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Thought I would share experience of taking BA to small claims. The dispute was about whether BA had the right to deduct ‘supplier fees’ from a hotel refund I received during the pandemic. They argued their terms were fair and laid out in the voucher I received. I argued that a booking email that has one set of terms and a link to ‘print voucher’ that has additional terms was not sufficient for me to have agreed to these additional terms at the time of booking. All it would have taken was for them to change the booking confirmation to be clear rather than hiding the terms in a link I didn’t try and follow until months later.
Interesting – did it go to a hearing or did they settle beforehand?
Interesting – did it go to a hearing or did they settle beforehand?
Went to hearing though BA didn’t attend. I did offer arbitration, but they wanted to go to court.
Good outcome then, and presumably they’ll be stuck with their legal costs as well!
Well done! A win for the consumer
Unbelievable that a company can just miss a hearing without consequences.
Unbelievable that a company can just miss a hearing without consequences.
There is a consequence – they lose by default. If counsel ultimately advised that they wouldn’t win, they probably prefer that to an actual judgment. BA has, to my certain knowledge, been aware of its defective hotel reservation terms since at least December 2020.
Unbelievable that a company can just miss a hearing without consequences.
There is a consequence – they lose by default. If counsel ultimately advised that they wouldn’t win, they probably prefer that to an actual judgment. BA has, to my certain knowledge, been aware of its defective hotel reservation terms since at least December 2020.
They submitted a written statement so it wasn’t by default, but of course they couldn’t respond to anything that came up in the court. So there will be a judgement which hopefully will be a kick to fix their broken terms (which a call centre agent admitted to me were broken).
Well done.
Well done @Masaccio and thank you for sharing this.
If BA didn’t bother to turn up after you surprised them by offering arbitration and then when they still refused you actually took it to court, whilst knowing those terms were defective…
Then it seems BA is relying on wearing people down, or people getting to court and failing to present their case well enough…. and doing this systematically.
How many people have they deterred from claiming? Are you 1 in 10,000? Fortunately for BA, probably you are.
Well done.
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