British Airways flight delay compensation

[JDB]

The pax has told us he did agree and I’m sure he signed his snail mail letter, although that anyway is no longer a requirement to reach a contractual agreement for 7.3.

In paying him but leaving him just £5 short, they have effectively blocked CEDR/MCOL; that is simply the practical effect of paying the Avios. It would be quite idiotic and totally gratuitous to pursue the matter (£5 x 2) at court or arbitration when the OP explicitly opened the door to Avios payment and has received a round number extremely close to the statutory.

[meta]

Depends on what OP asked exactly in his letter, did he explicitly state how many Avios, etc? If not, then it’s still up in the air. And you can go back to request more as per article 15 (2) if the compensation offered was inferior and he was not correctly informed of his rights by the airline as it seems to be the case.

OP is still in time to reject the offer as he said that the letter he sent has not been received yet. BA is also within their right to withdraw the offer. To claim that he is blocked is dishonest.

[hugo r]

Thanks for all your advice , on my initial web claim I didn’t specify an amount of avios , I asked for 260pp or would be happy with avios. The letter sent to legal (not delivered yet and was posted before CR reply ) just asked for the 260pp or as an alternative I would be happy with 40K each ,my letter might be too polite in hindsight As I didn’t quote any EU xxx or said letter before action etc ….if the legal team reply/don’t reply think might be best just to leave it as I don’t want to cause any problems or be blacklisted from flying with BA etc a tricky one

[hugo r]

So this afternoon I got an email from BA customer relations rejecting my claim as they saying the flight was delayed due to ATC

I’m so confused now , maybe legal did get the letter (and Royal Mail tracking hasn’t updated ) and have just pushed it to CR to respond too , who knows

No mention of the Avois previously given etc

[JDB]

hugo r wrote:

So this afternoon I got an email from BA customer relations rejecting my claim as they saying the flight was delayed due to ATC

I’m so confused now , maybe legal did get the letter (and Royal Mail tracking hasn’t updated ) and have just pushed it to CR to respond too , who knows

No mention of the Avois previously given etc

“Signed For” letters aren’t actually tracked, save if scanned on delivery which the postman probably fails to do more than 25% of the time. When it’s something important you need to use Special Delivery although it’s expensive. Anyway, the rather unsophisticated use a sledgehammer every time adviser above will no doubt be along soon to help further.

[hugo r]

Hi JDB I went back yesterday asking for a final response letter / deadlock advising I will take to cedr , they replied back this morning saying the same thing , no comp as ATC , the final response letter was ignored….

[Lady London]

Defo not CEDR.
MCOL, at best.

I think you’ve kind of snookered yourself by offering to take avios upfront as compo without being more specific about what level of avios you’d consider the minimum in that case. BA has paid you according to rack rate price of avios, so as @JDB says, you’ve been settled as you wished.

I think the only thing left to challenge would be procedural as hinted by @meta. That definitely wouldn’t fly at CEDR as BA has been reasonable in acceding to your demand, as CEDR is judged on reasonableness and not legal accuracy. Even the “£5 less” rather than “£5 more” than the rack rate price of avios, bringing it to the lower round figure, shows BA’s artistry.

So it would have to be MCOL and, given you’ve already shot yourself in the foot, I wouldn’t waste your time or even the small fee.

[hugo r]

Today I got a message from CEDR to say that BA accept the claim and will pay £260pp for the 3 hour 8 min flight being late … I’m shocked that BA CR and even when writing to the legal team both departments stuck with refuting the claim saying the delay was down to ATC it should take going to cedr to get a case like this resolved

[Richie]

That’s a very interesting outcome, thanks for the update. It seems they couldn’t be bothered copying and pasting something for CEDR.

[Lady London]

I am quite surprised by this, but pleased for you.

As @Richie says, perhaps they realised there were chinks in their arguments such as not having informed you of your rights, it does sound as though they knew it wouid come out that at least 3 hours of the delay was indeed fully caused by their pilot going sick/failing an alcohol test/whatever, and above all perhaps someone in Stockley Park Legal decided as max £260 was due then it wasn’t worth BA getting a solicitor out of bed to defend.