Reply To: Unable to fly due to my daughter’s illness

[SamG]

points_worrier wrote:

Sorry to hear about this.
I am afraid the insurance route is unlikely to help unless she became ill within 24h of you due to fly.
If she became ill before this, they will say you should have cancelled for a full refund as per avios T&C before the 24h cutoff, and any delay is therefore down to you.
If she became ill within 24h, they *might* pay, but may refuse to pay because BA have now offered to move the flight, so there is no financial loss (even if you choose not to go when BA is offering).
It is all not things you want to think about when a little one is ill. Which cold hard, black-and-white T&Cs insurance companies do not take in to account.

The best route would be to get a letter from the hospital saying she was ill and not able to travel. Send this to BA, and beg for some sort of usable flight out of it, or avios refund. If this doesn’t work, then do put a claim in to see what happens. But I suspect it will at best be complicated.

Sounds like no begging involved, BA are already offering for the flight to be used within 6 months, which really is pretty reasonable if it doesn’t need Avios availability

Agree though – the refund option should have been highlighted up front by BA as an option and this will cause issues with an insurance claim (if one was even possible – HSBC Premier doesn’t pay for miles)