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I have been chasing BA since May 22 for my telephone conversations with them between mid December 21 and mid January 22.
Finally asking for them under the data protection act I now have their written notes but they say they have not kept the recordings.
The notes are incomprehensible to a lay person, I have asked for them in plain English and they will not do this. I have asked for one specific email they are referring to and they say they cannot find it.
The recordings are important to a case, with my detailed notes which I am going to arbitration or court with.
Are BA in default in not keeping the recordings and not producing the notes in an understandable form?
Thank you for any comments — R Dyer
Unlike some industries, BA isn’t under any obligation to keep recordings of calls. It normally adds notes into bookings to reflect conversations. In any event, if your case is reliant on these conversations or emails it’s probably going to be problematic anyway. I don’t know what your case is, but it sounds as though you are trying to establish some sort of estoppel. Representatives of businesses are entitled to make mistakes and frequently won’t be held to them. This is something CEDR can’t really address and at MCOL it’s a hard case to make and in respect of air tickets they can’t address unfairness. You would need, in principle to have been given a clear and unambiguous representation which you relied upon and acted upon to your actual detriment.
If the underlying case is good, your own contemporaneous notes (if you have any, and it’s no good making them up now) will carry weight, particularly if BA can’t contradict them as it doesn’t have its own records.
I would really focus on setting out your own case in a brief ‘particulars of claim’ and not worry about BA. As one can get a bit emotionally invested in these things, particularly if it has been hanging over you for a while, it would be good if you could run it past a reliable friend who knows nothing about it to get their view.
“Are BA in default in not keeping the recordings and not producing the notes in an understandable form?”
Since the recordings were initially made for their own purposes (which they’ll have informed you of at the time), they get to decide how long to retain them.
Notes and their format and quality are up to them. You can expect under a DSAR to receive all information relating to you that is not covered by an exemption. But that is simply that – the info, as it exists, provided to you. They’re under no obligation to put the info in a specific format for you. Where jargon and abbreviations clearly unknown to a lay person are used, good practice is that they should provide you with a glossary to aid your understanding of your info in context.
Thank you both, this is what I wanted to know. I have very detailed notes made at the time and feel confident to move on.
One last question please.
After several cancellations by BA on the trip to SA because of the virus, I took a FTV and shortly afterwards made a booking. This was acknowledged and flight times confirmed.
For the next nine months or so small changes to flights, seating choices confirmed back and occasional conversations with BA personnel, including just 10 days before the flight confirming all was in order.
Then I got a BA phone call saying the flight was cancelled for ‘operational’ reasons and saying because I didn’t have an e-ticket, I would have to pay full price on a flight two weeks later — I was originally using Avios.
Given we were in full contact by email through the several months after confirming the booking, BA were in effect under contract with me to provide the flight — am I right?
I plan to use this as part of my dispute, together with the fact I was not offered any other flights eg via JNB or with another airline. Comments would be appreciated R Dyer
“ I took a FTV and shortly afterwards made a booking. This was acknowledged and flight times confirmed.”
Did this booking confirmation include a long ticket number beginning with 125? It is possible they issued you the confirmation but sonehow the ticket was never formally issed via a back office function.
If so, that’s their problem not yours really. If you have a clear and explicit booking confirmation email then you’re in better stead.
@1005dyer – it sounds better than I feared and not a ticket validity issue, so that’s good. The telephone calls/notes are also of no relevance to this dispute. It is also of no assistance to BA that you didn’t have an e-ticket; they’re playing games there. Is the remedy you seek replacement tickets to South Africa, as opposed to the refund I imagine you have been offered? Were the tickets from the 50% Avios sale? It doesn’t affect things but potentially an important piece of detail. If you can specify the remedy and what has been offered, I will try to offer some ideas.
I took a FTV on 11/2/21 for my wife and I with both vouchers starting with 125 and under a booking reference.
The next day I phoned to use these vouchers to book a new flight and I was issued with the 2/4/1 under the same booking reference titled ‘Your Itinerary’
I was issued on 28/5/21 with an identical ‘itinerary’ but noting the chosen seating and setting out in the normal way the baggage allowances, etc
Without going through the other minor changes the following exact extracts from the BA notes I see as significant —
28/5/21 Rm Another please note error on OB class is being honoured.
25/12/21 Rm vious tkts not issued/advise to pick seats and call back promised/email sent to — –
25/12/21 Rm call trace done as requested by – – ref – **listened to agent — – call of 28/5/21 and this is an ongoing issue with a CBA CPT agent incorrectly holin g the wrong OB without ECH knowing so the error is by cot
I wanted to seek replacement 2/41 tickets not a refund, but was left no choice but to pay full fare to CPT, but the 2/4/1 was honoured on the return. I seeking the cost of this outbound flight Thanks
@1005dyer – I think this is potentially one for MCOL rather than CEDR but this would require you to pay £455 issue fee + £346 hearing fee (assuming the tickets cost between £5k and £10k) if it came to that. I am afraid though MCOL carries risks for you as a) your presentation of the facts/issues seems rather muddled which adds considerable risk and b) your pursuit of the tapes has taken you down a rabbit hole, so there’s no focus on the real issues; that totally suits BA. You have, in your posts, left out key facts while writing a lot of stuff that doesn’t matter; this gets in the way of good points, so obscures them.
I don’t say this not to be rude or unkind but to try and assist you in getting your case into a shape that has a good prospect of success.
