BA flight cancelled. Downgraded from Club to Traveller on earlier flight.

[raynerdom]

ok looks like i need to be very careful and specific. would it be ok if i drafted my reply on here for any useful comments?

[Lady London]

no,do not accept *anything* for fare difference. If you do the airline will claim you settled just for that. Do *not* go there. Get the full downgrade reimbursement. Do not even refer to avios difference. Your claim is for a separately calculated 75% due back to you for downgrade and has *nothing* to do with any difference. Unless just the difference, which is a lot less, is all you want, of course.

And linguistically,do not ever say just ‘reimbursement’ without also saying “reimbursement due under [CAA .. / EC261/2004] of x% for downgrade. Reimbursement alone can just mean refund and you are not asking for a refund but a reimbursement due to downgrade.

[Lady London]

FWIW I think BA is lying through their teeth about effectively not having any other aircraft in the world except one 777 that was stuck in Toronto to do your flight. They’re really stretching this.

Personally regardless of views here that exceptional incident on earlier use of a plane originally scheduled to do a later flight an airline cancelled, would carry over to a raft of subsequent flights (or even to one, personally) except in very particular cases pertaining to the flight itself that was cancelled, just beggars belief. We are talking about airlines on a world scale and it’s reasonable to expect they should be able to arrange to deal with contingency.

Easyjet, for one, is excellent at rescheduling dynamically amongst their aircraft to meet contingency, and it seems here British Airways is even trying to say your flight could only have been flown by one particular aircraft and it had to be a 777. Really. I’d have more sympathy if they were trying to replace a 500-seater 380 which also needs specially configured 2-level gates at airports. A 777 is nothing in particular.

[raynerdom]

Lady London wrote:

no,do not accept *anything* for fare difference. If you do the airline will claim you settled just for that. Do *not* go there. Get the full downgrade reimbursement. Do not even refer to avios difference. Your claim is for a separately calculated 75% due back to you for downgrade and has *nothing* to do with any difference. Unless just the difference, which is a lot less, is all you want, of course.

And linguistically,do not ever say just ‘reimbursement’ without also saying “reimbursement due under [CAA .. / EC261/2004] of x% for downgrade. Reimbursement alone can just mean refund and you are not asking for a refund but a reimbursement due to downgrade.

yes i have asked if accepting avios and taxes is a seperate issue and have been informed that it is

Neha T (31/03/2023, 15:33:05): Dominic, I have raised the request to refund for the amount that is tax difference. I will not be able to share the details for the tax difference as it will be done by the refund team. For the refund of avios and taxes, we will send you the email. Going further, for the CAA rule compensation please proceed with the complaint link.
null (31/03/2023, 15:35:06): ok as long as receiving tax and avios refund doesnt exclude me from the caa reimbursement
Neha T (31/03/2023, 15:36:22): Do not worry, they are seperately handled, as in this platform we can only refund what you have paid for to the original source. And for the compensation you will need to raise the request with customer relation team.
null (31/03/2023, 15:36:30): ok

[raynerdom]

Lady London wrote:

FWIW I think BA is lying through their teeth about effectively not having any other aircraft in the world except one 777 that was stuck in Toronto to do your flight. They’re really stretching this.

Personally regardless of views here that exceptional incident on earlier use of a plane originally scheduled to do a later flight an airline cancelled, would carry over to a raft of subsequent flights (or even to one, personally) except in very particular cases pertaining to the flight itself that was cancelled, just beggars belief. We are talking about airlines on a world scale and it’s reasonable to expect they should be able to arrange to deal with contingency.

Easyjet, for one, is excellent at rescheduling dynamically amongst their aircraft to meet contingency, and it seems here British Airways is even trying to say your flight could only have been flown by one particular aircraft and it had to be a 777. Really. I’d have more sympathy if they were trying to replace a 500-seater 380 which also needs specially configured 2-level gates at airports. A 777 is nothing in particular.

ok i’ll query this through CEDR if they fail to p[ay me the correct reimbursement for the downgrade

[Richie]

Yes, @Lady London is spot on, it really isn’t the passengers problem if the airline has many varieties of LH planes.
Snow in Toronto! What ever next, too much sun in Dubai?

[Lady London]

@raynerdom I think that chat is with the call centre abroad and is not good for you. They are not an empowered team. Also it really looks as though they are falling into refund difference trap. Once you let them do that there’s a really good chance that’s all you end up getting.

Are you still claiming compensation despite the refusal you had? This chat above looks like it. Not judging either way if you should still be, and regardless of my views @JDB is probably right BA will get away with not paying you compensation. So up to you what you’re doing on that.

