No response to BA claim for compensation >28 days ago… CEDR next option?

[cska]

About a month ago, a flight I was due to take was cancelled by BA at short notice. Despite putting in my claim for compensation I have had no reply for 28 days and BA telephone team simply state there’s a large backlog with no expected resolution timeframe.

Do I just wait or should I be taking this to the CEDR?

Keen to know what other people have done in similar positions/how long BA take to get back to claims?

Thank you

[Richie]

If you are confident that the circumstances were not extraordinary, then just wait.

[JDB]

@cska – you need to wait for eight weeks before escalating a claim to CEDR unless you have had a response from BA prior to that. In any event, 28 days unfortunately isn’t a very long period to be waiting as, although some claims get settled in days, usually on an automated basis if there is any question or ambiguity, or if for any reason it’s not straightforward, it could take two to three months. I’m not sure chasing will actually expedite matters, but you can try if you wish.

If you haven’t heard after eight weeks, I also wouldn’t rush to CEDR simply because that too is very slow and BA has quite a habit of successfully pulling the wool over their eyes, but that will depend on the nature of your compensation claim.

[points_worrier]

I almost never get a response from BA on normal channels. Maybe I would if I wait long enough.

I escalate to CEDR at 8 weeks. As @JDB says CEDR is slow, so it starts the clock. It also gets your complaint through to someone at BA that has the power to resolve it. BA tend to settle my CEDR complaints early on, suggesting they are with merit and they should have simply responded sooner.

I don’t know in what universe BA thinks taking > 8 weeks is acceptable to respond to a relatively simple claim in. They are certainly going to be charged their CEDR fees with me if they are taking this sort of time with me. Hopefully one day it will lead to them responding appropriately in a given timeframe.

[Matt]

I’d agree with @points_worrier – if you are confident you have a straightforward case then just go to CEDR at 8 weeks from your first claim (as long as you have evidence of your date of claim). CEDR might be slow, but it will get there and you can keep track of the claim, which often isn’t possible directly with BA.

[JenT]

I have had more luck recently with timelines so not sure why it is taking so long for you. Flight was diverted due to a technical issue on 7 Nov – compensation and expense claims logged on 8 Nov. Replies received from BA on 12 November, including final deadlock email. Filed with CEDR on 30 Nov (my delay filing as was enjoying the holiday) and BA settled in full on 3 Dec.

[Lady London]

points_worrier wrote:

I almost never get a response from BA on normal channels. Maybe I would if I wait long enough.

I escalate to CEDR at 8 weeks. As @JDB says CEDR is slow, so it starts the clock. It also gets your complaint through to someone at BA that has the power to resolve it. BA tend to settle my CEDR complaints early on, suggesting they are with merit and they should have simply responded sooner.

I don’t know in what universe BA thinks taking > 8 weeks is acceptable to respond to a relatively simple claim in. They are certainly going to be charged their CEDR fees with me if they are taking this sort of time with me. Hopefully one day it will lead to them responding appropriately in a given timeframe.

Whilst JDB is the voice of good sense I commend your approach points_worrier.

Life is too short to peel grapes waiting for BA to respond on simple claims. I’d have more sympathy for them if they had a process where if a claim is not straightforward, they’ll communicate to the person raising the claim within 30 days, that their claim has been triaged to a more specialist team and will take longer, together with an accurate time estimate for this.

I would also make more allowances for BA generally if their practice was to pay those undisputable payments under UK / EC 261 that are due under 261 to be paid within 7 days, within those 7 days and not make passengers they owe refunds and / or compensation to, supplicants who have to chase them for weeks and months.

So long as BA’s current way is less painful (to them) BA will continue in this way. Even though I know daring to try to get BA to respond in a reasonable time by CEDR or chasing does gum up the works as BA currently operates, I’m for points_worrier at least trying to change the pain balance with BA.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Lady London wrote:

I would also make more allowances for BA generally if their practice was to pay those undisputable payments under UK / EC 261 that are due under 261 to be paid within 7 days, within those 7 days and not make passengers they owe refunds and / or compensation to, supplicants who have to chase them for weeks and months.

.

But BA IS paying lots of claims very quickly as people are reporting on here.

One a couple of weeks ago due to storn Bert – flight cancelled on a Sunday and rebooked, claim for right to care made Wednesday and approved on Friday.

