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

[Lady London]

BA made the booking in Business against your protests as a reroute of your flight in First that they’d cancelled. They refused to provide any alternative in First. So your downgrade was indeed involuntary.

Seems clear to me.

If BA had rerouted you (ie booked you) in First on AA, but AA had then downgraded you when you got to the plane or before, then your claim for reimbursement would be against AA and you could then claim against AA, if it was a flight departing UK or Europe.

I wish someone would put BA’s head down the toilet and flush it, when they try to get out of paying claims with such weaselly arguments.

[JDB]

@Lady London – there is no evidence in @secretsanta’s post to say BA refused to provide any alternative in First. He says he offered to go via any other gateway and BA was supremely unhelpful. That’s very different; words matter in these cases. Critical though you are of BA, if you ran a business and had all these people claiming against you, I wonder how you would act! Would you just pay every claim? I think one has to try and look at these things a bit dispassionately to provide help or answers rather than just railing against them. It’s actually a cracking argument for CEDR, perhaps less so for MCOL. If you had come up with such creativity in your line of business, you would be very pleased with yourself!

[meta]

More honesty and integrity needed. 🙂

[Matt]

JDB. Words matter, but you seem to be using them to mean whatever you feel like they should mean.

If a passenger is placed in business, asks to go via any route in first and the airline sticks them in business still, I think any reasonable understanding of the situation would be that the airline has refused to re-route in business. If they haven’t, then the passenger would be in first. If the passenger didn’t request a first re-route then your interpretation would be more reasonable.

If I ran a business with lots of people claiming then a) I’d try very hard to sort out the root causes of the claims and b) try to comply with the laws I’m operating under. 1 or the other would be an advance to be honest, from the customer point of view.

[JDB]

@Matt – I’m not trying to make words mean anything. The OP provided insufficient information to draw the conclusions others have drawn and I’m reading UK261 and the Interpretative Guidelines to ascertain whether BA has an arguable case because it’s an interesting position. I think you are conflating Articles 8 and 10 although they are not connected as say 5 and 8 are. What is interesting is that the OP appears to have written off the cancellation compensation when BA has rerouted him within the required time window but not under comparable transport conditions. The question as to whether Article 10 applies to a rerouted flight is moot, but there is some substance to the argument that it may not. One thing that fortifies this is that new 261 rights attach to the rerouted flight and in the hypothetical situation that AA downgraded the pax itself, then he would be entitled to downgrade reimbursement twice which cannot be correct.

If you were the OP, what would your legal response be to BA’s position that Article 10 didn’t apply to the rerouted flight.

[thesecretsanta]

@jdb – BA refused to provide any alternative in First. As I said, I offered any NA destination in First and they refused to even look into it and gave me only 1 option of the AA business flight or to cancel
I think to any reasonable reader Art 10 is clearly applicable here, but I was not aware of any interpretive guidelines so maybe they make it less clear cut.
Will update once I hear back from CEDR

(Didn’t intend to hijack a thead here either, was posting as I thought it was relevant to the OP)

[JDB]

thesecretsanta wrote:

@jdb – BA refused to provide any alternative in First. As I said, I offered any NA destination in First and they refused to even look into it and gave me only 1 option of the AA business flight or to cancel
I think to any reasonable reader Art 10 is clearly applicable here, but I was not aware of any interpretive guidelines so maybe they make it less clear cut.
Will update once I hear back from CEDR

(Didn’t intend to hijack a thead here either, was posting as I thought it was relevant to the OP)

Thank you for clarifying. I don’t think it is as clear cut as you suggest.

You have effectively agreed that your Article 8 rights (and entitlement to cancellation compensation) be disapplied in favour of exercising Article 10 rights on a different flight. I fully understand the logic of what you and @Matt are saying but I wonder whether the law actually entitles someone to pick’n’mix in that manner. I don’t know the answer and I don’t believe there is any authority on the issue but BA’s argument has some logical basis. CEDR may work in your favour as they will consider the overall effect in the same way as the FOS does in financial cases rather than strict interpretation of MCOL.

I don’t understand why you didn’t claim for cancellation compensation; on your analysis you would be entitled to both that (ie rerouting within the time window but not under “comparable transport conditions” and the downgrade reimbursement.

[thesecretsanta]

I didn’t claim for cancellation as I hadn’t seen the ‘comparable transport conditions’ part – I looked on https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2004/261/article/7 which focusses only the time, rather than 8 which notes the comparable conditions, so I missed that.
That said, I’ve just looked back through my email exchanges with BA and I have never actually said that I don’t want cancellation compensation, just that this claim is for downgrade reimbursement and they keep focusing on the time of the alternative flight (when they quoted the legislation, surprisingly they didn’t quote the part that notes comparable conditions…). So if CEDR do side with BA on the downgrade reimbursement, could I then start a new claim for cancellation compensation given the re-routing was not in comparable transport conditions?

I didn’t claim for both as per above I didn’t realise there was a comparable conditions clause, but even if i had i am trying to be reasonable with them here so just expect reasonable compensation – claiming for both would seem unreasonable to me, although i’d be happy to accept both 🙂

[JDB]

@thesecretsanta – I agree it would be greedy to apply for both, so it’s really a belt and braces approach. BA’s defence of saying Article 10 doesn’t apply to your rerouted flight is trying to have it both ways.

The Article of UK261 you linked is Article 7 whereas the ones that in dispute are Articles 5, 8 and 10. Article 5 is explicitly linked to Article 8 so I think the “under comparable transport conditions” at 8.1(b) applies. Article 10 is linked to none of the ones relevant to your case.

Your dispute I assume is about the value between 75% reimbursement and the fare difference between the classes that BA is presumably offering and that may amount to less than the £520 per person cancellation compensation.

I don’t know whether CEDR would agree to take the case again on a different basis.

[Lady London]

I hadn’t thought about it either but no one can claim this passenger was not involuntarily downgraded. I don’t think forcibly would be too strong to say as it’s clear how the conversations went with BA though important to ensure BA’s fundamental – for this case – first refusal, to reroute in First on same route that preceded the passenger’s offer to consider other routes in First – is literally written in the submission to CEDR and not assumed..

So as it’s a strong claim I’d leave it with CEDR since BA are refusing to accept their responsibilities.

And meanwhile I’d draft up a claim for compensation for cancellation of the original flight ready to be submitted as soon as the separate matter of the downgrade has been adjudicated. Definitely go for a second bite of the cherry due to their appalling refusal to accept clear responsibility on the downgrade.

[raynerdom]

The adjudicator found in our favour and agreed BA should reimburse both of us based on the 75% formula. Thanks everyone for all your help. I would have claimed far less if I hadn’t taken all your helpful advice on here. Good luck @thesecretsanta I hope you get a similar outcome

[Lady London]

Very well done @raynerdom, looks like @JDB has saved the day for you!

Now go claim for the cancellation of the original flight given all the trouble BA has put you to. Go on I dare you.

[raynerdom]

Thanks. Yes I made a single claim to CEDR that included cancellation ( which they originally blamed on snow in Toronto!) and for downgrade reimbursements. CEDR found in my favour on both counts and for both passengers even though we used a 2 for 1 voucher

[Lady London]

Yessssss..:-) Well done, @raynerdom