Fairly painless duty of care claim with BA

[PeteM]

@JDB – Unless I am misremembering, you were asking about situations like the below and BA’s response? Or was it a legal precedent in these cases you were after? It took just over a month, but we got the full refund from them today on the hotel cost – on first contact.

We were originally due to return from BRU to LHR on 8 May 2022 at 16:50. This flight got cancelled and had our reservation moved to 19:20 on the same day. This flight also got cancelled.

BA only retained two flights on 8 May 2022, departing at 07:10 and 11:20. As the event we were attending in Belgium didn’t end until the afternoon of 8 May 2022, neither of these were feasible options.

I attempted to contact the BA customer services line twice on 23 April 2022 upon receipt of the cancellation email for the third flight, but was unable to speak to anyone after holding on the line for 1hr in each case (and being cut off after this time). I was seeking for British Airways to rebook us onto a Brussels Airlines flight, a Eurostar train in the afternoon or evening of 8 May 2022.

As I was unable to speak to BA, I booked an extra night at the hotel we were staying at in Belgium and rebooked our flights for 9 May 2022 in the morning.

To prevent them “misunderstanding” I stated I was aware that as we were informed of the cancellation more than 14 days prior to the scheduled departure date, we did not have a right to compensation under Regulation 261/2004. I did note, however, that British Airways has a duty of care towards us in this case under the Regulation and hence wanted the hotel reimbursed.

[JDB]

@PeteM thank you for remembering me! I did have a similar situation although my question was actually about some previous advice here that I thought was probably erroneous and the supplier of the advice later confirmed that it was.

I have a similar duty of care claim with BA for a cancelled flight from KEF, ten days after your flight, leading to an extra night which was in fact a big plus. The only question is whether they will pay for the alcohol. The popular wisdom here is that one can’t claim for alcohol, but this is my third claim and the previous two, including alcohol, have been promptly paid without question. I haven’t mentioned it specifically, but the alcohol element has been quite clear on each bill. BA’s guidelines simply say “reasonable” expenses so I’m not even sure where the HfP trope has come from. Anyone who has been to Iceland will know that alcohol is even more expensive than everything else there, so we shall see…

[PeteM]

Ah fair enough @JDB. Let us know – have a few more of these coming up that will include food and drinks.

And hopefully the above will be useful to others as a basis for a claim!

[meta]

@JDB I also had BA paying for alcohol and it was quite visible on the receipts. I think if it is part of a larger bill which includes food, you can get away with it. If it was a night out in a bar, then no.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[meta]

In terms of alcohol and Iceland, when I went last year, I was told by someone to buy all alcohol at the airport. There is a duty free shop before immigration which is about 20% cheaper.