Bits: the facts on EC261 when downgraded, Etihad sale, good Miles & More hotel offer

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• Peter Taysum says:

  20 Jan20 January 07:35

  For uua I guess you’d just get the Avios back?

  • Mark says:

    20 Jan20 January 09:58

    Assuming the flight is over 3500km that ruling indicates you’d actually be entitled to 75% of everything (less any fixed charges and fees) back, or if downgraded on one leg of a straight return 37.5% of the return, including:
    *The Avios paid for the upgrade
    *The non-taxes and fees cash fare pad for the class upgraded from
    *The ‘carrier imposed charges’ (i.e. fuel surcharge) which varies by class
    That means you’d be entitled to get less Avios back (only 75% of what you paid), but you’d almost certainly be more than compensated for that in the cash refund. Given you may well not have chosen to fly with BA in the base class had the UuA not been available I’d expect more than just a refund of the difference, which is presumably what the legislation seeks to recognise, though I’m sure there are instances where it would not achieve that on a very high business class cash fare for example.

  • Mark says:

    20 Jan20 January 10:37

    For a scenario where a Lloyds upgrade voucher has been used on a redemption ticket, I would therefore expect 75% of the following for the sector:
    *The Avios paid for the base class
    *The ‘carrier imposed charges’ (i.e. fuel surcharge) which varies by class
    *The ‘value’ of the upgrade voucher

    Taking a WT+ to CW upgrade to New York, off peak which is downgraded one way back to WT+ as example that would be a return of:
    *19.5K avios (of the 52K avios paid for the return)
    *£79.48 (of the £289 carrier imposed charges)
    *Undefined but I’d suggest reasonable for it to be based on the avios saved, which would be 18K avios (of the 48K avios saved for the return)

    Based on that premise and scenario a total refund of 37.5K avios and £79.48. Probably considerably more than BA would offer up-front….

    If the same argument were successfully applied to a 2for1 voucher (including the value of the voucher = avios saved) the result would be the same for each person.

• Alan says:

  20 Jan20 January 07:50

  OT – Android Pay and Uber seem to have enough revived the previous promo that they mentioned (just before Christmas) but then withdrew. Unfortunately this means it is now for a much shorter time period! For your next 10 journeys via Uber, if using Android Pay you’ll receive 50% off, up to a maximum of £5 per ride. Only stated requirement is to use the latest version of the Uber app.

• Grant says:

  20 Jan20 January 08:10

  Thank you very much Rob for the information about Downgrades.

  I for one would welcome an ‘idiot’s guide to what your rights are if downgraded’. Specifically, can you refuse the downgrade and demand to be put on the next flight (or even with another carrier) in the original booking class, and if that means you are late to your destination whether that means any compensation/duty of care is due.

  Plus, what the rights are if downgraded on an Avios booking, including the 2-for-1 issue.

  Also, if your flight is cancelled and they tell you you need to be downgraded to go on the next flight, can you refuse and, if you do, are you entitled to compensation if the delay is significant enough?

  • Andrew* says:

    20 Jan20 January 09:05

    +1: I’d like to see that too; I was interested in how Rob went from 3 downgrades and 1 offload (of his infant!) to getting back into CW…

    Good negotiation skills or knowing your rights?

    • Rob says:

      20 Jan20 January 09:08

      I refused to sign the waiver disclaiming all liability against BA in return for getting the hotel voucher. They were stuck then and had little choice but to board us.

      BA was screwed anyway at that point once they realised they’d booked a 2-year old into a hotel on its own.

      Note that we these were cash tickets (for once) and my wife and I were both Silver at the time.

      • Aeronaut says:

        20 Jan20 January 11:51

        I’m slightly bemused as to how their system even allowed the situation with your then 2 year old to arise.

        • Rob says:

          20 Jan20 January 12:06

          He wasn’t actually two – he was just a week short of being two. We had bought him a cash ticket, however, because you don’t carry a 103 week old kid on your lap for 7 hours. Because he was under 2 it was assumed he was a lap infant so he was not allocated a seat when the rest of us were downgraded. He was then automatically offloaded.

          What would have been interesting would have been the compensation situation if we had agreed to take him as a lap infant, since he would a) have been offloaded and b) still travelled!

