Over half term, my brother had a terrible time flying out to New York on BA. His connection from Manchester to Heathrow was delayed due to a cancellation. Because they had booked 5 x World Traveller Plus seats, BA struggled to reseat them on a Heathrow service and they had to take a taxi to Gatwick to take their NYC flight. They arrived about five hours late.
He promptly filed a claim for his automatic compensation under EC261 for delays over three hours. To give them credit, British Airways was very efficient and within a week he had received €3,000.
Recent reports on Flyertalk suggest that BA is offering customers the option of taking Avios instead of money.
This is allowed under the EU regulations, which state:
The compensation …… shall be paid in cash, by electronic bank transfer, bank orders or bank cheques or, with the signed agreement of the passenger, in travel vouchers and/or other services.
What I don’t understand is that BA appears to be treating this as another option to leg over its passengers.
The deal being offered is €600 (c £500) or 38,000 Avios.
This is a VERY poor deal if you take the Avios. You are paying 1.33p per point.
You can often buy Avios for noticeably less than 1.33p per point via the regular special deals run by BA and avios.com! More importantly, most people would struggle to get more than 1.33p per point when redeeming – take a look at my core article on ‘What is an Avios point worth?’.
I would strongly recommend taking the money if you find yourself in this scenario. Money is more flexible than Avios and if you really need 38,000 points an offer is likely to be along soon enough to buy them for less than 1.33p anyway.
BA could do itself a favour by offering, say, €800 of travel vouchers instead of €600 in cash. This would be a more interesting alternative and would help retain a customer who (since they are making a delay claim in the first place) is probably not feeling very positive about BA currently ….
About Head for Points
I received a pay out in Avios for EU261 – but not at this rate! We got 1p/avios.
Full story: In 2014 we had a plane go tech in BLR after boarding and next flight was 24 hours later.
BA refused to pay out claiming extraordinary circumstances so I raised a MCOL and they said they would contest it in court. However a few days before the court date they offered the full £1000 (two of us travelling) but in travel vouchers with 1 year expiry. Given we wouldn’t use those I countered with 100,000 avios.
They agreed and deposited that plus court fees. Given we’d flown Club on a reward flight with a 2-4-1 I was very pleased – meant the return trip had pretty much only cost us the “taxes”!
nicely done
Good for you and credit for hanging in there.
For early EU260/2004 claims I have been offered either the correct EU compensation by funds transfer, or 25% more value in vouchers (£800 voucher against €600 cash). They don’t seem to be offering this anymore, which is a shame as the additional value was worthwhile.
Hi All,
I made a claim in 2014/2015 for flights that occurred in December 2014 direct with BA after the delayed flight; they subsequently denied the claim for myself and party of 2 others. They advised us to claim via travel insurance however we didn’t purchase any.
Upon reading all this – seeing that we have 4/5 years left of the 6 years to claim is it then worth re opening up and making a small claims court or this MCOL?
All opinions greatly appreciated 🙂
Thanks!!
If it is a clear cut EU261 claim then I’d personally have no qualms about going down the MCOL route.
Hi Alan,
Thanks for your response. Yes, delayed flights and baggage – with missing items. BA was contacted immediately even their reps in the city of arrival only to give us the blurb of the claim didn’t reach them within seven days – however under the Montreal Convention even after receiving said delayed baggage one has up to 21 days to to report missing contents.
Thanks again!
Hi
Hoping someone here may have some insight into my experiences with BA on a delayed flight in September.
I was booked on a Baltiimore BWI to London Heathrow flight (BA 0228) on 6th September 2016. I arrived in plenty of time to check in my bag with my pre-printed boarding pass but was told by BA check in they were having a small technical issue and everybody would have to wait. Very little updates from BA but after a couple of hours waiting in line it was confirmed that there were problems with the BA computers and if necessary BA would switch to manual check in. (Around this time I discovered I was one of only a handful of passengers who had managed to check in and print my pass, not that it seemed to help me at all)
Finally we did go manual which was sloooow and the flight due to depart at 21.50 left around 1.00 am. And almost worse still was that the flight was full and the inflight entertainment was not working.
We then landed at Heathrow at 13.57 (by BA’s own flight checker) delayed from 9.55am. So just over the magic 4 hours by my calculation. I thought raising an immediate complaint via the BA website ought to be relatively clear cut. Over 3 weeks later I received a response from BA that they were sorry to hear about the delay and (non) entertainment system but:
“Your claim’s been refused because BA0228 on 06 September was delayed because of airspace restrictions being in place that operational circumstances outside of our control. We always concern about our passengers’ safety. Under EU legislation, I’m afraid we’re not liable for a compensation payment in this situation.
We take all reasonable measures to avoid delaying a flight and we always consider if there are any operational options available before we make a decision. We’re very sorry the delay was necessary in this case.” And that they have instead credited by BA account with 3,000 Avios.
I’m very surprised to hear about the “airspace restrictions” as this was never mentioned by check in staff or the pilot/staff when apologising for the delays. Of course upon returning to London I discover on the news that ‘IT glitches’ have caused chaos with BA check in and flights, worldwide.
So my question is, am I being naive in even wondering if BA could be telling porkies about the airspace restrictions? Or if there were some sort of airspace restrictions they don’t change the fact that the BA IT glitch was the primary cause. Should I persist with BA or consider the small claims route?
Any pointers or similar experiences gratefully received. Apologies for the long rambly post but I noted elsewhere that a poster was asked for fuller details.
Thanks
Hi Joseph,
Sounds to me they’re def telling porkies!! I would file an MCOL in this instance under EC261 as they will now have to justify their petty response in court.
Good luck!!
+1 you’ll get your compo but need to press it
don’t fall at the first (spurious) hurdle