Any ideas how to get my agreed compensation from BA?

[andy1875]

Hi, looking for some inspiration here.

After a delayed flight from HK in December I claimed under EU261. They agreed in January to pay me £1,040 compensation and I passed them my details. Then nothing!

They claimed via twitter that they paid me the money , but can’t provide any proof… it’s definitely not there. Then said can’t help more as need to speak again to customer relations.

Last contact I had was Feb 24 when someone from customer relations sent me a ‘courtesy email’ to see if I had received. Then nothing since then! Black whole!?

Any inspiration, escalation route?

Seems crazy they have already acknowledged their regulatory obligation to pay then nothing!

Many thanks in advance!

[dougzz99]

If you have proof they agreed to pay then MCOL should be a slam dunk, and BA will pay.

[Lady London]

Under finance industry rules any missing payment has to be traced from the sending end not the receiving end.

90% they haven’t paid you so I’d send a snail mail signed for to BA Legal at Waterside, provide whatever evidence of them saying they would pay or had paid, provide a repeat note (and state it is a repeat to them) of your bank or card details, and give them 21 days for payment to reach your account failing which you will file a money claim in court for which you will also recover relevant costs from them in addition.

If they really have paid they’ll provide details of the payment made which they will obtain from their bank which you can pass to yours to have them check incomings for again. If you’re nice you can put ‘alternatively’ and remind them to provide bank details proof of the payment if already made, in either case within 21 days.

Please let us know what the story turns out to be and when you get paid

[Lady London]

PS Given the timings it’s also possible BA is putting the payment through a sequence of more than one internal approval then bunching them. So potentially 1 month to approve then I suspect they bunch so as to pay, say, a load once per month.

Anything to drag it out so as to preserve BA’s cashflow.

Which is why I think it’s worth giving them the 21 day notice to Legal as it’s just possible the payment may actually be seen in your account meanwhile. But I certainly wouldn’t give them any more tolerance.

[andy1875]

Many thanks for all the advice, much appreciated. I’ll update later how it ends! Hopefully well…

[NorthernLass]

@Lady London – just jumping on here as I am in a similar position with easyJet who owe me £300 for cancelled flights last year. Long story short, the refunds were rejected by Amex as the card was closed long ago (the trip was delayed 2 years by the pandemic then cancelled by EJ!). EJ have insisted on a signed letter from Amex confirming they rejected the refund. Amex has supplied this twice, but without a signature! I’m getting towards my wits’ end – do I have another go at convincing Amex to send a 3rd (signed) letter or just write to EJ with the 21 day ultimatum? Do they even have a office in this country?!

[Rui N.]

Easyjet is British, their HQ is in Luton…

[NorthernLass]

Thanks @Rui, I will look it up. I always think of it as Greek!

*Found it, in Luton. I am new to challenging EJ, never had a problem with them before but they are behaving atrociously over this, saying Amex and I have to prove the money never got to me and asking for my bank statements – even though that obviously won’t show that a refund was made to a credit card!!

[Lady London]

NorthernLass wrote:

Thanks @Rui, I will look it up. I always think of it as Greek!

*Found it, in Luton. I am new to challenging EJ, never had a problem with them before but they are behaving atrociously over this, saying Amex and I have to prove the money never got to me and asking for my bank statements – even though that obviously won’t show that a refund was made to a credit card!!

I am not an expert on this but I would have thought all Amex would need to provide would be a line of a report for each transaction showing rejected incoming at bank. Wondering why is Easyjet being pernickety about signatures. Either hard copy on Amex letterhead or maybe fax from Amex to EZ of same if amex and ez both have faxes.

But actually I would have thought Easyjet’s own bank transaction reporting should show they got an error code back and it should have been recredited back to EZ’s own sending bank account. But I have a weird feeling I’ve heard somewhere Amex has very oldfashioned systems and I’m wondering if the money from EZ wasn’t rejected at bank level by Amex’s bank, was accepted and is sitting on some suspense account in Amex’s books not credited anywhere because your old card number had timed out.

With the details EZ should have provided you from their bank, Amex should have been able to check their own account for it though.

I am disappointed in EZ, they became good for a while then reverted to being flaky IME.

[NorthernLass]

Mine too, I’ve had nothing but good experiences with them apart from this. They just refuse to do any checking of their own systems and keep saying the onus is on me to meet all their requirements (including signed letters from Amex). The letters clearly show transaction IDs with the relevant amounts so I’m baffled as to why they can’t match those up with their own records.

I’ve made my next LCC booking with Ryanair! (Though I’m sure that’s not exactly going to have EJ’s CEO quaking in his boots …)

[Lady London]

NorthernLass wrote:

I’ve made my next LCC booking with Ryanair! (Though I’m sure that’s not exactly going to have EJ’s CEO quaking in his boots …)

Oh dear.
Seeing that, I hear Cilla Black’s voice on Blind Date saying “Oh, how *could* you!” Ryanair, indeed 🙂

[NorthernLass]

Lol, I’m a bit further east than that!

I’ve probably jinxed it now but I’ve never had a problem with Rynair either. They always seem to be on time and their extra leg room seats have a proper amount of extra legroom (unlike EZ).

[craigacton]

BA recently coughed up £1,040 and my expenses following their flight planning software screw up on 19th December which delayed the OH and I returning from MIA to MAN via LHR by eight hours. No quibble, just took them three months so I encourage everyone to persevere and to have a little patience!

[andy1875]

Hello, just to update that I successfully got my £1040 eventually – apparently bank rejected details first time round and I had to reconfirm. So took 3 months but worth it in the end. Before I started reading travel blogs I had no clue about EU261, and I suspect out of all the people on this long delayed flight, only a handful would have claimed. Thanks for the encouragement on this forum.

As an aside, the reason the flight was delayed was because they realised just before it took off that it was due its regular maintenance and someone had overlooked it. Yep, that’s what they announced before asking us all to get off.

[Lady London]

craigacton wrote:

BA recently coughed up £1,040 and my expenses following their flight planning software screw up on 19th December which delayed the OH and I returning from MIA to MAN via LHR by eight hours. No quibble, just took them three months so I encourage everyone to persevere and to have a little patience!

Well done @craigacton

[Lady London]

andy1875 wrote:

Hello, just to update that I successfully got my £1040 eventually – apparently bank rejected details first time round and I had to reconfirm. So took 3 months but worth it in the end. Before I started reading travel blogs I had no clue about EU261, and I suspect out of all the people on this long delayed flight, only a handful would have claimed. Thanks for the encouragement on this forum.

As an aside, the reason the flight was delayed was because they realised just before it took off that it was due its regular maintenance and someone had overlooked it. Yep, that’s what they announced before asking us all to get off.

Good one, @andy1875. Thanks for sharing this.

[Paul B]

I was in a similar situation, in the end they had simply forgotten to pay me. Surely they have some expectation to investigate or provide proof of payment?