Will you be getting Avios and tier points if your flight was impacted by the British Airways strike?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Waddle says:

  13 Sep13 September 05:34

  To confirm – I’ve been re-routed to AUH on EY originally on LHR-DXB and MMB shows I will get Avios & TP.

  Yesterday I posted to say I would update on how my attempts to re-route on another airline would go. I posted an update but quite late last night so here it is in case anyone finds it useful:

  So I phoned up BA on the number in my cancellation email. The first person I spoke to told me that because my original destination is DXB, I can only be re-routed to the same destination and could not offer me a direct flight. I suggested AUH but he said the only way to be re-routed to AUH is if I changed my original booking to AUH and pay the fee even though I would be swapping from one cancelled flight to another cancelled flight! Anyway he transferred me to another person who was meant to be able to do that for me, I talked the second person through what I was aiming for and he was able to find Etihad on the system. Then I got cut off. So I phoned the Bronze helpline and waited on hold for another 20 minutes or so and spoke to a lady this time who looked at the re-routing options and asked if I could fly to Doha instead, I said not Doha but Abu Dhabi would work and from there she was able to find the Etihad flights and booked onto the one I was after. I then phoned up Etihad with my ticket number to find my EY booking reference and will now proceed from here. Overall I’m happy with the outcome and at the end of the day the agents I spoke to were very helpful and tried their best despite varying degrees of success.

  Now how long do points transfers to Etihad from HSBC and AMEX take? This might be my only time flying Etihad so I might as well see if I can use my points to fly in the apartment.

  • Marcw says:

    13 Sep13 September 07:57

    Are you sharing your story tomorrow as well??

  • New Card says:

    13 Sep13 September 09:02

    HSBC > Etihad, roughly a week.

• Anna says:

  13 Sep13 September 06:33

  When our MAN-LHR flight were cancelled last month BA paid for us to take a taxi to LHR so I didn’t claim any kind of refund, however my OH who was on a full cash booking also didn’t get avios or tier points for that leg. It wasn’t possible to claim online as the cancelled flight doesn’t show as an option on the online form. We have now written to BA as I feel strongly that as we still paid for the flight, he should get these. It’s only 20 tier points but if he doesn’t get them it will be that bit more difficult for him to get to Silver.

  • John says:

    13 Sep13 September 11:29

    I was refused about 7 years ago as they said the policy is only to award TPs if you *fly*, I let it go as I had no status and wasn’t anywhere near getting it at the time.

• S says:

  13 Sep13 September 06:59

  Hi
  Is there a chance of getting some points for the hours and hours spent on the phone trying to get flights sorted. Also was rerouted on AA 767 which was pretty poor. The whole no screen in seat and they handing out tablets to watch things on an hour after takeoff is a bad system.
  Cheers

  • AJA says:

    13 Sep13 September 09:07

    As Bebe, the devil incarnate, said to Frasier: There’s always a chance.

    Or

    In reality I think you’ve got two hopes: Bob and no.

    • Lady London says:

      13 Sep13 September 14:48

      Ah… Bebe… a model for us all!

• riku2 says:

  13 Sep13 September 07:03

  It took me several reads of the article to realise this story is about people who have had their flights cancelled, money refunded and they still expect avios/tier points even though they received a refund from BA. Surely the refund is the end of your contract with BA, what you do with the money afterwards (eg book a flight or take a train/taxi) is irrelevant to BA.

  • Ando Mcnabbiani says:

    13 Sep13 September 07:07

    Re-read again.
    Re-booking onto one world or non one world may get assistance if you get less avios.
    Refund and no avios due.

  • Crafty says:

    13 Sep13 September 08:10

    The point is that some people deliberately booked flights, guessing they would be cancelled, in order to try and get both a refund AND the Avios and tier points. BA has realised they were trying to game the system.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      13 Sep13 September 08:48

      A very small minority. The vast majority will be genuine customers who took a refund to book themselves on other carriers that BA weren’t willing to rebook you on.

  • AJA says:

    13 Sep13 September 08:40

    I disagree. Scenario A: If you fly on another airline having been rerouted by BA (ie BA did the revised booking)you get the Original Routing Credit. Scenario B: If however you cancel get your money back and then do a new booking yourself BA says you’re not getting anything. How is that fair? In both situations BA has had to pay for you to fly on a different airline. Scenario A they did all the work, scenario B the passenger did the work.

    Arguably with scenario B you saved BA from the effort and helped free up the phone line so BA benefitted more than in scenario A.

    BA is saying they will penalise you if you don’t let BA do the work. Which just causes further delays to everyone and more work for BA. Daft!

    • Charlieface says:

      13 Sep13 September 09:42

      There’s very little reason to act on scenario b because if the new flights cost more you won’t get the difference. A new scenario c is they won’t reroute you, you book it yourself without accepting a refund and then demand compo for the new flights. This comes out the same as scenario a.

      • AJA says:

        13 Sep13 September 10:29

        Except that in Scenario C you’d come unstuck if the BA flight wasn’t actually cancelled which is what happened in many cases with the” flight is cancelled, oops sorry it wasn’t ” email blunder. BA would assume that you are a no show for your BA flight, no compo due.

        • Lady London says:

          13 Sep13 September 11:34

          If BA told you it’s cancelled and you grabbed another flight while you could then that’s their fault not tours. Especially at this time of year.

          Would have been a différent situation if at the same time BA had offered you an alternative – then the discussion would have been about which alternative rather than BA just leaving you in the lurch.

          If BA later came back and said it wasnt cancelled and you had already booked a replacement then it’s BA’s fault and they owe you the reasonable (at the time you booked) cost of that replacement. Their ts and cs include original routing credit so i’d want tier pts as well.

