BA diversion – able to claim compensation?

[MaxG]

Hi all, I’ve been looking extensively online but getting a bit quite a bit of mixed information – suspect somewhat related to switch in EU/UK laws.

I was on a flight from San Diego to LHR yesterday with my wife in CW when we had some issues landing at LHR. We had two go-arounds at LHR due to Storm Noa and ended up diverting to STN. We were held at STN for 2hrs waiting for the weather to improve at LHR so complete our journey. As the weather continued to deteriorate at LHR and ATC were struggling with the backlog of flights going around the captain decided to “cancel” (his words) the flight and stay at STN where we disembarked and our luggage was offloaded.

I’ve read various articles suggesting that if you didn’t land at the planned airport and no transport was offered to the final destination then this is classed as a cancellation and you’re entitled to a refund.

I’ve also seen information that suggests it only counts as a delay and elsewhere that it’s classed as neither if the diversion is due to poor weather and you’re only entitled to the cost of a cab from the diversion airport to the final destination (which we didn’t take but did have to take a cab back home when we were previously going to take Heathrow Express).

If it’s of any use we paid with Avios (+ taxes) and companion voucher.

Has anyone had a similar experience or know some of the ins and outs of what (if any) reimbursement we’d be entitled to from BA before I go down the proverbial rabbit hole with customer services? I also have Amex Plat and know that they have flight delay insurance but unsure if this provides any cover if our flight didn’t reach its final destination or only if it was delayed getting there.

Many thanks in advance and do let me know if I’ve left out any key information.

Max

P.S. On a slightly unrelated note re BA club suite product I was very impressed. I usually struggle to sleep on flights but had a relatively comfortable sleep for a solid 5 hours. Food was very impressive, service exceptional (same can’t be said for LHR-LAX outbound) with cabin crew simultaneously providing fantastic communication during the diversions, difficult weather and two unwell passengers (as well as lots of travel sickness during the go-arounds) and Digby Fine English sparkling was a wonderful addition to the wine list.

My tip for the CS lie flat bed would be going fully flat then just slightly lifting the back of the seat to a 5-10deg angle to avoid the hard ridge in the middle of the seat.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

There really is a lot of misinformation out there re EU/UK261 and you appear to have come across some of the worst of it!

This was caused by weather so no compensation (or refund).

But you will be able to claim reasonable costs back from BA such as train from STN to London.

[Lyn]

We were on the same flight, and I agree with you about the wonderful cabin crew.

The total surprise to me was the fantastic Swissport staff at Stansted, who were handling problems there for BA. Customer service par excellence! They even lent me a chair from their office so I could sit down while using my laptop to check if our connecting flights had been rebooked. One of them called a local taxi company in Bishop’s Stortford to order a taxi to take us to Heathrow and waited outside with us until they arrived. In the rain. We’d never have made our flight using the normal airport taxis, for which the queue was huge, and the Stansted Express/Elizabeth line would have taken over two hours, which we didn’t have. An hour and 5 minutes from Stansted to Heathrow and after problems with cancelling/rebooking checked luggage we caught the last flight to CDG with only minutes to spare, arriving at the Hilton at T3 at 1:30am after that flight was further delayed. Exhausted and hungry but glad to be there instead of stuck at a Heathrow hotel. Even the CDGVal had stopped running at 1pm so we had the added complication of talking a taxi driver into taking us on the 5 minutes journey from T2 to T3. And who knew that CDG flights sometimes depart from the C gates at LHR.

It was ironic that 3 or 4 flights in a row to CDG were cancelled, including our original one so we’d still have arrived at the same time even without the diversion to Stansted. Just not as hungry.

The only things we are expecting BA to cover are the taxi from Stansted to Heathrow and also perhaps the one at CDG. No duty-of-care for meals as we didn’t have a spare second to even buy any food and if had time we would have gone to gone to the lounge anyway. I definitely came to regret my mistake of not eating breakfast on the plane and waiting for the lounge.

[MaxG]

Thanks for the responses – I thought as much!

Lyn, I’m sorry to hear about your stressful transfer – I think we may actually have spoken on the plane yesterday – if you’re the person I’m thinking off then I hope your ankle is feeling better (if not then I still hope your ankles are fine)..

In hindsight given the high winds it may have been advisable to skip the breakfast – I imagine the poor lady behind me wishes she did!

[Lyn]

MaxG, yes that was me, what a coincidence! And we talked about flying using using avios? Yes, I felt sorry for the poor lady as well. I have to admit I do sometimes catch myself wondering if there are other HfP readers on our long-haul flights to or from London. Perhaps it is a widespread syndrome?

Glad to hear you managed to find a taxi to get home. The queue looked really daunting. We wouldn’t have made our connection without the Swissport representative booking the local Bishops Stortford taxi the moment our second bag arrived on the belt. Someone else on the SAN flight was supposed to be connecting to Paris and I didn’t notice them on our fight. Hopefully BA will reimburse both of us without any problems. Thank you, my bad ankle definitely didn’t help the situation yesterday and would have made it harder to deal with luggage if we had to take two trains. Fortunately it has now reached a benign “still ridiculously swollen but no longer intensely painful” stage. We also reached to our hotel in central Paris this morning amidst the general strike and road closures without having to walk too many hundreds of metres, so I am feeling very lucky.