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

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• mark2 says:

  3 Mar3 March 13:36

  It is ironic that so many people say that they will never fly on BA again, but BA can still overbook.

• Kinkell says:

  3 Mar3 March 14:36

  BA do have an overbooking policy, and details of the compensation schemes are available, but you have to ask them for it…….at checkin, according to the blurb at the very bottom of the MMB page.
  What the paragraph does say
  Whist we make every effort to provide seats for which confirmed reservations have been made, there is a slight chance that a seat will not be available on a flight for which a person has a confirmed reservation, and no absolute guarantee of seat availability is denoted by the expressions reservations, bookings, status OK and the timings attached to them. British Airways operates a compensation scheme for passengers with confirmed reservations who are denied carriage without reasonable grounds.

  So for previous posters commenting that BA are breaking their contract because the pax seat/ booking, whatever, is ‘confirmed .’… BA ‘s dictionary has a different definition to mine and others!
  Well, I’ll just have to wait and see whether I can proceed with on line checkin on 22 April.

• Danl69 says:

  3 Mar3 March 14:50

  After some digging – I have a novel legal angle

  A downgrade would happen if the airline had ‘knowingly’ oversold the flight .
  If you are on a 241 redemption – 1 hour before the flight closes try to buy the seats – if they are asking them at inflated pricing ( recently I did this to be sure on a 241 lhr to hkg club) and they were selling seats at £5.5k each way – I did screen shots

  My legal argument is that the refund should be that price – as that is the cost of the seat at time of downgrade ( i.e. The inflated price ba took to push 241 down )
  If I refused to board – that’s what a fair would have cost to fly – so that’s the true cost of the downgrade

  A thought for all you lawyers out there
  D

  • Brighton Belle says:

    3 Mar3 March 19:45

    I can accept downgrades for operational factors but I can’t accept BA waiving off lower revenue travellers who have made a long term commitment to the airline and burnt through £10k at Amex just because some money bags rolls up and they see a chance to grab some extra cash. Even Trotter Trading Airlines has better customer relations. Amex must stand up to BA to stamp this profiteering out for it is Amex’s card product and their integrity that’s on the line too. If their partner fails to deliver what was contracted after paying the high membership fee they really are devaluing their brand too.

    But does anybody really care about integrity when the bottom one is under stress?
    Just looks like more corporate weaselling dishonesty that they hope no one will notice. Buyer Beware. The World’s Shiftyess Airline?

    • the real harry1 says:

      3 Mar3 March 21:59

      was that an f or a t? 🙂

      • Brighton Belle says:

        3 Mar3 March 22:26

        Haha, Apple’s autocorrect plays it safe

• Danl69 says:

  3 Mar3 March 15:01

  And whilst I’m here
  Isn’t it sad we have to be worried of these things as loyal customers to – let’s be honest – an average airline

  I doubt much such chatter is happening about Cathay , etihad , emirates etc etc on the same issues

  Very sad

  I’m interested more now in status match as that’s the route I’m most likely heading

  Cintgratulations ba

• Roberto says:

  3 Mar3 March 15:27

  One other concern with regards to overbooking is that I often pick up my 241 booking on the day that flights are released at midnight meaning pretty much every other seat sale on that flight happens after my purchase has finalized a couple of minutes later.

  If they want to over sell it why should they be looking at me (the early bird) and not the last two pax who bought tickets for a forced downgrade? No spin can paint this “enhancement” as anything other than revenue raising.

  • Liz says:

    3 Mar3 March 17:10

    I agree – it should be last in first out regardless of how you paid for your ticket!

    • Genghis says:

      3 Mar3 March 17:19

      Ah, the LIFO method of downgrades

    • Nick says:

      3 Mar3 March 23:28

      Last in often pays the most, so that isn’t really going to work.

      I would be very surprised if on most flights there isn’t someone who would willingly take a downgrade for a reasonable pile of cash. I’m not really sure that involuntary downgrades are necessary other than in very rare circumstances.

  • Tony says:

    4 Mar4 March 16:50

    Hi Roberto,
    How do you get your 241 flights at midnight, I thought BA had stopped this route and you could only book when offices open in the UK at 7.30am?

    • Genghis says:

      4 Mar4 March 17:20

      See my post the other day for how I went about it

    • Kinkell says:

      4 Mar4 March 20:28

      Very nice lady in India sorted my booking for next year..confirmation came in at 00.02 hrs. My 2 CW Avios 241 redemption sorted! Phoned a US number found in the depths of the BA contacts list…routed to Dehli. No issues with dealing with it.

• krys_k says:

  3 Mar3 March 15:39

  I’m not getting into the legal side of things which is both complicated and for me boring (which is why I dropped out of a law degree and switched to the arts) – but I’ll have a guess of what BA are doing now (based on a number of projects I ran for big companies with some similarities). BA will have gone to their counsel and asked for their opinion on this issue – legal get outs, risks, chances of winning loosing etc. If they feel they are on strong ground, they will stick with this policy (albeit, taking into the caveat that follows). If they are on rocky ground, they will, in the quietest way possible (not possible in respect to the experts that frequent this and similar sites, but rather to the general public who make up by far the greatest portion of passengers) change direction. The caveat is, if they are on strong ground, a spreadsheet will be created looking at all options and costs e.g. downgrading cash customers, downgrading 241, downgrading Lloyds etc – and there will likely be a cheapest option for BA. They will also attempt to understand what the risk to reputation (and therefore further earnings) is amongst each of this group as well as the general public. At the end – there will be an option that is cheapest for BA that poses the least amount of risk to future earnings. I may be wrong, but thats what I’d do.

• Nicholas Danks says:

  3 Mar3 March 15:47

  I’m wondering if we should crowd source for the contributor a legal fund to test it?

  • NFH says:

    3 Mar3 March 16:18

    Why would you need to crowd-source a legal fund for a case in the Small Claims track of the County Court? Each side pays their own legal fees (if any) and the loser pays the court fees. The only legal fees incurred would be if the contributor hires a barrister to represent him. And remember that no precedent would be set unless it goes to appeal.

    • Nicholas Danks says:

      3 Mar3 March 16:27

      I guess I’d fast forwarded to the appeal :S

      • Alan says:

        4 Mar4 March 15:35

        That’s assuming BA were willing to take it to appeal and risk setting a precedent – I’d suspect they wouldn’t be wanting that…

• Tommy W says:

  3 Mar3 March 16:30

  Top notch customer relations

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