An update on the British Airways pilot strike

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• PeterK says:

  10 Sep10 September 08:55

  BA2273 LGWJFK operated yesterday and today, it’s on a wet leased A330-200 of Evelop Airlines, EC-MTY.

  • Peter K says:

    10 Sep10 September 13:45

    Interesting, alternative Peter K.

• Princess says:

  10 Sep10 September 08:56

  OT: hi, I’m looking for opinion or personal experience. I’m planning to use 2 2for1 Amex voucher in September 2020 London to Beijing and back from Hong Kong.
  Dates are not open yet, but i’ve Been monitoring availability to have an idea. July and August 2020 seem to always have great availability in business but none in economy.
  As I need 4 tickets I’m planning to call at midnight to book 2 business and 2 economy (unless 4business coming up)
  My concern is that BA is not releasing economy ticket atm, because once I looked at midnight online and only business appear. Is that possible? I know that they guarantee 4 economy seats, but it looks so strange that neither one seat is available in July and August.

  • Shoestring says:

    10 Sep10 September 08:58

    there was some talk that you can jump the online queue by a few minutes on the phone, so maybe the Economy seats got grabbed by somebody else

    • Rob says:

      10 Sep10 September 09:01

      If you book online, the seats are not actually held once in your basket. At any point through the entire form filling and payment process, someone in the call centre can put them on hold and you will get an error message when you click ‘pay’. The complex ba.com booking process means that the call centre has a 2-3 minute head start.

    • Princess says:

      10 Sep10 September 12:32

      I’ll definitely try that and hope to get a smart person on the phone! once I have had to call a second time (the following day) because that girl on the phone couldn’t get grab the ticket in time!!!!

      • Lady London says:

        10 Sep10 September 12:46

        Apparently calling a bit ahead of the hour, say 5mins, and getting through the preliminaries onto the right screen ready, can save you that time and the agent can then grab the seats as soon as they come up with you holding on phone.

  • Froggee says:

    10 Sep10 September 19:19

    I suspect BA are being disingenuous about the “guarantee”. Similarly, I was looking for flights back from Tokyo (during the Olympics so obviously going to be tricky). I was in Singapore so checking at 8am local time was no biggy. From literally the start of the Olympics there were no flights available coming back from Tokyo. At 1am UK time Japan Airlines flights would appear but no BA ones. This is very weird as I can’t see there being huge demand to get home from Tokyo during the first few days of the Olympics. I gave up and booked 4J fares with Qatar which was a bit ouchee but flight times are better for us and Q-suites on the long leg better for a young family. Really need to find a use for Avios though as sitting on far too many just now.

• Jamie says:

  10 Sep10 September 09:09

  Fairly off topic but addressed to all connoisseurs out there. I have a flight arriving at Madrid Barajas T4S at 10:20 and I need to catch another flight leaving Barajas T2 at 12:30. Is it doable? I’m on an EU passport and I have to collect luggage from first flight and re-check it in for the second one. Based on data from flightradar, first flight is always on time.

  • Concerto says:

    10 Sep10 September 09:59

    I think it’s seriously marginal and requires perfect timing and no delays. It’s a long way between terminal complexes at MAD.

  • Chuck says:

    10 Sep10 September 10:27

    It will be stressful but is possible, I had a similar connection forced on me due to late inbound, had to get re ticketed, collect bags and then taxi to T2… made it but not something I would want to repeat !
    Taxi was the key !!

    • Lady London says:

      10 Sep10 September 12:50

      Iberia tried to make me take something even worse as a re-route. When I refused they woiuld not contemplate any other solution. Iberia basically forced a refund.

      That’s how I ended up with a -90,000 balance on my Iberia account. My Iberia account is effectively blocked now. The only remaining solution was to get the avios out of IB to BA quick and book a replacement avios ticket on BA as there were only about 3 days before the 90,000 expired.

      Wonder if untouched -90,000 balances on Iberia expire in 3 years, just like positive balances would ? 🙂

• Joan says:

  10 Sep10 September 09:23

  We came back from Almeria yesterday on the EasyJet flight we paid €300 euros for after BA cancelled our homeward business avios redemption.
  So far BA have ignored our claim for them to pay for the EasyJet flight ( no surprise there) and we’ve just noticed they refunded us £15 only for the cancelled part of the flight ( we paid about £95 in total taxes for the return BA flights ) and considerably less than half of the 55000 avios we used .
  Tried to call them again yesterday several times and got cut off each time 🤷‍♀️.

