A HfP reader sues BA when it refuses downgrade compensation on a 241 voucher

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• KBuffett says:

  15 Feb15 February 05:34

  Did you get also get 8% interest or payment for your time (in lieu of solicitors costs)?

  Also, there’s no mention about taxes and fees, had they been correctly and fully refunded prior the court case?

  Finally, are results of these types of cases available online to view?

  • Anna says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:22

    I was going to ask the same question about the taxes/fees.
    The CAA seems completely incapable of holding BA to account for the repeated, long-term failure to comply with passenger rights legislation.

    • Lady London says:

      15 Feb15 February 09:27

      not just repeated failure but systematically engendered failure which is worse

  • Rob says:

    15 Feb15 February 08:13

    Taxes and fees are not part of the 75% refunded. There IS precedent for this. You may be able to argue for any additional charges added to your class of travel vs what you flew but I think First and Club are the same.

    • Jonathan says:

      15 Feb15 February 08:17

      Surely YQ (carrier surcharges) are? I agree that genuine taxes & fees (ie. money that the airline hands over to airports or governments etc) are excluded but the YQ is essentially part of the fare as the airline pockets it.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        15 Feb15 February 08:33

        Agree I’m not sure why YQ would be excluded.

        Proper airport, passenger fees and taxes should of course be excluded

    • Charlieface says:

      15 Feb15 February 13:55

      AIUI, the extra taxes are refunded in full separately from the 75% calcualation.

      But YQ should be included in the 75% as it’s not a tax

    • David S says:

      15 Feb15 February 15:24

      But the downgrade was from Club World to World Traveller Plus, not First to Club

  • cinereus says:

    15 Feb15 February 10:51

    Yes, as with any case you always get interest though not usually at 8% these days!

    You also never get payment for preparation time but you do for the hearing time.

    The judgment for a case this minor will not be published.

• Tim says:

  15 Feb15 February 06:11

  Shocking treatment by BA.

• Annih says:

  15 Feb15 February 06:19

  Going through something similar now. Cancellation and then reroute a s then downgrade.

  BA only want to offer the small number of avios difference between the fare buckets. They aren’t offering anything for the companion voucher and most certainly aren’t applying the 75%.

  Curiously though, how does the MCOL award avios? Surely the claim should all be in cash terms? Wouldn’t the true base fare be an applicable ask too as per mennens?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:55

    You need to have actually flown the downgraded flights before you’ll get compensation.

    Also important to remember anything they give you on the day of downgrade doesn’t affect your claim to compo under EC261! If I was the OP in article I would have taken the £200!

    • Jonathan says:

      15 Feb15 February 08:20

      For a downgrade they can deduct anything they’ve already given you. Certainly in the CEDR cases reported on Flyertalk any cash or cash like awards were counted towards settlement figures.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        15 Feb15 February 08:36

        Even if that is the case, EC261, says it isn’t. There was no detriment to the award. You would have had £600 in your pocket.

        • Lady London says:

          15 Feb15 February 17:08

          not sure, TG.
          For a flight cancelled on the day I would guess a token amount acceptable for immediate unexpected expenses.

          For a downgrade on the day I’m not sure what extra expenses you’d have immediately on the day as you’d be boarding the plane so would you not be i more danger of being viewed as having accepted the £200 as all or part settlement?

  • Tim Hewson says:

    15 Feb15 February 08:35

    How does MCOL award Avios? I expect that you include money in your claim and BA offers Avios in its reply and the Judge rules that that is reasonable and reduces your monetary claim by an appropriate mount.

    • Rob says:

      15 Feb15 February 09:37

      I am guessing that BA offered to pay in Avios – I would be surprised if the Court suggested that off its own back.

      • Lady London says:

        15 Feb15 February 09:59

        claim should have been 1.6p based on 75% of the number of avios used for thr first seat, claimed for 2nd seat as well plus 10% of that for infant plus 75 of YQ calculated same way for each seat plus 8% statutory interest on the lot.

        Taking avios means they’ve cheated you again

        .

• Steve says:

  15 Feb15 February 06:24

  Is there a time limit on how long you can wait before bringing MCOL action? I had a case like this two years ago where after some correspondence (with precise calculations) BA refused any compensation at all, on the grounds that by taking the downgrounded flight we had agreed to the downgrade (!).

  Also at least at the time I was looking at this I thought that CEDR wasn’t advised for companion voucher cases as they tended to value it at zero?

  • Rhys says:

    15 Feb15 February 09:42

    Up to 6 years apparently

  • Lady London says:

    15 Feb15 February 10:00

    6 years and law open and shut so do mcol

• Jimmy says:

  15 Feb15 February 06:27

  Nice read but food for thought, there is nothing stopping BA to put that reader on a permanent ban (no-fly) list so he will never be able to fly with BA again.

  In the end, BA is a private limited company and they can say we would never want to do business with you again which is totally okay from a legal standpoint. I had taken a financial company to court before and despite I won the court case and compensated, my account was closed down soon after the court case and I was never welcomed to be their customer again, I complained this to Financial Ombudsman but they said this is totally at the financial company discretion to do that and they can only ask them not to but at the end it was not something they can rule over. Not sure if this can apply to the airlines as well but I do not see why not.