I would favour MCOL over CEDR in this instance because it focusses BA’s mind much more, forces them to keep to a timetable and to stick to legal arguments rather than potentially pulling the wool over a CEDR adjudicator’s eyes which they might get away with as it’s a slightly unusual case. There is a chance BA will settle early, even with a Letter before Claim. You may need to issue a joint claim (with the other passenger) at MCOL, but don’t need to split it at CEDR.
Some of the key issues, as I see them are:-
1) BA appears to play on the fact that you didn’t have an e-ticket, but you don’t need a ticket to have UK261 rights – see definitions at Article 2(g) – you may not have a ticket, but you do have “other proof” of a reservation which is enough. You therefore had full UK261 upon cancellation of your flight.
2) If I understand it correctly, you sought to assert such rights, but BA suggested you could not as you didn’t have a ticket. That’s incorrect as a matter of law and flowing from this, BA failed to advise you of your rights under Article 14. This failure by BA has caused you monetary loss in the sum of £xxx
3) The onus to issue the relevant e-ticket is exclusively on BA, not the passenger who has no ability to issue tickets. The issuance of a ticket was an implicit term of the contract/Conditions of Carriage between the BA and the passenger and explicit within the terms of the BAEC at 15.6 and 15.7. At the moment you paid Avios/Companion Voucher/cash you had a contract with BA and they were obliged and contractually bound to issue you with a valid ticket in exchange for that consideration.
4) As a result of BA’s administrative failures and breach of contract which the airline failed to remedy despite your efforts [see chronology] you were ultimately obliged to purchase your cash own tickets LHR > CPT at the prevailing market price and that the incurrence of such expense was “necessary, appropriate and reasonable” in all the circumstances and was in accordance with and entirely consistent with the CAA’s CAP2155 Guidance at paras 6.6 to 6.7 and the two CJEU cases contained therein.
5) The fact that BA ultimately acknowledged you had a valid reservation that they had simply failed to ticket is tacitly admitted by the issuance of a ticket for your return flight using the original payment made on XX date.
6) You have at each stage attempted to mitigate your losses by a) trying to get BA to provide your rights and get them to issue the outbound ticket and b) allowing BA the opportunity to issue the return when you would have been entitled to pay cash for a return ticket at the outset.
If I were you, I would prepare a chronology – they key here is that BA legal, CEDR, MCOL etc. know absolutely nothing about your case so need to be able to get to grips with the facts as easily as possible. So, set out the date on the left and key events, with facts, minimum narrative possible and absolutely no comment or opinion. If you have documentary evidence to support each event put those behind the chronology paginated and the page reference [in square brackets] at the end of each event. All well spaced and official looking!
Send this together with a hard copy letter headed “Letter before Claim” (and email) by at least Signed For or preferably the more expensive Special Delivery as the former often fails to get a receipt.
In the letter, to be kept as brief and factual/analytical as possible, say that you are seeking reimbursement of £xxx for the costs incurred by you as a result of both BA’s failure to apply your UK261 rights and as a result of their breach of contract in failing to issue your ticket(s). The key events and facts are set out in the attached chronology and the legal position is that …. [
In summary it is your position that, for all the reasons [use or ignore what you want of the ones I have given above + whatever else you think is missing or you want to add]. Don’t bother complaining about how rubbish they have been; you don’t get any money for that and MCOL couldn’t care less! BA is liable to pay you the sum of £XXX (I wouldn’t ask for interest here). You have corresponded extensively with BA, but they have failed properly to address the matter, so unless this sum is paid to your account:- XXX details by 4pm on [set a date about 16 days away to allow for post] you will issue a claim at MCOL seeking recovery of this sum + interest at the 8% County Court rate [at the date of this letter, the sum of XXXXX being interest starting 14 days from when you first sought reimbursement] plus all Court fees and other applicable costs.
I should probably have added in my point 3) that it’s not only the CAA Guidance, but a failure to provide you with your rights under Article 5.1(c)(ii). For good measure, you should also claim for cancellation compensation x 2 on the of the reimbursement as BA failed to reroute you at all, such that it triggers the compensation which they could have avoided had they rerouted you in the -2/+4 hours window.
And this is why we love @JDB
JDB — music to my ears. I am used to preparing simple, skeleton statements and so I will definitely be to the point.
I appreciate that you might think I am muddled, but I am trying to get all of the facts together before deciding the best way to proceed. I was leaning to MCOL with the cost of two one way tickets being £3700.
However before that I was thinking, as you suggested, that a ‘Letter before claim’ would perhaps lead to BA re-assessing their present position.
I assume that the fact my wife has died in January makes no difference to my claim for two tickets as I carried out, and paid for, the booking.
I am grateful for your detailed observations confirming to my mind, the strength of my point that BA were under contract with us the moment they took and confirmed the booking. Thank you, I will come back, when I have a response from BA Thanks
@1005dyer I’m very sorry to hear of the terrible intervening news, but it has no impact on your ability to claim, although if it went to MCOL, as you might need to claim as both of you, but you may potentially be able to make the claim as one person but acting in your personal capacity and separately as your wife’s executor. I mentioned it in the first place as BA likes to throw mud at claims someone brings that involve a partner or adult child saying they have locus standi. I would play it up a bit with BA, it may conceivably sway them to settle to avoid being seen as too heartless or mercenary.
Good point and I might mention that I had a cardiac arrest 18 months ago and am lucky to be alive unlike my wife — as you say this might soften BA’s attitude
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