How I claimed my €250 EU261 compensation from British Airways

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

• Dan says:

  17 Feb17 February 09:16

  Anyone know how and if you can claim flight delays on Easyjet?

  I was flying from Luton to Madrid last summer and they shut down the airspace around Madrid airport because Obama was on leaving as part of his farewell tour.

  Had to be diverted to Valencia for refuelling before arriving in Madrid some few hours later. Not sure if that counts.

• steve says:

  17 Feb17 February 09:33

  ” as long as the flight begins or ends in the EU:”

  That’s incorrect, it should be a long as the flight begins in the EU and is operated by anyone, or it ends in the EU and is operated by an EU carrier.

  A delta flight landing in LHR wouldn’t count as its not an EU carrier.

  • Stuart says:

    17 Feb17 February 09:42

    Spooky that we both even picked the same example…

• Stuart says:

  17 Feb17 February 09:41

  “Under EU law you can claim compensation for flights that are more than 3 hours delayed as long as the flight begins or ends in the EU:”

  That’s overly simplistic to the point of being wrong.

  The regulations apply to all flights departing the EU, the European Economic Area (Norway, Iceland. Litchtenstein). plus Switzerland; and to journeys on EU carriers to these parts of Europe.

  As an example, flying Delta (non EU carrier) JFK – LHR would not be covered under EC261 but your article implies that it would be.

• Stuart says:

  17 Feb17 February 09:44

  Last month in Helsinki, flying to Singapore. 20 Hour delay owing to crew sickness, 30 minutes before boarding.
  Finnair refusing to pay under “Extraordinary Circumstances”.
  Is this considered extraordinary given that Helsinki is their base?

  • Stuart says:

    17 Feb17 February 09:55

    Smith & Collinsion-v-British Airways, Staines County Court (April 2015)

    District Judge Beck held that
    a) flight-crew sickness is inherent to the business of an airline therefore outside the ambit of the Article 5(3) Extraordinary Circumstances Defence and
    b) furthermore that even if it did fall within the ambit of Extraordinary Circumstances, the Defence could not be allowed to stand because British Airways had not proved that the ‘delay could not be avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken’.

    Stuart (but not the same one as above)

  • Rod says:

    17 Feb17 February 09:57

    no they should have spare crew nearby to minimize such a delay

• JFSV says:

  17 Feb17 February 09:59

  I have sought compensation recently re a very similar experience. However, I did it over the phone and found it very easy. In fact, it was immediately arranged.

• Graham Walsh says:

  17 Feb17 February 10:10

  I was in AMS last week with a 5 hour delay Easyjet refused my claim saying act of nature. 1cm of snow caused de icing issues. They also had no crew as hours ran out. Had to get another crew in from Gatwick.

  • Lady London says:

    17 Feb17 February 16:25

    I’m pretty sure de-icing issues have been thrown out of court and not accepted as a reason for denying EU261 recently.

    Apparently the need to de-ice is accepted as a predictable need during winter 🙂
    Makes sense to me.

    Crew hours running out has also been rejected unless the underlying incident is has been accepted as one that was impossible to predict.

    Sorry I don’t have the case references you could try googling. Then do a moneyclaim.gov.uk anyway.

• David says:

  17 Feb17 February 11:07

  “although not quite as easy as it could be”
  are the words which explain the problem.
  It’s still like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas making it easier to provide compensation or refunds. Only compulsion from a higher statutory authority can remedy.

• Gavin says:

  17 Feb17 February 11:14

  O/T – Mrs Gavin needs to get a travelcard season ticket from Reading to Moorgate (approx. 5k annual) starting on Monday. She was going to get just a monthly ticket for the first month, before getting a longer length ticket to take the end of the calendar year.

  The plan is to use the next month getting the necessary cards to maximise points. I already have a Gold card, and have recently churned BA so no signup bonuses there. Will she be able to apply for a Gold / BA card herself if she is referred? She doesn’t have much of a credit rating in this country, and this will be her first job in the UK. My thought was to get the signup bonus on the SPG Card, and then put the rest on my Lloyds Amex to trigger the voucher (I’m about half way there already). Can anyone better this? I hope if we pick a quiet time at the ticket office they will be amenable to splitting the payment.

  I also wondered if we are better off buying an annual season ticket now (as this is about the same cost as 10 months of tickets up until Christmas), and then cancelling before Christmas to get a refund, and then buying a new annual season ticket a few days later to lock in before the annual price rise. This would mean forgoing any signup bonuses however bar getting the Lloyds voucher.

  I should also add that these are effectively ‘free’ points as her company ‘grosses up’ the commuting cost through the payroll and pays her the net cost of the season ticket .

  • mark2 says:

    17 Feb17 February 11:38

    Advice from my commuting Swindon/Reading and Swindon/Paddington.
    1) but a ticket for five weeks rather than a month so that you miss out an extra weekend. You can buy any length ticket over a month. It used to buy five/six/eight week tickets and avoided paying for holidays, Easter etc. (This is not so important if she can reclaim the fares).
    2) I did not know how long I was going to be working at a particular place and when I changed from Reading to London I got my fingers burned. I had some time left on my Reading season ticket so cancelled it and bought one to London. BUT you do not get a pro rata refund as per American Express. They use a complicated formula based on how much it would have cost you to buy tickets for the time that you were able to travel. This can be a lot less than pro rata; I got virtually nothing back and should have bought an addition ticket from Reading to Paddington.

  • Fenny says:

    17 Feb17 February 13:13

    Don’t forget the article Rob ran a couple of weeks ago about ticket splitting and how this can be used with season tickets. Although if the company are paying and you want to maximise CC points, you may not be bothered.

  • Sundar says:

    17 Feb17 February 14:03

    Gavin,
    I would suggest an Annual Gold Card as the benefits of discounts that you get with a Gold card on the Rail network(2 for 1 ticket, Other rail ticket discounts). You could put it on any Amex(or Split based on annual spend criteria or sign-up bonus) and then if you need to cancel a part of it owing to “Job Location changes”, you could ask for a refund to be sent to your home ? They will calculate based on no of months/weeks/days used and then refund the difference minus a processing fee(if I remember it).
    I am in Reading too, so care to meet for a drink sometime and discuss more strategies ?

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