Help please- BA flight delayed, request for refund of expenses denied

[bobbybrookes]

Hi all,

Can anyone offer some help, please?

Our flight from Dusseldorf was delayed in June. We were advised by the BA representatives at the airport to book a hotel and book a flight for the following day and that we would be able to reclaim all expenses. They also said we would have clarification from BA via email/text.

Flight was supposed to leave at 8:30 p.m – we were told it was cancelled at 10 p.m. as the airport was shutting. Correspondence from BA came through at 2:30 a.m. local time by which time we were asleep. We booked 2 tickets for the BA flight leaving the next afternoon (the first flight out with seats) before we went to the hotel and we went to the BA desk the next morning and when we knew the flight was leaving that morning we cancelled our flights with them and were assured we would get our money back. We got a text at 10:30 local time saying the flight was leaving at 11:15.

We sent in our claim form, 3.5 months later we were given the cost for the hotel but they are refusing to refund the flight (£960). They have given us an e-voucher of £500 (which we are unlikely to use as we only use Avios)

They are now saying that they won’t reply to any more emails from us (we’ve sent three!) and that there is nothing we can do.

This seems ridiculous as all we did was follow the ground crew’s instructions- it’s not our fault if that was incorrect. We are £960 out of pocket and can’t afford this- can anyone offer any suggestions please?

Thanks

[JDB]

You will have to force the issue by taking BA to CEDR or MCOL as you have reached deadlock. It’s a somewhat unfortunate situation as it appears you were misadvised by (probably non BA) staff in Dusseldorf. It’s not clear from your post which tickets BA won’t refund – the original ones or the replacement ones you bought. You shouldn’t have needed to buy replacements as it was all on BA – you should have been able to rebook on MMB or call BA to get rebooked without shelling out any cash which is why BA is being difficult. At this stage it’s probably first worth writing a hard copy recorded delivery Letter before Claim to BA legal setting out the facts clearly, with a timeline (I’m afraid the above isn’t very clear and probably won’t get them to pay up) give them a specific date to reply by at 4pm, 14 days after they should receive it. If they don’t reply, then you will need to go to CEDR or MCOL. You will need to set out clearly what you originally paid, what additional ticket costs you incurred and offset what you have had back. You are not obliged to take payment by way of a voucher.

You may also be eligible for delay or cancellation compensation unless the delay/cancellation was caused by ‘extraordinary circumstances’.

[JDB]

@bobbybrookes – BA will probably rely upon 4.2 of the EC261 Interpretative Guidelines:-

“However, where an air carrier can demonstrate that when the passenger has accepted to give his or her personal contact details, it has contacted a passenger and sought to provide the assistance required by Article 8, but the passenger has nonetheless made his or her own assistance or re-routing arrangements, then the air carrier may conclude that it is not responsible for any additional costs the passenger has incurred and may decide not to reimburse them.”

so you will need to be very precise about what the staff at Dusseldorf (who if not BA staff would have been their agents, so doesn’t get them off the hook) said which caused you to book new tickets – i.e. you contacted BA staff to seek the assistance referenced but they failed to offer you re-routing following a cancellation in accordance with Articles 5 and 8 or indeed to give you the information as required by Article 14. You need to tell BA that it is self evident you weren’t provided with the legally required information even thought you sought in person assistance, otherwise you would have been rebooked and/or they would have given you a document with your rights.

[bobbybrookes]

Brilliant, thank you. Will write a letter. I was keeping it brief here to avoid confusion and longevity but we did fly back on the original flight after having (what we thought and were told) cancelled the bookings for the afternoon flight.

They are refusing compensation as they say it was due to bad weather, although we were told that it was cancelled due to a NATO training task… but we are less worried about that and more concerned about getting the £960.

We would never have booked the tickets if we hadn’t been explicitly told to so I will make that very clear- we’ve tried to on the claims but each time they concentrate on telling us that we can’t claim the EU compensation money and missing the point about the £960.

Fingers crossed!

[bobbybrookes]

Hi @JDB , do you know how I can find the BA legal please? I’ve done a search on the forums and google and can’t seem to find anything. Many thanks