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Hi all – hoping to pick your brains here for some advice…
Yesterday we were in a flight from LHR – Atlanta that made it as far as the run and then turned back to the stand due to an issue with the cargo area of the plane. The flight was subsequently canceled. My original booking was made with a complain voucher and Avois for club world.Fast forward a day and and overnight stay at LHR hotel, I am now being re-routed via Washington Dulles > Atlanta on united airlines Economy.
BA were unable to source any business seats on any airlines apparently so this is what we had to accept.
Do you think I’ll have any come back on this at all in the way or an Avois / taxes and charges refund? Especially now that I have been downgraded to Economy on United..
You should be eligible for £520 per passenger compensation for the original cancellation. BA should also reimburse you in full for the cost of hotel, dinner and breakfast.
In respect of the downgrade, in accordance with Article 10 of UK/EC261, BA should reimburse you 75% of the Avios paid and they owe you this for each passenger even though you used a companion voucher (which is what I think you mean by ‘complain’ voucher). So if you paid 100,000 + companion voucher, BA owes you 75,000 Avios x 2. You are also entitled to 75% of the fees and charges levied by BA itself, but not paid away to third parties but, because of RFS, I wouldn’t do the calculation like that as the sum you paid ??£225 is fully accounted for by APD and the Heathrow passenger charge, so ask for the difference between the Higher Rate APD (for club) which is £191 and the Standard Rate of £87 – so £104 each. In respect of the Avios, BA usually tries just to offer the difference between the classes and for only one person (ie ignoring the companion voucher) which is about 10k person less, so you may have to fight to receive the right reimbursement.
how many travelling? It is a very busy day but can see some flights that have 1 or 2 seats including the BA flight to Dulles
Sounds from your post like your new flight hasn’t departed yet. If you can find seats and can afford it you could consider booking business class flights yourself and charging them back to BA, but of course it could take some time and effort to get the money out of them. Tickets appear still to be on sale for DL33 at 13:55.
Sounds from your post like your new flight hasn’t departed yet. If you can find seats and can afford it you could consider booking business class flights yourself and charging them back to BA, but of course it could take some time and effort to get the money out of them. Tickets appear still to be on sale for DL33 at 13:55.
You can’t do that once you have accepted the rerouting which the pax would appear to have done. It would in any event, in these circumstances, be a reckless thing to do at this point, although yesterday at the time of the cancellation other options paid by BA could have been explored.
Have they accepted re-routing?
Have they accepted re-routing?
Yes, the original post specifically states: “this is what we had to accept”.
It’s a bit weird because the Delta flight is pretty open in economy (it looks full in Business according to expertflyer) so if you were going to downgrade someone you’d at least send them direct.
Otherwise it looks like there are very limited numbers of Business seats e.g. via JFK on Virgin/Delta but yesterday things might have looked different – especially if OP is in a group
From what I understand of things it is not a technical restriction on being “re-re-booked” and certainly if I’d been downgraded and then I could see a more appropriate rerouting I’d be pushing to have this fixed but likely this will be YMMV if you’d be successful or not
@SamG – there is a ‘technical restriction’ in that once the airline has rerouted you and you have accepted that rerouting, even if it is with a downgrade, they have no further obligation so it becomes a matter of goodwill. That’s why one needs to be sure to understand/research the options and get the most desirable/least bad option at the outset.
Also, availability that shows at this late stage isn’t necessarily very reliable, particularly when down to a very small number of seats.
This must be very annoying.
I’d claim as @JDB says. If you haven’t got an Aer Club (Aer Lingus) membership, open one now. Credit your UA flights to the Aer Lingus account, ideally at checkin.
These will be credited as avios with the idea of transferring, say, to your BA account.
Since BA has given you a suboptimal reroute and you’re probably going to have to spend time and persist to get all you are due from them in compensation for their flight cancellation due to a nonexceptional circumstance, as well as your other entitlement of downgrade reimbursement of 75% of the avios you paid plus the difference in cash/tax between the classes – as well as all your expenses (don’t forget transport to and from the hotel) though I do expect you will get it – you might as well do this as well.
I mean the system doesn’t restrict it is my understanding, if you could find the right person at BA they could do it, especially in this situation (cancellation t-24, got downgraded) and especially if BA themselves now had seats. But as you say they don’t have to and the OP would be at T2 so no one to ask anyway unless they make a special trip to T5 or try the phone
I do sympathise with the OP, it can be hard to research in the heat of the moment especially as what you see online may not match what BA sees when flights are so busy
Thanks everyone for the comments. Unfortunately we had to accept the flight via Dulles as it got us to Atlanta the earliest. We were actually having to be there for the football match at 5pm last night! Therefore other options we no use to us that BA suggested (which originally putting in the same flight the next day but in economy!!) Hence why we were out on the first united flight via Dulles. I’ll put in my claim when I return next week to the UK! Thanks for all the advice.
UPDATE: Just to give everyone an update. British Airways stumped up the full compensation with zero fight from myself (there’s a first time for everything!) I was also delayed on the way back and eventually having to fly to Edinburgh instead of Aberdeen as connection missed in Heathrow, but that is another story. Compensation also paid out for this with zero back and forward between myself and BA. Still awaiting the Avios and money back from the downgrade, but they say this is being processed. This one might be a bit more hassle but we will see what they deposit back in my account. So basically it has been about 4 Weeks since raising the claim to them paying, which I consider pretty good after hearing others having to wait 6 months. Thanks for all the advice everyone.
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