        • zsalya says:

          20 Jan20 January 18:49

          103 week ?

        • Rob says:

          20 Jan20 January 19:30

          Oh yeah!

    • Mike says:

      20 Jan20 January 09:32

      Both probably and I agree an article on this subject would be appreciated. No doubt it would generate some healthy debate

• Gin and Tonic Please says:

  20 Jan20 January 08:17

  OT – Amazon are doing a £10 off £50+ spend today only. Promo code is BIGTHANKS and he details are on their home page. Main thing is the products need to be sold by Amazon. Don’t think it’ll stack with the Amex MR offer (as it’s two promo codes) and can’t test it myself as I’ve already used the latter. Happy shopping, everyone!

  • Charlie says:

    20 Jan20 January 09:09

    Fortunately for me I had not used the AMEX MR offer yet, I confirm they do stack.

    • Polly says:

      20 Jan20 January 10:40

      Same here, which offer do you access first to get them to stack? Tnx p

      • Charlie says:

        20 Jan20 January 10:54

        I entered the BIGTHANKS offer first, I saw £10 discount applied.

        I then remembered about the £15 offer and saw that my AMEX card was already linked and the ‘use Membership Reward’ was visible, so I then entered £0.01 there, and entered a 2nd discount code AMEX16SWP.

        The total discount was then updated to £25.

        This was for an item costing £70, so reduced down to £45.

• Steve says:

  20 Jan20 January 09:11

  Virgin have also been doing sub £300 fares from London, bagged me a break in March for £298 each.

• darren says:

  20 Jan20 January 10:39

  A decent business price to DXB would be nice, when was the last BA luxury sale?

• James says:

  20 Jan20 January 12:48

  Does this mean we can expect a longer wait for a harder Etihad sale?
  The Qatar one came just a little too early for me this time, plus I want to try Etihad.. perhaps to Perth. But I’ve seen etihad to Perth for 2k in the not so distant past, so 2.5k is a little too much. I know mayalsia are doing 1500… but I’d be prepared to fork out the extra 500 to fly etihad

  • Rob says:

    20 Jan20 January 13:14

    I wouldn’t personally pay over £2000 for Australasia if I was flexible on dates and carrier. More deals will be along soon I’m sure although Qatar didn’t on the Travel Festival rates last year.

• the_real_a says:

  20 Jan20 January 15:38

  How does the APD work if you are downgraded as follows?

  Ticket is LHR to AMS to BKK (All in Business)
  But you are downgraded LHR (economy) to AMS to BKK (Business)

  Do you pay UK passenger duty as an economy or business rate?

  • the real harry1 says:

    20 Jan20 January 19:06

    good question – obviously you should get some money back

    O/T bit chipper as just did another Ukraine booking saving £5, you have to fiddle around a bit but not difficult 🙂

    plus actually got my wife to organise summer flights about 3 months earlier than last year!

    #2 OUT to our place in the sun was under £90 HBO (no redemptions available) on 25th August (Friday) – mustn’t grumble lol

    • Genghis says:

      20 Jan20 January 19:13

      The mouse slips every time doesn’t it?
      Just completed mattress run 1/2 for Accelerate. Even though I’m ‘doubling up’, can’t decide if it’s worth the chew on

  • Mark says:

    20 Jan20 January 19:36

    Interesting…. I’d always assumed that APD on premium economy tickets was charged at economy rates. It isn’t – it’s charged at the business rate, or at least that’s how BA is charging it on a dummy booking.

    That aside, in your example you should at least be refunded the difference. After all you traveled in economy, the airline would presumably report it as such and pay the tax at that rate so it’s entirely reasonable that they pass it onto the customer at that rate. The judgment on the 2016 case, so far as I can work out, appears to imply that as it is not a charge levied by the airline but an associated cost “that is not an intrinsic part of that flight” that’s all you could expect back on the APD, not 75% of the business rate.

    • Rob says:

      20 Jan20 January 20:57

      There are only 2 APD rates – economy and everything else.

    • Alan says:

      21 Jan21 January 09:51

      You’re not allowed to split APD per flight like that – it’s your final destination and if any of it is in anything other than economy that counts (see my fuller post below for more details)

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