  • Mouse says:

    15 Feb15 February 06:36

    I doubt BA’s IT would be up to the task of enforcing such a ban

  • Adam says:

    15 Feb15 February 06:42

    They could but given the negative PR that would follow I would guess that it would be an incredibly poor decision on their part if they did. You wouldn’t need too many people to book elsewhere as a result of the feedback for it to have been mistake.

  • Dwb1873 says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:03

    So, BA would ban someone for expecting them to uphold their end of a transaction, after promoting the service and taking the fees?

    A service they’re trying heavily to further roll out with Nectar etc.

    I mean it would be ludicrous – but then again, it’s BA – but maybe new leadership with encourage a different approach.

  • NC says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:14

    Which financial institution? Name names!

  • memesweeper says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:52

    The Financial Ombudsman may not be able to intervene, but there is the general law requiring consumer contracts to be ‘fair’. BA would be in difficulty if it tried to ban a traveller and/or exclude them from the BAEC for winning in court fair and square against the airline. Any term which allowed them to do this would probably be deemed unfair.

    • Jack says:

      15 Feb15 February 08:25

      Nah, a term allowing them to exclude you from the BAEC/flying with them (by itself) would probably be considered fair. There’s no significant imbalance in rights etc, if they tried to confiscate/forfeit your Avios then it’d be a different matter.

  • Jonathan says:

    15 Feb15 February 08:25

    They’d also have to compensate you for the value of your Avios (probably at the 1.6p valuation they sell them) if they kicked you out without you breaking the T&C’s.

  • Nadeshka says:

    15 Feb15 February 10:33

    For BA that seems a bit “cutting your nose off to spite your face”, it’s just turning down a revenue stream. If imagine BA makes more money from each flight booked than banks/ccards make from a customer in a year if you’re paying off everything monthly.

    Also given the award was in avios I’m not sure banning the claimant from ever using them would go down well.

    I took BA to small claims court for EU261 compensation for a cancelled flights several years ago, we settled the week before the court for the avios equivalent of the EUR600 compensation. No hard feelings on either side since, they have had plenty of business from me using those avios, new ones and also cash fares.

  • cinereus says:

    15 Feb15 February 10:53

    You’re absolutely right and of course that could happen. I’ve also been blacklisted from businesses after having to take them to court to get what was owed.

  • Dubious says:

    15 Feb15 February 11:27

    You could use some of the compensation to buy a share of the company and then at the next AGM raise a question about the long-term versus short-term sightedness of such a policy.

    • Chris Heyes says:

      15 Feb15 February 12:10

      Dubious I like it lol I’ve been a share holder of a few company’s and queried a few dubious practices (a few the company’s have acknowledged and corrected)
      Nice day out and a meal included at AGM lol
      Plus insight into further investment
      The Chairman has asked who i am apparently so I’ve been told lol

• BS says:

  15 Feb15 February 06:30

  Thanks for the update. I am glad it worked out.
  BA have been utterly shocking in my case, where they refused to re-route under EC261 due to them cancelling a flight route. They only offered a refund. I am over £1000 out of pocket, but I decided it was not worth taking BA to court, because of the effort involved (as in the 14 months in this case). I have put in a Section 75 claim in with my credit card, but if that fails I will just lump it.
  Needless to say, BA has gone down significantly in my estimation. They (were) one of two potential operators for a regular route for work. I have since tried the other airline (Emirates), and will be making a point of not flying BA where I can for now (until Emirates similarly screw up…!). I have already abandoned collecting avios for flights due to the poor availability and high taxes, although I will funnel any avios I get from flying through to Nectar.

  • Lady London says:

    15 Feb15 February 10:04

    @BS it’s an online form. takr a break and gather your energy…. you can claim up to 6 years after event. Gives you time to ensure you claim everything you can.

    • cinereus says:

      15 Feb15 February 10:55

      It’s not just filling out the MCOL form. It will be liaising over those 14 months. Paying attention to all court correspondence and paying things like hearing fees in time. Then there’s a short window to prepare and file your skeleton which has to contain all evidence to be relied upon at the hearing. For the average low value MCOL case like this, preparing the MCOL form takes about 30 minutes and the rest of the work is several hours over several months. Not worth it for many people who value their free time highly.

• Ruth4325 says:

  15 Feb15 February 06:36

  Interesting. How will this influence BA’s future approach to downgrading compensation? I presume this now gives a legal precedent that should mean anyone downgraded on a 241 can refer to this case in their own negotiations or legal proceedings (should that be required). Will it will make BA more likely to proactively settle or less inclined to target 241 customers for downgrade?

  • Andrew says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:11

    I don’t believe that small claims court can set a legal precedent sadly.

  • Ben says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:16

    Small claims court decisions cannot be referred to as case law, I believe.

  • Anna says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:25

    No precedent and as mentioned in the article, it’s not the first time BA has done this. HFP reader TripRep wrote extensively about having the identical experience on a flight to the Maldives a couple of years ago and his protracted attempts to get the appropriate compensation out of BA.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      15 Feb15 February 07:56

      Perhaps a class action we could actually get behind!

  • Alan says:

    15 Feb15 February 08:15

    Would need to go to appeal to become precedent and I would guess BA won’t be risking doing that!

  • David Cohen says:

    15 Feb15 February 09:10

    From what I understand (and I’m sure I’ll be corrected), they can’t set a precedent in law, however they can be noted and taken into account.

• Crafty says:

  15 Feb15 February 06:50

  Well done – an excellent job.

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