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

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• BA2 says:

  28 May28 May 13:18

  I appreciate it might feel as though you’re being ‘lied to’ – and it’s definitely true that some staff do seem to make things up as they go along (it’s human nature not to like not knowing an answer so sometimes people do say things they’re not 100% sure of) – but on the whole staff do only give out what they know, it’s just that they themselves haven’t been told anything! We saw that yesterday with the ‘flights will leave… oh no, wait, they wont’ line.

  And Paul, I know you meant cabin crew (not FAs, please, we’re not American here!), but the point stands – crew can’t operate on an aircraft on which they’re not trained, and there isn’t a single crew member (flight or cabin) that’s trained on both mainline and CityFlyer fleets – for all intents and purposes they’re two completely separate airlines. Crew training isn’t even done in the same place! So mainline crew won’t know how the emergency equipment works, let alone the service. FWIW, CityFlyer itself is based in Manchester, but its crews are based in London and Scotland (EDI and GLA), so unless one happens to commute from MAN and was available on an off day, it would be hard to find another one at short notice.

• Renato C says:

  28 May28 May 14:05

  Hi Guys.
  I am stuck in Geneva – my 9pm flight was cancelled and re-booked tomorrow morning.

  What are my rights besides the 250eue compensation?

  Can I book a hotel myself and claim it back?

  Thank you so much!

  PS: Hopefully my AMEX platinum insurance will also kick in.

  • Rob says:

    28 May28 May 14:14

    Yes, you can incur ‘reasonable expenses’ – and don’t bank on the €250. In London they were saying £200 was ok for a hotel.

    • Really? says:

      28 May28 May 15:48

      Why maybe no €250 ?

      • TripRep says:

        28 May28 May 15:58

        There’s rumours BA have been trying to claim the outage was due to extraordinary circumstances out with its control.

        Stay tuned, expect Rob to express his opinion on BAs stance/defence with regard to EU261/2004 later this week.

        • Geordie says:

          28 May28 May 16:31

          I hope that every single passenger that has been, or is delayed, as a consequence of this fiasco collectively puts a big dent in BA’s bottom line. I know which parent company I’m going to be shorting when Tokyo opens tonight… 🙂

        • FunTraveller says:

          28 May28 May 22:04

          If BA try to evade their EU261 obligation I would support a massive civil class action against BA for compensation.

• joelyp says:

  28 May28 May 14:41

  I had booked flights on Friday evening for travel Tuesday 30th. On Saturday morning I wanted to change one leg of the flight under the 24-hour cooloff period. Of course, ringing the Gold line I was told they couldn’t even open the booking reference. Sometime in the afternoon ba.com was up sufficiently to allow me to check the price of a new ticket, which should have been as per old ticket plus a few pounds of additional tax. I didn’t want to book a whole new ticket and cancel the previous and block a chunk on my credit card, So I rang BA again, and their systems still couldn’t look at old bookings. They told me that the cooloff period was being extended to give 48 hours instead. I asked what would happen if, due to the delay in being able to change my ticket, the fare went up, and I was told they would look sympathetically on that.
  Gave up trying to get through and being cut off after an hour on Saturday night, so rang 7.30am today. While I was very pleasant and even apologised for being a burden on their time (!), operator was very offhand. Told the change would cost me another £350 despite being in the same booking class (albeit changing from LHR departure to LCY). I pointed out this sounded very odd, and also that there would have been negligible additional cost had BA processed it the previous day. I also said I had been told BA would be sympathetic. I was told very brusquely that I couldn’t have seen prices the previous day, as she was also working. She would not listen that I was talking old versus new bookings. Did I want the change or not?
  I took the change and asked for her to note that I was paying under protest, and would contact customer services to follow up. “I’ll write it in my own words, and will not mention paying under protest”, I was told. While I appreciate the stress the operators were under, not impressed.
  We’ll see if ultimately I get the money back, but I doubt it. Might wait a bit before contacting customer services.

  • John says:

    28 May28 May 16:57

    Umm, the 24-hour cooling off period only applies to cancelling completely for a full refund, and rebooking it yourself. Just because one agent was possibly willing to let you make a change for free rather than cancelling and rebooking, does not mean that others will or should.

    It is BA’s fault that they couldn’t cancel and refund on Saturday, but it isn’t their fault that you didn’t want to use up your credit limit to book the flight you actually wanted while waiting for a refund. Did you ask whether you could cancel the incorrect ticket for free?

    • joelyp says:

      28 May28 May 21:02

      My understanding is that you are also able to make changes within the cooling off period in lieu of cancelling and rebooking, subject to any repricing, but without change fees. I’ve done it before several times, and each of the three times I actually managed not to get cut off on the phone over the past 2 days, the agent was told I wished to modify (not cancel) my flights under the cooloff period, and was clearly familiar with the process.
      The incorrect ticket could, of course, have been cancelled for free under the cooloff period.

      My point is that I purchased a ticket with a contractual flexibility (at least based upon BA’s repeated verbal explanations to me of the policy), which BA was unable to execute in a timely manner due to a failure of its systems when I sought to exercise that flexibility. BA needs to make good on it, without penalising me for their delay.

      • joelyp says:

        28 May28 May 21:30

        A bit of a dig around the internet throws up several Flyertalk and other threads where BA agents have confirmed what is sometimes termed a “correction policy”, allowing fee-free changes to a ticket (even if ticket is non-changeable) for 24 hours from booking, as long as booked more than 24 hours before departure. However, doesn’t appear on the website as far as I can see.

