BA couldn’t get through to cancel

[Jase]

Hi I currently have an open complaint with BA over 5 miles seats to Europe which i was unable to cancel/take a future travel voucher as they were too busy to take my call and they wouldn’t accept “cancelation” online.

I have asked for a miles and the taxes to be repaid, i am continuing getting the following response, any thoughts on my next course of action

Many thanks

Thanks for coming back to us.

As informed in our previous response, that you were unable to board your flight. Hence, you’re not eligible to receive a ‘Future Travel Voucher’ for this booking. The refund under such scenario is calculated as per our fare rules. Please let us know if you wish to receive the refund as per our fare rules by using the below blue link.

We do understand how strongly you feel about this. When a customer has any kind of concern, we share the feedback through the organisation and focus on what we can do to avoid the issue happening in the future.

Once again, thanks for getting in touch with us. We hope to welcome you back on board soon.

Best regards

[Lady London]

What, exactly, is your evidence that you made serious attempts to reach them to cancel your flights.

Were there any mitigating circumstances such as being in a comms-free area in Botswana, so you did make attempts to reach them you can prove but were not able to keep trying etc.

If your evidence is there and solid then if purchased under English law then I would think worth escalating and possibly taking action externally.

[Jase]

I have the evidence on the number of times i tried to call them from my phone bill. Plus I sent them an online complaint the day i was trying to cancel. For context it was the Saturday in Feb when BA cancelled virtually all flight from LHR so the lines were permanently busy

[Lady London]

how far ahead were you trying to cancel? obvs if you were cancelling 2 weeks ahead not being able to reach them on one particular day might not be regarded as reasonable

[Jase]

I booked them on the Saturday when they cancelled our morning flights, for the next day. I then managed to grab some more other seats for the Saturday afternoon.

So I was literally working real-time

[Lady London]

OK assemble your evidence into a timeline, write a half-psge summary to go on top saying what happened in 3-5 lines and the rest being what you want them to do now, listing the booking ref(s) and use it as the base of your Letter Before Action…just add a cover letter giving them 28 days …..continue the process as on here. Be very precise and well organised. This should be done well enough not to need much adding to also then be used for your MCOL.

Does anyone else agree that actually claiming 1.6p per avios from BA, as courts do money and it’s an accepted value as based on BA’s owm standatd selling price, is a good approach to take? I certainly wouldn’t want any avios back if put to this trouble. At MCOL make each passenger’s claim separate thus,as needed, staying under £10k each person’s claim and asking for the cases to be heard togetber?

You could publish the timeline here when done in case there’s something you haven’t told us we might spot that could mean it might not turn out. Most people bring more specific detail when they ask here.

For instance, it’s a pity you didn’t just enforce your EU261 rights and rerouted instead after your original flights were cancelled, as that way you wouldn’t have ended up running around booking 2 sets of tickets, though I do appreciate this might have meant travelling later than you wanted by the time you could get through to them.

[AJA]

Agree wholeheartedly with @LL’s post above. Definitely value Avios at 1.6p each as that is what you are likely to pay if buying outside of a 50% bonus deal.