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Looking for some advice on a tricky situation with BA and Avios. We booked flights using a BA Companion Voucher and Avios for a trip starting in Madrid. Unfortunately, due to the recent French Air Traffic Control strikes, our UK–Madrid flight was cancelled less than 24 hours before departure. Because of this, we missed our connection from Madrid.
BA has told us they will not reinstate our Avios or offer any assistance since the cancellation happened within 24 hours of departure. We’re now trying to see if we can claim through our AMEX travel insurance:
* Has anyone successfully reclaimed lost Avios through AMEX insurance in a similar situation?
* If so, did AMEX reimburse you by reinstating the Avios or by providing a monetary equivalent?Any experiences, tips, or advice would be much appreciated, we’re not sure what the best route forward is. Thank you!
Looking for some advice on a tricky situation with BA and Avios. We booked flights using a BA Companion Voucher and Avios for a trip starting in Madrid. Unfortunately, due to the recent French Air Traffic Control strikes, our UK–Madrid flight was cancelled less than 24 hours before departure. Because of this, we missed our connection from Madrid.
If I read this properly you had a LHR-MAD booking and a separate MAD – XXX booking?
In which case you didn’t have a connection but two separate bookings.
BA should refund you for the cancelled LHR-MAD booking as that was cancelled due to the strike but it isn’t liable to do that for the separate MAD-XXX flights. That may seem harsh but it’s the reality.
Not sure how AMEX will deal with this as I don’t think they insure avios bookings.
There are others with more knowledge than me on that but you do need to be careful in the details and use of language and shouldn’t say you had a connection if you didn’t.
@Eirof – all the above comments by @BAFIS are valid but there are a few additional considerations. If the Amex insurance to which you refer is the one that comes with the Platinum it’s complicated!
Firstly, after missing your flight in Madrid, did you then abandon your trip or did you incur costs to rebook. Amex Plat has a high cover for the abandonment section but a very low one for Travel Inconvenience section which covers missed flights or any additional accommodation cost (max £300pp).
Secondly, the insurer will consider whether you left sufficient time between flights and whether you could have rebooked on another flight as not all were cancelled and/or cancelled/changed the long haul if you had more than 24h notice of missing that.
If your claim gets over these hurdles, Amex should reimburse you the lost costs including Avios and companion voucher at a to be agreed cash value for which you need to supply some objective measures.
@JDB…thanks for the reply. Yes it’s the AMEX Platinum insurance we have. We had to abandon the trip in its entirety unfortunately as we hadn’t enough time to get rebooked on a new connecting flight plus there was no Avios availability for a new flight from Madrid. The cancelled flight from the UK to Madrid was with easyJet and we have been refunded for that. AMEX insurance(europ assistance) also has accepted our trip was genuinely abandoned and have refunded us for hotel and other non refundable costs like tours we booked. We had hoped BA would have helped us out. Long story short but at the time we found out our UK to Madrid flight with easyJet was cancelled we immediately called BA and they offered to put us on a new flight later in the year but when it actually came to reissuing the new ticket they couldn’t because we were still already checked in(online check in) for the original Madrid Avios flight with Iberia. The clock eventually ran against us in trying to get the ticket reissued and we were classified by BA as no shows. As a result they won’t help us any further which is why we’re exploring if AMEX can help. We have spoken to AMEX (europ assistance) and they are asking for an official letter from BA confirming how much the 125,000 are worth in cash. We had hoped to get the actual Avios reinstated but it looks like it’s a cash refund they are considering. I am not even sure BA can issue the requested letter but we are happy to try. We were just curious if anyone else has successfully done this before so we can ensure we taking the right steps.
@Eirof – Europ Assistance is being rather disingenuous in asking you to get a letter from BA re the price of Avios when such information is publicly available to them. They will also know that BA will quite likely not provide such a letter.
https://www.avios.com/collect-avios/buy/purchase
Obviously, there are other cheaper purchase routes such as subscription or boost but they shouldn’t come into consideration for your claim.
You also need to be very clear with Europ Assistance about the value of the Companion Voucher for which they need to indemnify you in full as part of the claim. The value is the same sum you paid in Avios for the other ticket. This is clearly established in CEDR arbitration and County Court decisions which while not binding or any precedent, follow the logic that a Companion Voucher is valuable consideration for a specifically identifiable sum matching the Avios paid on the voucher holder’s ticket so ? 125,000 Avios x 2.
I would be very firm with EA on this as given it’s a fairly large sum, they will try to wriggle no end. Remind EA that they are required by FCA Principle 2 to act with due skill, care and diligence, under Principle 6 to have due regard to your interests and treat you fairly and finally under the newish Principle 12 act to deliver good outcomes for you as a retail customer. Placing unfair, unnecessary and inappropriate obstacles to obstruct a valid claim does not comply with these Principles.
Further EA, as agents of American Express (an issuer/provider of Avios and Companion Vouchers) should be entirely familiar with the concept of Avios/CVs and to pretend otherwise and send you off for valuations is unacceptable.
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