• Martin says:

  28 May28 May 16:59

  Probably a cleaner unplugging the plug to plug the Hoover in that caused it.

• Paul Hampton says:

  28 May28 May 17:04

  Beginning to get a bad feeling about our re-arranged flights for tomorrow. Take a look at the arrivals and departures boards at LHR and you will see the cancellations are continuing unabated. We are supposed to be connecting via LHR from MAN to NCE, but already the first flight on that route tomorrow has been cancelled. Anyone who thinks BA will be substantially recovered tomorrow is dreaming.

• R Owens says:

  28 May28 May 17:10

  My husband I were booked on Heathrow to Belfast at 6pm on Sunday. Flight cancelled and only my husband was offered a new flight,
  nothing for me (Monday evening so a no go as he is a contractor and needs to be in work tomorrow!). Which is odd as he isn’t a member at all and I’m silver!

  We have now booked on flybe, flying London city to Edinburgh tonight then staying over and flying to Belfast in the morning. My husband will be in work by lunch so not a total disaster. My only worry is how and when we will get all the money back!

  • Q says:

    28 May28 May 19:03

    Do you go to work with your husband?

    • Genghis says:

      28 May28 May 19:41

      Or @R Owens and husband live in Belfast and were returning home from London?

  • JohnNI says:

    28 May28 May 20:45

    We were due to fly to Belfast on the 19.20 flight. On way to airport about 4.30 pm we got a text and email to say flight was cancelled. After returning our hire car my wife called BA and asked if we could be rebooked on a codeshare flight wit Aer Lingus tomorrow at 11.10 which was done and we had our confirmation within minutes on our executive club. She enqired about a hotel and was told it would be easier for us to arrange our own hotel, so we are now in the Premier Inn in Uxbridge have had a nice meal and keeping fingers crossed all goes well in morning. The £40 cab fare a shock as it is only about 9 miles from LHR but as we should be able to claim it back not too worried.

    • Rob says:

      28 May28 May 21:20

      Black cab fares are not regulated at Heathrow unless heading into London as it is outside the zone where you must charge what the meter quotes.

      The guy would have queued for over an hour in the hope of a £75+ fare into the centre so you can’t blame him.

      • Anon says:

        29 May29 May 00:04

        ‘you cant blame him’

        LOL

      • Alex W says:

        29 May29 May 00:22

        My cabbie didn’t turn up at T5 once. Had to jump in a black cab to Gloucester – it came to £396

        • TGLoyalty says:

          29 May29 May 09:16

          Didn’t try uber?

• David says:

  28 May28 May 17:16

  Was caught up in the shambles that was T5 airside yesterday. Worst part was crazy queueing for hours to get to the gate where they were processing people to allow you to exit via Border Force. That was, to me, no reason at all to have a queue there – just let people through, if they wanted, down to passport control. Feel bad for poor BA staff who were trying their best, clearly no contingency plan for such an event – thats is just sheer bad management. Ended up booking new Avios seats very early this morning (when there were still plenty available for Monday) for our trip to Italy – will worry about cancelling and getting refunds for our original cash bookings later – dont fancy waiting on the phone for hours, and suspect Christmas will arrive before BA reaches out to me about rebooking options !

• Cheshire Pete says:

  28 May28 May 17:22

  Well, here’s our story so far!

  Itinerary:

  Friday AMS to LHR, LHR to MAN.
  Sunday MAN to LCY
  Monday LHR to AMS

  Obviously Friday was the day before the ‘outage’ but actually something was ‘fishy’ about the IT system which leads me to believe a sudden PSU failure was ‘unlikely’ the cause.

  Friday 14:55 from Amsterdam ended up leaving an hour late due to Schipol ‘runway’ congestion. Where due to arrive 1520 But our separately booked PNR to Manchester was leaving 18:20. We also forced to collect baggage so we tried to enact the Same day Free change for our CE flights. But on final confirmation ‘system error’

  Anyhow arrived at LHR, partner waited for bags and I went upstairs to speak to CS to move Manchester to 20:30. Showed him screenshot error, he clearly said the IT system, remember 16:30 on the Friday was misbehaving so running slower and slower. But he happily rebooked us free waiting a good 5 minutes for the system to respond.

  Move forward Saturday got Emili yesterday evening our LCY flight cancelled from MAN 13:10. Not able to call or rebook online. Anyhow woke at 3.30am this morning called CS answered in 10 minutes odd pre recorded message about delay due to poor weather in the U.K. Lol. Anyhow another 15 minutes later got on the 06:50 to LHR. But never left till 9:15. Ended up landing 14 minutes at gate before 3 hour Comp window, however already covered with that from Initial cancellation. Should say plane dirty as never cleaned. No service in any cabin. No food or anything other than water even in CE.

  Was already staying overnight in Sofitel for flight back to AMS tomorrow, Monday. Checked in early at 11. Heard story of sleeping bags used in their conference rooms. Popped into Departures. Complete chaos, can’t understand why the queue to even enter the departures is the same no matter if you have a valid boarding pass or just trying to rebook. Anyhow had a planned day in London, found out Heathrow Express was FREE.

  So still in London hoping to get my 0640 flight to AMS tomorrow as need to start work there at 10am!

  • Q says:

    28 May28 May 19:22

    An odd itinerary, no?

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