It’s clear the chat person still thinks your claim is a split between fare/avios/tax difference only for the difference in cost of the class you paid vs cost of class you flew, and a separate compensation matter.

Again up to you but i’d have written to BA either by email or contact form with my 75% claim for downgrade reimbursement (just to put my claim in writing). if I’d been trying to get it sorted for 8 weeks I’d send them a Letter Before Action. I think it would be very, very dangerous for you to accept tax difference (whether just real tax difference or also of BA’s own co-pay that they also misrepresent as taxes) until the whole amount you’re due for the downgrade side of things has been calculated and proposed to you.

That 75% downgrade reimbursement amount will be composed of the difference between true taxes in Club and Economy, plus 75% of whatever else you paid. The whatever else you paid will include any avios at 75% rate returned to you, plus 75% of BA’s own co-pay returned to you that they made you pay for the tickets, which they misrepresent as within ‘taxes’.
Plus 75% of any other cash element you paid if you took the option to ‘part pay with avios’ or other options that let you mix the two when you bought the tickets.

And as @JDB mentioned, the 75% downgrade reimbursement due to you for the first seat, must also be paid again to you by the airline for the second seat as well.

I’d cover yourself by emailing or contact form or even jump ahead a bit by sending a letter now by snail mail signed for to BA Legal at Stockley Park stating your request for 75% downgrade reimbursement in full for both seats, to be paid within 30 days (enclose bank details and Exec Club account details) failing which you will take action. Are you ready for possibly having to follow up by doing that if they ignore it for, say, 40 days? Exceptionally if they do, I’d recommend CEDR not MCOL as the downgrade part of your claim is so clearly due to you.

[raynerdom]

thanks. i have made a seperate claim in their customer relations portal. i have made it clear that we were involuntarily downgraded and quoted the text that you suggested

“we are seeking reimbursement due under CAA EC261/2004 Article 10 2(c) of 75% of the fare for both passengers and that under 2. of the same Article, such reimbursement must be paid within seven days”

if they refuse to pay me the reimbursement i’m owed i will go to CEDR and also query their refusal to pay cancellation compensation

[Lady London]

Sounds like a plan. Good luck and keep us informed.

[raynerdom]

they have replied from an email address that doesnt accept incoming mail and given me 5000 avios! i guess this is par for the course? they have completely ignored my request for reimbursement. they gave me a number to call where the operator told me that i had to make the claim online. they are just sending me round in circles. any idea as to the best way to contact them?

[JDB]

raynerdom wrote:

they have replied from an email address that doesnt accept incoming mail and given me 5000 avios! i guess this is par for the course? they have completely ignored my request for reimbursement. they gave me a number to call where the operator told me that i had to make the claim online. they are just sending me round in circles. any idea as to the best way to contact them?

This is fairly typical! I would respond to the message via the button and say that you note the ex gratia payment of 5k Avios for one passenger but there were two of you. More importantly they have failed to respond to your request for downgrade reimbursement under Article 10 and show your calculation of that [it may not be possible to calculate precisely, but that doesn’t matter] x 2 and the total. All the previous stuff about it being involuntary etc. Note in your email that this should have been paid within seven days of your initial request and further that BA is in breach of Article 14 in not only failing to inform you of your rights but then failing to accord those rights within the prescribed deadline set out in Article 10. There is no dispute as to the facts surrounding your downgrade so BA’s failure to pay the statutory reimbursement is inexcusable. Tell them that in the absence of confirmation of payment within 14 days (and give the date that is) you will take the matter to MCOL or CEDR and claim interest plus revive your cancellation compensation claim.

The CEDR rules at 2.1.1 don’t actually seem to provide for dealing with downgrade reimbursement as one would expect it to be listed there but it is potentially covered under 2.1.5. If they won’t take the case you will have to go to MCOL. If they force you to take them to court or arbitration, I would press for the cancellation compensation at the same time. It’s a long shot but they will have to evidence the ‘exceptional circumstances’ and that they took all reasonable measures to avoid it.

[Lady London]

@JDB is it time for @raynerdom to send an LBA hard copy letter snail mail signed-for to BA Legal at BA’s Waterside address?

[JDB]

Lady London wrote:

@JDB is it time for @raynerdom to send an LBA hard copy letter snail mail signed-for to BA Legal at BA’s Waterside address?

No, I don’t think there is any point in this case. Legal will just pass it back to Customer Relations as there is a case open so my message was intended to do both things at once. There is no pre-action protocol requirement to send a Letter before Claim, you just need to show you have attempted to resolve the matter first.

