Share your BA shut-down experiences …. and BA adds £16 to Expedia etc bookings

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• Cgray says:

  28 May28 May 09:25

  Drove 2 and a half hours to Gatwick south yesterday for the 2.45pm to Ibiza. On arrival in departures the queue was strangely out onto the travelator. Luckily priority line for ba a lot shorter. No one said anything around this time at midday that system meltdown had happened. Waited nearly an hour to get to front of priority line then had 2 labels stuck on each case saying fallback.. asked check in guy and he said system down they were working on it..

  Went thru premium line all quiet, did some shopping, only when I got to the ba lounge did it become clear something other than bank holiday spring to mind. The lounge was busy and people started saying no flights were going out. Then we saw the ba site saying all flights cancelled til 6 and so did the tv.. but no staff in the lounge would confirm..

  It would have been good if the tannoy system in the lounge was louder, this then would have meant we all could hear what was being said. Instead of that lots of people kept checking what was happening. We got told if you leave the lounge you can’t come back in. Three flights did go off we think after that each flight had to go to gate 14 to then go back thru border control, collect bags and leave. I had to wait til nearly 6 to be called to go to the gate. As I drove to the airport and could not find any other decent flights I did not drink and then I drove home. No Ibiza for me, luckily the lounge was calm and fully stocked with food and drink. The situation was a nightmare, could have been better or worse. Now to get some money back! Took me 2 hours to get home again. Definitely had better days.

  • JP says:

    28 May28 May 11:15

    Travelling alone…to Ibiza?

    I’d have needed (and definitely consumed) a drink…or ten!

    • Cgray says:

      28 May28 May 19:21

      Haha.. my friends travelled out on ryanair the day before!

• Exasperated! says:

  28 May28 May 09:32

  Friends flying to the States today… in First. Just arrived at Heathrow about 2 hours before their departure and told that they are not allowed into the airport…!

  Obviously no communication from BA, no advice online to not come to airport until 1.5 hours before departure, nothing on app, and no reply to Gold line after 45 mins this morning when we tried to check flight status….

• Billy says:

  28 May28 May 09:33

  BA still charge CC fees (albeit capped at £20) whereas Expedia do not. I will still check both although I still prefer having control over my booking, which often is not the case with non direct bookings

• Rebecca McCullough says:

  28 May28 May 09:35

  I was meant to fly back from Paris last night. It could have been a lot worse… I went to the airport and after about half an hour in the queue I was booked on an air France flight home.
  My issue I hope someone can help with, is that this was the final flight I needed to take with BA to get my status changed from bronze to silver. I’m fact that entire trip was so I would get this. The rest of my flights this year with BA are booked using avios and I wanted the status upgrade so thought an overnight trip to Paris would be the easiest way to do it. Does their computer failure has meant I’ve wasted a fair bit of money and and did an overnight trip for nothing?

  • Rebecca McCullough says:

    28 May28 May 09:38

    Just a side note, I realise I wasn’t stuck anywhere so can’t really complain but I don’t have a whole lot of money so wasting £300 is a big deal to me! And that’s unfortunately how much the trip cost.

    • TripRep says:

      28 May28 May 09:46

      EU261/2004 should recoup some of your losses.

  • BA says:

    28 May28 May 10:08

    For involuntary changes to another airline, BA will give you the original tier points and avois you would have got if you took the flight. You have to request this from CUstomer services though.

    (Rumour has it you can also double dip and credit your AF flight to a FB account as well on top…)

  • JP says:

    28 May28 May 11:18

    People are doing these things just to acquire BA silver? No wonder IAG profits were soaring (until yesterday)

• Angmo says:

  28 May28 May 09:37

  Does booking direct mean that eventually our bookings won’t be accessible on the likes of MyFlights app?

  • Rob says:

    28 May28 May 09:53

    BA still uses Amadeus for storing flight data which is why BA.com bookings show there. It is tricky to exist totally outside the GDS loop unless you are a low cost, no partners, airline.

• TripRep says:

  28 May28 May 09:44

  Rob, we know you’re not an expert on mission critical IT infrastructure or an Avaition compensation lawyer.

