-
I’ve got a Harvey Nichols voucher to use plus the Platinum offer so need to get a move on. I’ve found something I like but can’t for the life of me find out how to apply the voucher. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to add the number at any point in the purchase process. I am overseas at the moment, just in case that is relevant. Any tips?
Hello from the Aer lingus lounge at JFK T7. Poor food offering, nice brownies, and self pour on the alcohol <hic>
Lots of comfy seating although it’s a bit grimy and showing its age. The business cabin is full, I ended up being auto assigned 1A which is not what I wanted but AE Whatsapp never responded past their bot for a seat assignment request made multiple times.
*** Reflections on dealing with the fallout of a codeshare flight ***
Here’s a tale I thought would be of interest to HFP readers, from a long time reader of these pages.
I had a BA flight booked from London, via Doha, to Sydney, travelling on Qatar metal, yesterday. Boarding passes – for both sectors, complete with seat allocations – were issued ahead of LHR T4 arrival. All proceeded as normal at LHR T4 until the final moment of boarding the plane when I was told: “You have been denied boarding for this flight because, with the airspace closure in Doha, we cannot fly you on to Sydney. You will need to talk to BA about your flight. And here is the number of Qatar Customer Service.” Not quite verbatim but close enough.
I returned home & contacted BA customer service who said: “well, the plane flew so we can only give you a partial refund, according to the terms & conditions” Again, not quite verbatim but close enough.
I am quite dumbstruck by the whole experience, never having experienced *anything* like this in my life. I have a suspicion I am a pawn in a pass-the-parcel between codeshare partners, one of whom (Qatar) had a lot of “their own passengers” to get sorted out as a result of recent hostilities in the Middle East,
To my mind, this is clearly a case for a full refund or total credit to my account.
Comments & advice welcome!
@Dacefl
Not surprised it’s showing its age as It’s the old BA CCR last renovated about 10 years ago.
T7 is due to be demolished pretty soon so any capital investment would be wasted. And Eli’s move to T7 is going to be short lived as they will move to the new T6 early next year.
BTW the code for aer Lingus is EI not AE.
BTW the code for aer Lingus is EI not AE.
I know, my fingers didn’t type what my brain told them to
Ok, the food offering improved once they brought out the hot dishes. Very passable chicken, potatoes and beans
*** Reflections on dealing with the fallout of a codeshare flight ***
Here’s a tale I thought would be of interest to HFP readers, from a long time reader of these pages.
I had a BA flight booked from London, via Doha, to Sydney, travelling on Qatar metal, yesterday. Boarding passes – for both sectors, complete with seat allocations – were issued ahead of LHR T4 arrival. All proceeded as normal at LHR T4 until the final moment of boarding the plane when I was told: “You have been denied boarding for this flight because, with the airspace closure in Doha, we cannot fly you on to Sydney. You will need to talk to BA about your flight. And here is the number of Qatar Customer Service.” Not quite verbatim but close enough.
I returned home & contacted BA customer service who said: “well, the plane flew so we can only give you a partial refund, according to the terms & conditions” Again, not quite verbatim but close enough.
I am quite dumbstruck by the whole experience, never having experienced *anything* like this in my life. I have a suspicion I am a pawn in a pass-the-parcel between codeshare partners, one of whom (Qatar) had a lot of “their own passengers” to get sorted out as a result of recent hostilities in the Middle East,
To my mind, this is clearly a case for a full refund or total credit to my account.
Comments & advice welcome!
I’m sorry to hear of this nightmare. You are of course entitled to a full refund, but is that actually what you want? As you were denied boarding, you are entitled to the same rights as if your flight were cancelled (per Article 4, EC261) – that’s to say rerouting at your convenience, so you are entitled to rebook your flights on a future date of your choosing at no additional cost to you. You won’t be entitled to the compensation normally associated with involuntary denied boarding as the situation will undoubtedly constitute ‘extraordinary circumstances’. This might be considerably more valuable than a refund, but if the refund is what you prefer, you are entitled to a full refund.
If you did prefer the rerouting option, you need to contact QR in the first instance as they were the operating carrier of your flight to get rebooked. If you prefer a refund, QR should have provided you with a notice of denied boarding, but if they didn’t you ideally need to get something from them to confirm. Did your bags get offloaded and you passed back through arrivals to collect them? Any evidence is useful. It may be a bit of a slog but you will definitely be able to get whichever of the two options you prefer.
I’m afraid that codeshare flights offer no real benefit, but if you run into difficulty asserting your rights, BA has acted as your agent and will have to accept responsibility in that role.
All male cabin crew on the EI JFK-DUB, happens from time to time but rare
@kraut, it depends when you want to travel to a great extent, some dates will never see standard pricing. Best chance as always is to book as soon as they’re released, but you do see some random additions from time to time.
I can fly into any of MEL/SYD/AKL so was just hoping there was an easy way to search, ah well. Looks like Vietnam aren’t offering any redemption flights on their SGN-SYD/MEL routes so there goes the other downunder route for 90k 🙁
15th April FCO or AMS to SYD one way 90k.
I flew CDG SYD in DEC’23 with less than 48 hrs notice on VN for 90k. DEC’24 saw my wife and I book AMS SYD for 90k each but CI repeated cancelled the 2nd leg. After 4 tries Delta rebooked us on their own flights via LAX under EU261 rules.
@JDB Is there actually an exceptional circumstances get-out for airlines in the case of denied boarding ? I can see it in the wording as a get-out for flight cancellations, but I haven’t managed to find it linked to denied boarding.
I think the OP should go after reroutung at a choice time if he can, plus compensation 600 euros for denied boarding. I’m suspecting BA might be a bit wet dishcloth to get that off Qatar if it was an award ticket? so I’d deal with QR direct to get the rerouting as a first task of the two.
Like the OP, to me this just looks like QR prioritising their own booked passengers and choosing to offload a passenger booked on a codeshare. Or even worse, could also be a case of overbooking even on the flight from London and they had to find somebody to offload so potential issues with the connecting flight from Doha could have just been a convenient excuse ( or that booked connecting flight from Doha was also overbooked with those off other flights that were subject to the claimed issue).
It would be very, very interesting if the OP could try to find out if his booked connecting flight left Doha pretty much on time, Though IMO QR does seem a bit fast and loose in terms of taking people off flights and putting them onto different connecting flights out of Doha for unexplained reasons, even when the currently quoted excuse isn’t available.
I returned home & contacted BA customer service who said: “well, the plane flew so we can only give you a partial refund, according to the terms & conditions” Again, not quite verbatim but close enough.
I am quite dumbstruck by the whole experience, never having experienced *anything* like this in my life. I have a suspicion I am a pawn in a pass-the-parcel between codeshare partners, one of whom (Qatar) had a lot of “their own passengers” to get sorted out as a result of recent hostilities in the Middle East,
To my mind, this is clearly a case for a full refund or total credit to my account.
Comments & advice welcome!
JDB has fully explained the situation re rebooking should you want tht so I’ll stick to getting a refund should this be your preferred one.
The issue here is that until QR prperly tell BA that you didn’t actually fly then their position re only offering a partial refund is the correct one as the flight did actually hap[en even though you weren’t on it.
BA (any airline really so not just BA being ornery) wwon’t take your word for it they need proper information from thw other airline – in this case QR
If you call BA again ask them to contact QR via the One World Liaison desk and ask BA to ask them (QR) to confirm the detaios of what happened and to confirm that you didn’t actually fly.
Keep records of whwn you call and the name(s) of who you spoke to.
This is a very unusual situation so something not every agent will be familiar with so a little persistence is required of you.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