And this isn’t an exception. Simple claims are processed quickly. The complicated ones take time and its not helpwd when people write a load of waffle in the text that make it hard for the agent to work out what went wrong.

I cancelled an avios flight last week. Received the refund wihin days.

[Lady London]

Avios booking refund is done automatically by system – this is not a matter needing a claim to be submitted except for very rsre exceptions. Though usually the cash refund lags a ittle behind the avios refund.

Unfortunately not the case for things like downgrades or refunds following flight cancellations. Money due for these is requiring a claim to be submitted and there are many reasons why people are waiting and chasing that are not the fault of the victims.

[JDB]

Matt wrote:

I’d agree with @points_worrier – if you are confident you have a straightforward case then just go to CEDR at 8 weeks from your first claim (as long as you have evidence of your date of claim). CEDR might be slow, but it will get there and you can keep track of the claim, which often isn’t possible directly with BA.

There’s seemingly quite a divergence between what a passenger considers to be a “straightforward” case and BA’s view! Therein lies the risk with CEDR.

BA is regularly paying out straightforward cancellation/delay + subsistence cases very quickly. Those cases that are hanging around usually have complexity or something unusual about them.

[JDB]

Matt wrote:

I’d agree with @points_worrier – if you are confident you have a straightforward case then just go to CEDR at 8 weeks from your first claim (as long as you have evidence of your date of claim). CEDR might be slow, but it will get there and you can keep track of the claim, which often isn’t possible directly with BA.

@Matt – to put some figures on CEDR claims success (which probably has some correlation with a passenger’s perception of ‘straightforward’) in 2023, 57% of all claims failed in their entirety, 28% were successful in part and only 15% were fully successful. This is better than the two previous years where 65% and 70% failed in their entirety. I think that other than BA only Cathay and SAS use CEDR, so these figures are essentially BA’s.

[points_worrier]

JDB wrote:

Matt wrote:

I’d agree with @points_worrier – if you are confident you have a straightforward case then just go to CEDR at 8 weeks from your first claim (as long as you have evidence of your date of claim). CEDR might be slow, but it will get there and you can keep track of the claim, which often isn’t possible directly with BA.

@Matt – to put some figures on CEDR claims success (which probably has some correlation with a passenger’s perception of ‘straightforward’) in 2023, 57% of all claims failed in their entirety, 28% were successful in part and only 15% were fully successful. This is better than the two previous years where 65% and 70% failed in their entirety. I think that other than BA only Cathay and SAS use CEDR, so these figures are essentially BA’s.

@JDB: to make a point, I’m sure all my 4 successful claims would not be included in this – because BA settled (in full) prior to a ‘judgement’, so they wouldn’t be included. So only the equivocal claims made it to a decision. The cynic also tells me there is likely to be a financial benefit to BA to settle early, as CEDR fees will be less.

[memesweeper]

JDB wrote:

@Matt – to put some figures on CEDR claims success (which probably has some correlation with a passenger’s perception of ‘straightforward’) in 2023, 57% of all claims failed in their entirety

I’d imagine the readership here have a much higher average success rate than 43%, which is another example of how atypical we are compared to the average traveller/points collector.

[Kuestrian]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

Simple claims are processed quickly.

Not sure how you arrive at this supposition but they’ve still not processed my simple claim from over 2 months ago.

There’s no more straightforward case than refunding seat selection fees on flights that BA cancelled of their own volition (the KUL route).

[JDB]

@points_worrier – yes, the figures do relate to adjudicated claims but while some claims, such as yours are conceded, so are others withdrawn by the passenger at the defence stage, and the general trend is very clear. There’s a combination of bad cases, ones that pax think are straightforward/simple so they don’t prepare them properly and lose or they weren’t quite as the pax said with key bits of information missing. The interesting bit is the partially upheld ones!

@memesweeper – you would have to hope the HfP success rate is over 43%, but incredibly few cases get reported here. I would always go to some lengths to resolve with BA first!

@kuestrian – seating fee refunds shouldn’t constitute a claim/complaint or be routed down the channel we are talking about. Did you ask for the fees to be refunded when you did the rerouting? It’s the reservations team that should fix that and other pre-travel issues.

[meta]

For MCOL you don’t need to wait 28 days. You can issue a letter before action straight away and give them 21 days (usual practice) and proceed straight away to claim at day 22. If the case is straightforward I’d go to MCOL rather than CEDR as you’ll be done an over almost two times by the time CEDR would have even looked at the case.