:21

      Even after buying the extra ticket, it still worked out about £300 cheaper than booking the same journey out of London instead :S

    • Jason says:
      6 Jun6 June 08:35

      Missed the economy part 🙁

  • mikeact says:
    6 Jun6 June 08:10

    I’m still waiting to hear of a trip that went really,really wrong.This one was nothing really.

    • Rob says:
      6 Jun6 June 08:14

      They don’t really go wrong, not really!

      • Charlie says:
        6 Jun6 June 08:22

        Have there been cases of miles/tier points not being awarded for taking the final leg?

        • Rob says:
          6 Jun6 June 14:28

          Yes, I’m pretty sure (although my memory is hazy) that it happened to me personally once. If you are checked in there is always a chance you get them.

      • Waribai says:
        6 Jun6 June 09:29

        But surely as he says, once the Dublin-London flight had closed, his ticket would’ve died. No?

      • James67 says:
        6 Jun6 June 21:52

        My upcoming Etihad experiment is going really wrong for sure 🙁

    • Worzel says:
      6 Jun6 June 08:15

      🙂 .

    • Tom C says:
      6 Jun6 June 08:33

      Wait until I take mine. I’ll manage to screw it up somehow.

  • Leo says:
    6 Jun6 June 08:45

    Hmmmm. Point has been made already but this isn’t what I’d call “going wrong”. More of a “bloke gets p***ed and then gets really lucky” Story. I couldn’t have managed to do any of the ticket change with a hangover….I wouldn’t have got to MAN in the first place tbh.

    • Worzel says:
      6 Jun6 June 08:52

      Leo: ‘ I couldn’t have managed to do any of the ticket change with a hangover….I wouldn’t have got to MAN in the first place tbh ‘ .

      I suspect that Anto was at the pre-hangover stage?

      Certainly, there appears to be an appetite here for stories where things went seriously, badly, wrong.
      🙂 .

      • Jason says:
        6 Jun6 June 08:57

        I’m sure most of us have all missed a flight at some stage, it’s just we hope it doesn’t cost us too much to correct it. 🙂

        • Ralph says:
          6 Jun6 June 09:40

          Many, many years ago I missed one leg (the first leg) of a ten leg AA internal trip in the USA by choosing to drive Palm Springs to LAX, I had no idea then that the journey would be cancelled down. Anyway, still with no idea, I checked in for each subsequent leg and was given a boarding pass…that is until I can’t to check in at Mia for my flight home! The flight was full and there was no seat on the plane for me as my ticket ‘cancelled’ when I missed the first leg. It turns out that since there was capacity on each flight up until Mia, each agent ticketed me. Presenting a front of being understanding and seeking a sympathy vote I eventually found find myself upgraded to my first ever F flight! From economy 🙂 lesson learned though.

  • Dan says:
    6 Jun6 June 10:17

    Aww, poor baby’s tax avoidance scheme didn’t work out

    • RIccati says:
      6 Jun6 June 11:44

      Except for that a unilateral Air Passenger Duty charge is a nonsense. Literally, a tax on the air consumed.

  • exEUjunkie says:
    6 Jun6 June 11:42

    original itinerary
    AMS-LCY-JFK-PHX-HNL-PHX-JFK-LCY-AMS
    all going well until return at PHX when flight to JFK cancelled, fortunately noticed immediately and were first in queue to be re routed by the US agents. Ended up PHX-LAS-LHR-AMS. Negative – loss of tier points , positive – AA’s 777-300

  • Peter Taysum says:
    6 Jun6 June 11:47

    I’m glad to hear they don’t really go wrong. I’ve booked DUB to HNL.

    I’ve positioned from LHR to DUB on Club Europe via Avios overnight in Dublin.

    Then DUB to LCY to Shannon to JFK to PHX to HNL Business and First (overnight New York!)

    Back HNL to LAX to JFK to ZUR to LCY to DUB (overnight New York again!)

    Then Club Europe DUB to LHR and *shudders* DOMESTIC to NCL.

    Thanks to Rob’s advice about Maderia I’m just peeling from my holiday there (180 Tier points for 200 quid and 10000 Avios) so with my work flights Hello Gold when I get back

    I shall not raid the mini bar in any off my overnights, and will TRY to behave in the Big Apple!

    Aside. I’m now 5 tier points off Bronze. Is is worth doing something before I fly the above for status bonus on the outbound for Avios. Will my status go up to Silver before my return?

    PS I’ve never had ANY status so thanks to Rob and many of you I’m OVER THE MOON,

    Thank you,

    • Rob says:
      6 Jun6 June 14:25

      You would get the Bronze member bonus (25%) but this is not worth the trouble and expense of taking a flight purely to earn 5 tier points.

      Your Silver status should flip over within 2-3 hours of taking the flight which gets you over 600 tier points so it should be good for your return leg.

  • TERRI says:
    6 Jun6 June 12:16

    My AA business class ex EU trip from Dublin to Orlando with a night in Miami enroute went abit awry. Luckily I was travelling with hand luggage only which gave me added flexibility. Plus I have learned a lot reading this site about rerouting to reach your destination.

    Flew out of LHR at 7am on separate BA ticket to Dublin – arrived on time in Dublin to discover the AA 10am Dub-Ord, my first Eu leg, was cancelled and I was rerouted back to LHR to catch the 1pm Miami flight. The DUB-LHR plane had a technical fault and arrived 3 hours late, so I missed the Miami flight. T5 transfers queue was horrendous due to French ATC strike. After 90 mins waiting only flight with seats across Atlantic was BA 9pm to JFK. A hotel room in JFK was promised so I took the flight. The 9pm flight left 90 mins late.

    Arriving in JFK nearly 24 hours from first flight to Dublin, discover weather issues there have filled all local hotels and BA had not reserved me a room as promised. Further five hour wait at JFK and managed to get on first AA flight at 7am to Orlando without going to Miami. Arrived in Orlando very frazzled, actually 2 hours ahead of schedule due to losing my overnight stay in Miami!!!

    Plus side was I got EU comp from AA for the cancelled Dub-Ord flight and from BA for the technical delay which prevented me getting to Miami. It would have been nice not to have endured this very stressful day with no sleep for 36 hours but things can go wrong when travelling.

    I have since been back to Florida ex Stockholm without a glitch. I have upcoming trips to Orlando and Peurto Rico from Dublin so keeping my fingers crossed all goes well.

    • Lady London says:
      6 Jun6 June 14:56

      that’s what I call a trip going really wrong. Luckily it was one where you were protected and it wasn’t a case of missing your outward leg with no protection.

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