  • Shoestring says:

    10 Sep10 September 09:27

    you’ll get your full refund in due course but might have to chase

    you ordinarily wouldn’t get anything for your EasyJet flights because you cancelled your contract with BA when you asked for a refund

    if you paid on your credit card (for the BA flights), you can get compensated under Section 75 for the difference in your fare costs/ expenses

    • Shoestring says:

      10 Sep10 September 09:36

      airport taxes from Spain are abour EUR10-15 so that sounds a bit low but might be right – you wouldn’t get back half of all airport taxes paid but the proportionate element for the flight from Almeria

      re: the Avios refund: did you fly out in peak but return flight you didn’t take was in non-peak? that might explain why you got back less than half the 55000 Avios

• Sarah says:

  10 Sep10 September 09:24

  What a shame that Virgin have chosen to block the access to their data, it just seems rather mean-spirited.

• Mark says:

  10 Sep10 September 09:25

  I contacted Virgin about the loss of access for RFF.

  Told them I’d switched my CC spend to them and racked up 400,000 miles, but have now moved that back to BA.

  Tools like this are invaluable. I know of a travel agent that uses it to keep on top of thing and make offers to her clients, now she just offers with BA. Virigin really are loosing out!

  • Craig says:

    10 Sep10 September 12:33

    I tried today to engage but they are just being belligerent!

• Simon says:

  10 Sep10 September 09:29

  O/T Could anybody give me a very rough/ballpark figure for the price BA/Virgin would be likely to offer an economy return from LHR to SFO/LAX during peak school holidays (early August) in their January sales?

  • Shoestring says:

    10 Sep10 September 09:41

    you can get an Economy return to San Francisco on Virgin (Skyscanner) for £250 right now (flying November to March)

    so I’d guess flying in August – but in the sale – it would be a tad more than that, £300-350?

  • Andrew says:

    10 Sep10 September 09:51

    If price is of the essence, don’t limit yourself to BA/Virgin or Heathrow. Or even SFO/Lax. Oakland is just across the water from Downtown SFO and San Jose connects reasonably well to downtown SFO via the Caltrain.

    Also cross-check the flight+hotel deals (even if it’s just for one night) across the major online travel agents.

  • Simon says:

    10 Sep10 September 10:19

    Many thanks. I was weighing up whether a points redemption with a 241 voucher (3 travellers) offered value during peak season but I can safely conclude it’s not a great use of points.

  • Matt B says:

    10 Sep10 September 10:28

    You would do well to get anything under £600 from my experience.

  • Shoestring says:

    10 Sep10 September 11:31

    [San Francisco £304.00 £288.00] 🙂 – what did I say?

    But I guess other people are right: in August it’ll be a lot more

    • Lady London says:

      10 Sep10 September 12:35

      Right now it’s a lot less and you don’t have to look too hard.

      SFO, like NYC, is one of those destinations that actually has a good amount of airlines competing. If there’s no competition on a route, that’s when you really get gouged. Our only hope of decent prices is where there is competition – SFO is a really good case in point across all the alliances.

      You’re not really trying if you’re paying £300 right now except at very peak periods (which, unfortunately, August school holidays always will be in Y – but not in J).

  • Simon says:

    10 Sep10 September 16:06

    With the 241 voucher and assuming 1p a point I’d pay the equivalent of £600 each with Virgin, which probably isn’t too bad for August. Thank you all for your help.

• Gromit says:

  10 Sep10 September 09:44

  Shame about the CP Oxford road moving from IHG. Its club lounge is one of the best of any UK CP that I’ve visited – granted a club room upgrade on a points booking there a couple of times. As well as being 10 minutes from the city centre its only about 15 minutes walk to the curry mile.

  • Lady London says:

    10 Sep10 September 12:38

    They should be able to charge a higher top end price if they are a Hyatt Regency. Unless the location trips them up for the usual sort of Hyatt Regency customer.

    I’m a bit disappointed as, as a Crowne Plaza, the hotel would have been accessible to me. I don’;t expect to be able to pay Hyatt Regency prices. Hyatt Place/ Hyatt House is a bit more my cost level.

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