          If BA are now denying people they put in this position who can prove they actually flew then that’s really sleazy. Even a delay in BA agreeing this is going to look sleazy.

          Roll on the pilots strikes.

  • Rob says:

    13 Sep13 September 08:50

    The people who emailed me HAD flown. BA has had a big change of mind since I got involved.

    • AJA says:

      13 Sep13 September 09:13

      Well done Rob!

• Nick says:

  13 Sep13 September 07:12

  We won’t see any movement from BA on this. There were enough comments on here (and similar places e.g. FT) of people saying they were trying to game it that BA management deliberately and specifically decided that anyone who took a refund would not get Avios. Moved to another flight, yes absolutely, but only if it flew.

  • Rob says:

    13 Sep13 September 08:49

    BA pulled flights from sale before announcing the strike dates though, so no issue here.

• Ian M says:

  13 Sep13 September 07:21

  Are there any whispers on possible future strike dates beyond 27th Sept?

  • Shoestring says:

    13 Sep13 September 07:32

    No. BALPA actually press-released a protest that BA shouldn’t be pre-emptively cancelling the 27th Sept flights as it didn’t showgood intent/ that they wanted to solve the dispute blah blah blah – and I increasingly get the impression the pilots want to settle ASAP if middle ground can be reached.

    • NigelthePensioner says:

      13 Sep13 September 07:54

      BA are stuck between a rock and a hard place here, with only the very weak Alex Cruz as the problem solver. Running to Willie to see what he should do is just getting a “I pay you good money to run the company” type of response. BA either accept huge further bills for EU261 payments or save a bob or two and cancel all 27th flights. Which should they do? Cancelling the flights and then settling the BALPA dispute so the pilots are not striking on 27th will result in unnecessary chaos for passengers, further negative financial implications for BA and no loss of a days pay for pilots!
      We are due to fly to AUH on Sat 28th so BA have until 12.45 tomorrow lunchtime to inform me of cancellation or dish out EU261 AND transfer me to EY in case of later cancellation. However as the same plane usually shuttles, I expect it to fly as normal albeit perhaps with a different (standby) crew than was originally rostered.
      Who needs drones?!!

    • Lady London says:

      13 Sep13 September 11:36

      Or that the union has got a decent comms officer, which it appears they have.

• More coffee please says:

  13 Sep13 September 07:26

  Been bumped from premium cabin to economy on a different AA flight due to original flight cancellation. Any chance I can claim the tier points for the original premium flight?

  • jc says:

    13 Sep13 September 07:55

    Interesting. Is there a refund separate to the compensation, or does this mean that if you paid £4k for a business flight and got bumped down to economy you’d only get £3k back, even if economy outright would have cost £400?

    • Shoestring says:

      13 Sep13 September 08:01

      correct, it does work out badly on occasion if you paid a high price and got downgraded to Economy from (say) First or an expensive Business class ticket.

      You can always refuse the downgrade and insist that/ wait until they can re-ticket you in the correct class. Better still, research it yourself, using BA’s list of approved re-ticketing airlines (which doesn’t include Virgin though some people *are* getting re-ticketed on Virgin) – and phone to re-arrange asking for the exact ticket you have found, ie make the CS agent’s job easy.

      involuntary downgrade compo is completely different (and in addition to) delay/ cancellation compo

    • Rob says:

      13 Sep13 September 08:43

      No. This is on top of the fare difference.

      Problem is what fare you compare with …

  • John says:

    13 Sep13 September 11:33

    If it’s AA, not departing from an airport covered by EC261, and not related to BA (strike or otherwise), then it’s up to AA’s compensation policy

    • Shoestring says:

      13 Sep13 September 11:38

      sounds like it’s BA as the operating airline, AA aren’t cancelling flights due to the strike

    • Lady London says:

      13 Sep13 September 11:54

      I am looking at discounted returns to USA past few weeks off and on. Many of them have a mix of code share and operating carriers. 99% of the midrange and lower end hugely discounted fares I’m seeing have a non-EU airline operating the return leg.

      There has been some publicity in the US about EU261. The Americans have nothing like it on their airlines I will take a bet that savvy Americans are making sure their leg to Europe is on an EU airline. Or, those airlines flying to Europe from the US that are not subject to eu261 are prepared to discount, but airlines that are subject to eu261 are not discounting below a certain level.

      The effect is quite visible on searches as many of the fares have EU or North American Airlines going out from Europe (where it makes no difference, as all airlines are subject to eu261) but really hard to find these discounted fares with a return leg back from the US on an EU airline.

      So guessing airlines are factoring eu261 risks into their pricing.

  • More coffee please says:

    13 Sep13 September 20:35

    Thanks all. Was In BA WTP cabin on cancelled flight from ORD to LHR. No other WTP (or equivalent for other airlines) the same day (agent has looked extensively) so only option was economy in AA to get home on the same day (could have travelled a day later in WTP) Fare difference has been returned. Wonder if its worth pushing for the tier points or not. Have a feeling it will be an uphill struggle!

• Paul74 says:

  13 Sep13 September 07:44

  Back in 2010 when I had a cancellation as a result of the cabin crew strike I received a full refund plus the avios and tier points.
  I wasn’t sure if it was at IT error at the time so did some searching around online and found that this was standard. Proved quite handy as renewing Silver was quite a close call for me that year.
  I appreciate that 2010 was nearly a decade ago so might not be especially relevant now, just pointing out that it isn’t without precedent.

  • Ken says:

    13 Sep13 September 08:48

    BA seem to think that making sure a tiny amount of people are prevented from gaming the system, far outweighs any goodwill.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.