[raynerdom]

thanks. their email didn’t have a button or a reply address. just a customer service number which i called only to be told they couldn’t help me. i have updated my claim pointing out they have failed to address my claim for reimbursement. thanks for in forming me about article 14. they have consistently mislead me about my rights. i have contacted CEDR who advised me i could approach them 2 months after the original claim if i haven’t received any acceptable offer

[raynerdom]

After several delays ba have finally admitted we are due £260 each for the cancellation. However they claim they have refunded one set of Avios 46250 and 2*£80 taxes and that therefore no downgrade compensation is due ( or reimbursement). The £520 offered is a final offer which I will lose if I take this to arbitration however they have already admitted liability for the cancellation compensation so it’s highly unlikely that this will be taken away if I continue to arbitration?

[JDB]

raynerdom wrote:

After several delays ba have finally admitted we are due £260 each for the cancellation. However they claim they have refunded one set of Avios 46250 and 2*£80 taxes and that therefore no downgrade compensation is due ( or reimbursement). The £520 offered is a final offer which I will lose if I take this to arbitration however they have already admitted liability for the cancellation compensation so it’s highly unlikely that this will be taken away if I continue to arbitration?

It’s a bit of a strange one, but BA is perfectly entitled to make a conditional offer, but that doesn’t mean it would be upheld at CEDR or MCOL. [Funnily enough I recently made them a generous offer subject to not forcing me to CEDR/MCOL and they accepted.]

How much do you say BA still owes you (on top of Avios/cash already paid) for the downgrade reimbursement? You had also previously mentioned some ex gratia Avios awarded. It’s then a matter of deciding whether it’s worth pursuing. As I mentioned when you first raised this, the entitlement to compensation was a bit grey (as your earlier departure is only cover by a post Brexit CJEU decision), but their offer to you of 50% is a strange compromise position they have previously adopted as the judgment of the CJEU is that it is either 0% or 100%, it can’t be 50% if you departed more than an hour earlier. If it goes to arbitration, they may get funny about this and say it was voluntary, which is possibly the reason for making the offer conditional, thereby raising the stakes.

[Lady London]

Please run your numbers.

On this long route from the US there’s very little true government tax and other real mandated airport etc. charges on your ticket. As there’s no APD from the US such as the UK government is able to charge on ticket legs departing from the UK.

As well as the avios you would have paid at least £520 for your own seat as part of the “BA’s co pay” YQ part of the fare. This is money trousered by BA and is not tax even though BA illegally likes to call it tax. That money you paid for your seat, as well as the avios you paid, all except for the very, very small US actual taxes, you are entitled to 75% reimbursent of, for your seat. I simply cannot believe that isn’t probably at least very close to or more than £520.

And that’s just the cash reimbursement. You’re due 75% of the avios back as well (Personally, I’d try for that for each seat as there’s no way BA will give you your 241 voucher back.)

And then you’re entitled to the same amount of cash etc. again, for the companion seat (the 241).

So I cannot believe your claim isn’t worth at least 2x what BA have offered.

This has got to be worth at least a run at CEDR.
And as @JDB said earlier, if you take it to CEDR might as well claim the separate compensation part for cancelled flight, of £520 per seat, as well as this ‘downgrade reimbursement’ part, as that will make BA have to prove the exemption they’re claiming, from paying you the compenstion part of £520 per seat, as well as the downgrade reimbursenent for each seat.

CEDR costs you nothing and doesn’t add much to the delay BA has already caused by directing you to a team that is incompetent (and that’s not an accident). I’d suggest you read back through JDB’s earlier replies and use them to lay out a well organised claim point by point on paper and then onto the CEDR form and submit it. You have nothing to lose.

[JDB]

@Lady London – per my post, the OP does have something to lose at CEDR/MCOL in this particular instance because the 50% compensation is incorrect and it could go either way. I don’t know how CEDR determines cases of earlier rerouting departure as happened here. If the CJEU position is adopted, the compensation has to be £520, rather than the £260 offered, but if CEDR doesn’t adopt that position either because they won’t apply a post Brexit decision or because the OP rejected the rerouting initially offered so that the early departure was voluntary then the OP loses. That’s why I asked how much more the OP thought BA owed for the downgrade reimbursement.

PS. re YQ, BA doesn’t illegally call it a tax; you will get caught out one day with your regular libellous remarks!

[Lady London]

@JDB I’m talking mainly about the downgrade reimbursement that justifies a run at CEDR. As BA’s so-called ‘taxes’ would have had to be paid for each seat including the 241, as well as the avios paid, this is what makes it worth it. Because 75% downgrade reimbursement x 2 seats based on the co-pay/YQ must already be something close enough to £520 for 1 seat and the claim is for 2 seats downgrade reimbursement so twice the total BA have offered, or close enough, at the least, and that’s just the downgrade reimbursements.