  But we still value your wealth of experience and your own opinion, tremendously.

  I appreciate you’ve had little time to write a detailed view on whether you think BA should pay compensation under EU261 and it might also currently be difficult to analyse the vague excuses that BA have offered (along with insincere apologies)

  However, hopefully later this week you will scribe a piece on how to claim for EU261/2004 for delays and cancellations for this specific event, it could be a rewrite of previous articles and will be a very popular article to the HFP community affected this weekend.

  And given the new interest we may also see your subscribers top the 10,000 mark.

  Slightly leftfield – How many votes would Jeremy Corbyn win, if he stated he would make EU261 a proactive automated payment under known criteria? As a floating voter I’d back him.

  • John says:

    28 May28 May 10:17

    That would be nice, but I wouldn’t believe him.

    I really don’t think air passenger rights are a major consideration for most UK voters

  • mark2 says:

    28 May28 May 10:24

    I agree that compensation should be automatic, but assume that you are being ironic about voting for Jeremy Corbin!

    • JP says:

      28 May28 May 11:21

      Another educated Tory….who cannot spell.

    • TripRep says:

      28 May28 May 11:23

      “Slightly Left field” 😉

      But I am surprised spin doctors have yet to make a Polictical football out of passenger right on this.

      I would wager that approx 50% of working population earning above £20k take a flight of some sort once a year.

      • Genghis says:

        28 May28 May 11:26

        You’re probably right on the stats but I don’t think EC261 compo is at the top of most people’s wants

  • marc says:

    28 May28 May 11:44

    The reality is, the majority of pax (average) have no clue what EC261/2004 means, neither that they may be able to claim 250/400/600€ compo.
    But hey, if you know it, better for you.

• Andrew says:

  28 May28 May 09:57

  A different angle from me. Flew INTO lhr yesterday at 1530 from Istanbul and sat on the tarmac for an hour. Cabin crew and captain exemplary considering they were the same crew on the 7am morning flight out to Turkey. Pilot and first officer let people into the cockpit and everything. Great service considering they had been up for over 12 hours and wanted to get home too. Consider myself very lucky we were allowed to take off from Istanbul in the first place. Pocket of BA staff that went the extra mile.

  • CV3V says:

    28 May28 May 10:02

    I remember being delayed on a BA plane and the captain letting kids n parents into the cockpit, jealous was I (flying alone, no kids to borrow).

  • Alan says:

    28 May28 May 16:55

    Excellent idea from that crew actually – make the most of the time on the ground to at least make it a bit more interesting for pax 🙂

• BA says:

  28 May28 May 10:03

  If you are on a week long holiday due to start yesterday, your options are:

  – as your flight was cancelled and you will be delayed >24h, you can use travel insurance to abandon your trip and get all your money back
  – wait for BA rebook. You will get EU261 and hotel/food until the rebook. You will not get any money back for missed holiday days.
  – pay for your own flight on another airline to your destination. You are at risk doing this. You will not get EU261, BA may well cancel your return flight, and BA are under no obligation to give you any compensation. You will get the cost of your original flight back.

  • TripRep says:

    28 May28 May 10:10

    What’s your source on this? What interpretation of the EU261 law are you quoting?

  • Js says:

    28 May28 May 10:25

    Hmm. You will get the €200/300/600 compensation on all 3 of these as BA cancelled the flight. Unless the power outage turns out to be terrorism, then it would e.g. an extraordinary circumstance, but I do not believe this is the case.

    In 1) you will get ALL your costs back such as hotel, Disneyland passes etc.
    2) is correct, but BA have now said they will voluntarily pay ‘reasonable’ costs – so they might pay for lost days
    3) you will still get the EU261 compo, but not the hotel/refreshments until your rebooked flight. BA are not under obligation to give you the difference between the BA flight and you last-minute one on a new airline, but as above they have voluntarily said they will pay ‘reasonable’ costs.

    I must say, especially if I were doing a shortish ex-EU trip and stuck in London, I would go for 1) and claim the avios and TPs for the flight from BA later.

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