BA cancelled my flight tomorrow morning!

[cska]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice. Was due to travel from LHR to Mumbai at 0930 tomorrow. Flight has just been cancelled and I’ve been informed by BA. I have rebooked promptly on the next service tomorrow afternoon as advised by the BA app. I am due to travel in CW but unable to actually check in for the flight and am being told to do this at the airport.

What are my rights here? Am I due any compensation or not as I have now rebooked myself?

And what happens if BA try to downgrade me to WT or WTP when I get to the airport tomorrow?

Thanks in advance 🙂

[cska]

Incidentally this has been booked using Avios and a Barclays upgrade voucher does this have any other implications?

[NorthernLass]

It doesn’t matter how you paid for the flight.

Compensation will depend on the reason for the cancellation, so it will be helpful if you can find this out.

For all delay/cancellation/downgrade queries, the dedicated threads on here contain all the information you need.

If you’re downgraded tomorrow, there’s not a lot you can do – you can try & negotiate with BA to move you to another flight in your original cabin, however you don’t have a legal right to this, only to downgrade reimbursement which you can claim after you take the flight.

[cska]

Thank you. They’ve just sent an email saying the cancellation is due to “aircraft serviceability”, whatever that means…

[freckles]

“Technical”, so should be in scope for compensation for the cancellation

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Yes the compensation should be payable.

Rebooking via the existing booking in MMB does not affect that.

If you have been downgraded revert back here for further advice on your entitlement to reimbursement but TBH there isn’t a lot you can do about it.

[TGLoyalty]

For a cancellation from LHR the night before I would say there’s 99.9% you will get delay compensation. The reasons to claim it’s exceptional are pretty much just weather on the ground at LHR the time of your departure but they don’t know that the night before.

Re downgrades honestly worry about that if it happens but generally it’s 75% of the Avios value and surcharges less actual taxes and fees the flight would have cost regardless of the voucher. WT+ and Club have the same fees and taxes so unlikely there’s much there there.

[cska]

Thanks all

[Olly]

Hijacking this topic as Virgin have just cancelled our family flight back from DXB with 7 hrs notice apparently due to an issue with the outbound flight. Really need to get back today as the kids are back to school tomorrow morning but as Virgin only operate one flight a day the rebooking option via the app is only for tomorrow (Monday’s) flight. We were due to be flying UC and I was expecting this to be our last flight in that cabin due to the recent changes.

I can see there is Business class availability for 2 Emirates flights and one BA flight but they are £5-7k per seat. What are our chances of Virgin booking us on one of those? I’m assuming low. Ordinarily, I’d rebook myself and claim back as necessary but thats a lot of cash to drop with a potentially long route back to being able to reclaim (plus the risk of CEDR/MCO ruling against). Does this mean we need to suck-up the day’s delay? I suppose the other alternative would be to book economy flights back today (there are no premium econ available).

ATM I’m sat on a nice long hold to the call centre – guessing there aren’t many staff working at this hour even on the UC priority line

[JDB]

@Olly – it’s not inconceivable that Virgin will book you those seats when it’s for last minute disruption but I definitely wouldn’t even contemplate spending that sort of sum in the expectation of claiming it back.

The rules don’t require airlines to offer you last seat rerouting on an airline of your choice and you have to meet the three part test of the incurrence/cost being “necessary, appropriate and reasonable” which is a fairly high bar. Virgin has got very hawkish on this sort of stuff.

I hope you get a suitable rerouting sorted out promptly.

[Olly]

Timely, helpful advice – really appreciate it @JDB

Call centre rep checking to see if they can book us on one of the available Emirates flights now. I’m not overly optimistic but hoping to be surprised

[Olly]

The best they could do was a flight via Amsterdam (on EK and BA) on Monday morning. Not brilliant but the next direct they could offer for all four of us was the Thursday flight back on Virgin