Compensation of £1040 as well, or even just £520 if halved due to arriving earlier is just the icing on the cake. Personally like you, I think BA will wriggle out of compensation, but like you, if I’m going to CEDR for the proper downgrade reimbursement I’d definitely add in the compensation claim while I’m doing that.

If I’ve understood the figures correctly it’s a really low-ball offer BA is trying on. And the sad thing is I don’t actually think it’s intended to be a low-ball offer but the agent dealing with it doesn’t actually understand tbe basis of the claim.

And if BA has stopped referring to their co-pay/YQ takings as “taxes” then seriously, I’d be delighted to know.

[JDB]

@Lady London – I think you may have misunderstood the circumstances of this particular case. The cancellation compensation should not be £520 – it’s either £1040 or £0. The 50% in these circumstances (earlier rerouting than original schedule) is a BA invention. Within UK261, no compensation is payable at all so it depends whether CEDR/MCOL has regard for the post Brexit CJEU decision. If they do, the OP will get double the offer, if they do not have regard (and they are lawfully entitled to have no regard) for the decision, the OP will lose the £520 offered. That is why I asked the OP how much he thinks BA owes for the reimbursement beyond that which he has already received because he could potentially end up worse off.

Re BA taxes, they bundle the YQ into “taxes, fees and charges” but do not say it is a tax.

[raynerdom]

sorry i think i should clarify here. via CEDR i claimed £260 per passenger because my flight was More than 3,500km and the Departure was at least 1 hour earlier than booked flight arriving in the UK and was with a UK or EU airline . i also claimed downgrade reimbursement of £2668.50. I don’t have my exact workings but this would have been based off 75% of the cost off buying the air miles plus “taxes” for 2 passengers for a one way club class flight from Lax to LHR. both the claim for cancellation compensation and the claim for downgrade reimbursement were filed under the same claim. BA have offered £520 through CEDR so they are basically admitting that I am due cancellation compensation. However they are offering nothing for downgrade reimbursement as they say they have refunded me 46250 avios and £160 in taxes. I am going to reject the offer as the refund in avios and taxes is nowhere near the correct 75% reimbursement. I expect CEDR will find in my favour and make BA pay some downgrade reimbursement (probably less than my £2668.50 as they have already refunded some avios) as well as the £260 each that has already been offered by BA.

[JDB]

@raynerdom – BA has quickly conceded the £260 because the compensation you claimed is the wrong sum! It should be £520 per person if it is anything (ie they accept post Brexit CJEU decision). See official précis/press releases of the CJEU judgment below, noting last paragraph:-

A flight must be regarded as having been ‘cancelled’ in the case where the operating air
carrier brings that flight forward by more than one hour.

In such a case, the flight must be regarded as having been brought forward by a significant amount of time since it may result in serious inconvenience for passengers, in the same way as a delay. Where a flight has been brought forward in this way, passengers are unable to use their time as they wish and to organise their trip or holiday in line with their expectations. Accordingly, passengers may, inter alia, be forced to adapt significantly to the new departure time in order to be able to take their flight, or may even be unable, despite having taken the necessary precautions, to board the aircraft.
In addition, where a flight has been brought forward by a significant amount of time, giving rise to a right to compensation (which implies, inter alia, late communication that the flight has been brought forward), the operating air carrier is still required to pay the total amount (which is, depending on the distance, € 250, 400 or 600).

It does not have the possibility to reduce any compensation to be paid by 50% on the ground that it has offered the passenger re-routing, allowing him or her to arrive without delay at his or her final destination.

[raynerdom]

ok but the flight wasn’t “brought forward” it was cancelled and i rebooked on an earlier flight which arrived more than 1 hour before my original scheduled flight so i think £260 per person is correct?

[JDB]

raynerdom wrote:

ok but the flight wasn’t “brought forward” it was cancelled and i rebooked on an earlier flight which arrived more than 1 hour before my original scheduled flight so i think £260 per person is correct?

I don’t believe it is correct although I know it is a position adopted by BA. They rely upon the fact that Article 5.1(c)(iii) is rather unfortunately worded so they conveniently jump to Article 7.2 while ignoring court decisions. That’s why the UK261 is so unsatisfactory; the passenger needs to know a lot more than is obvious.

[raynerdom]

ok. i guess if i reject the offer made by BA via CEDR, then CEDR will review the cancellation compensation offered as well as reviewing the correct downgrade reimbursement