British Airways responds to my question on 2-4-1 downgrade compensation

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• Andi Hawes says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:29

  This concerns me as i have 2x241s ready to go, should i find 4 seats somewhere, so im ripe for 2 being down graded seeing as i’ll be flying in or near school holidays

  • Mark says:

    3 Mar3 March 09:20

    Less likely to be downgraded from First or Club during school holidays due to fewer people flying on business and hence paying full cash fares.

    School holidays are peak from a redemption perspective only because redemptions are more popular at that time, i.e. because BA chooses to make them more expensive to manage demand vs supply rather than release more seats for redemptions.

• Jan says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:31

  BA have a rewards scheme, and supposedly want to reward loyal customers with for example a 2-4-1 voucher, only to then prioritise those for downgrades?
  That makes no sense at all. On the contrary?
  Personally I like to fly BA because of the service it offers. Or should that be “used to offer”?
  I read this article whilst overseas on a 2-4-1 and when it came to check-in time to go home, I must admit I was wondering if anything would happen! (It didn’t, thankfully – that would have just spoilt an otherwise great holiday)
  The only thing that BA doing this would achieve (for me anyways) is that I will prioritise flying other airlines and take out different credit cards.
  Perhaps this marks the beginning of a sad end to all the great things we’ve come to expect from BA.

• s K says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:33

  Hi

  Getting redemption tickets on the routes you want. I wanted on in Jan 2018 and in last week they had all gone………

  • Genghis says:

    3 Mar3 March 08:59

    Where were you wanting to go? For popular routes you have to get the tickets at t-355, like me for South Africa recently.

• NFH says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:45

  The T&Cs of the companion voucher state the following:

  18. The Cardmember and their Companions must travel together at all times therefore must be booked onto the same flight and cabin class when travelling using a Companion Voucher.

  Nothing in the T&Cs makes this term any less binding upon BA as it is upon the Executive Club member. The T&Cs entitle the two passengers to travel in the same cabin; it is a benefit as well as an obligation. Therefore BA are in breach of contract if they split two passengers on a 2-4-1 booking into separate cabins. One could therefore claim for a new Companion Voucher to be issued as damages in respect of this breach of contract, which would be in addition to the EU 261/2004 claim.

  • John says:

    3 Mar3 March 09:34

    I wouldn’t argue that at the time as they might downgrade both of you then!

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

      3 Mar3 March 12:33

      I’d argue it with Amex. They are jointly and severally liable for the voucher and I don’t believe it would affect the EU261 claim.

    • NFH says:

      3 Mar3 March 14:45

      The point here, is that if BA have a contractual obligation to keep the two passengers together, and they need to downgrade only one passenger from the cabin, then they should prefer to pick someone else, i.e. a solitary passenger. When BA realise that it’s going to cost them more to downgrade anyone using a Companion Voucher than a solitary passenger, they will change their approach with the result that 2-4-1 passengers should become BA’s last choice for downgrades.

• Daz says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:46

  I’ve just booked Denver for next year with a 2-4-1 so will be keeping an eye on this.

  I do really miss my Cathay Gold card, they want £600 for booking my seats! I really can’t understand why anyone would pay to fly on these muppets, never have, never will.

  • xcalx says:

    3 Mar3 March 12:35

    “I do really miss my Cathay Gold card, they want £600 for booking my seats!”

    Plus 1 I managed to use the Cathay Gold card to get a status match to Qantas Gold then used that to get Air Berlin Gold, Sadly that expired on the 28th of Feb this year, to AB’s credit I got a soft landing to Silver which I think still gives a free bag when travelling on AA as a OW Ruby.

• Elsem says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:47

  When people are downgraded, do they get the option of flying on the next flight? I am NOT prepared to fly 12 hours in economy, which I why I always book business class. I have only recently switched to BA and have booked but not yet flown my first 241 long haul flight.

• Will says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:58

  People keep saying they will not fly with BA anymore and go elsewhere. Where are people going, noone ever says. Genuine question, who has the best loyalty scheme and service?

  • Daz says:

    3 Mar3 March 09:37

    Because I tend to fly eastwards, I will use 3ME carriers, Cathay if a deal is on; all are not a little better, but massivly better by a long way in terms of service and quality.

    I don’t really fly West, but if I didn’t have avios I wouldn’t be picking BA. If Amex had 241 credit card offers with another airline I would jump ship.

  • Cate says:

    3 Mar3 March 10:03

    We’ve moved over to Norwegian after a trial flight in January and they’re now our go to airline.

    The aircraft was clean, staff attentive and smartly dressed, BoB was perfectly adequate for short haul and reasonably priced. We purchased three exit seats for two people so had the same set up as biz on BA.

    Downside they had no business product however we purchased Priority passes for lounge access (denied because of BA electric problems at new Gatwick south terminal!). Also we didn’t land at a major hub.

    However with the money saved from not doing biz in BA we had a very nice chauffeured C-class merc waiting for us at the airport which IMHO far outweighed the lack of a major hub landing.

    Just to get the message home I paid for the Norwegian flights on my BAPP.

    • Simmo says:

      3 Mar3 March 10:57

      HA nice move paying for the Norweigen flights on the BAPP!

      I’ve always wondered if this type of thing is monitored, I imagine its a missed opportunity if it wasn’t!
      I like to use my Tesco CC in Asda also! haha

  • Ro says:

    3 Mar3 March 17:55

    I find qatar are great for going east. Tons of sales and an amazing business class.
    Even as a qatar silver (first tier so OW ruby) i get lounge access when i travel QR. They even greet me personally and take my meal order at the start of the flight when im in economy.
    As a gold member you get 40 qcredits upon qualifying and 30 qcredits (i think) is enough to upgrade an LHR-DOH sector from econ to business.
    Quite easy to upgrade with qmiles too (just did it online last week on my doh-lhr segment 48h before depature – only 30000 miles)

    Also collect with SQ for star alliance.
    Even with their recent devaluation this week they require less miles for redemptions and are an amex MR transfer partner so miles are easy to collect. Now they are eliminating taxes from redemptions.
    Award space is decent and didn’t have much trouble booking my first flights in singapore suites for next month (booked in novemeber).
    Now that UA is improving i will consider flying them west and even their lowest economy fares qualify for 100% mileage earning rate on SQ.
    Only downside is the 3y expiry for miles

• Dave R says:

  3 Mar3 March 09:06

  If they were clever, this would be an oppertune time for Virgin to start offering a 241/companion voucher with thier credit card.

  • the real harry1 says:

    3 Mar3 March 11:15

    Dave R says:
    3 March 2017 at 9:06 am
    ‘If they were clever, this would be an oppertune time for Virgin to start offering a 241/companion voucher with thier credit card.’

    Virgin already offer this 🙂

    • Genghis says:

      3 Mar3 March 11:25

      But not one of any real interest.

      • the real harry1 says:

        3 Mar3 March 13:41

        agreed – to get interesting it would also apply to points redemptions

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