Jeddah – London, March 2025 – Return Leg Flight cancellation

[Alesio]

Hello everyone

I booked a return flight from Lon – Jeddah in March 2025, I received an email that the return leg has been cancelled and been given a day earlier return instead.
Just like to know what are my options as ideally I wish to maximise my stay with the hotel already booked until the original return outbound flight. I have seen that there are alternative flights e.g. Saudia flying direct from Jeddah on my original return date would this be a possibility?

Thanks

[SamG]

At this stage I don’t see that BA will offer you any other rebooking options other than shifting dates – so you could stay a day later if that worked for you for example. BA still has a duty of care so you can send them the hotel bill for that night on your return via the website

Alternatively you can take a refund and rebook yourself if pricing is similar

The more complex answer is to ask BA to rebook you to Saudia or another comparible alternative, they refuse, you have them note it on your booking but not do anything with the return leg. Book yourself on Saudia and claim the cost as a rerouting expense after travel. You may need to push this to CEDR or MCOL to get reimbursement. All a bit of a hassle so personally I’d only do this if the other options aren’t acceptable to you.

[memesweeper]

Is the airline BA? In my experience if they cancel they routinely try and reroute you earlier rather than later. Call up and ask for a later rerouting if that is to your convenience. If you can’t get their agreement, hang up, call again tomorrow. Do not accept a rerouting/rescheduling that does not suit you. Keep at this process until you get what you want.

As a last resort you could in theory rebook with some other airline and challenge through CEDR/courts for a refund, but this is high risk, obviously. I would not do this unless I’d tried repeatedly to get what I wanted through the usual channels.