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I have an avios booking in club world from LHR-TLV at beginning of Jan. It has been cancelled.
I still need to travel so phoned BA. The agent was about to rebook me onto Elal but then said he had to double check.
He came back & said that the policy has changed and they will only rebook onto One world partners. None are flying at the moment so he said my only options are a refund.If I book myself onto Elal & try to claim it back from BA will I be refused?
Surely I’m entitled to rerouting even on non One world partners. (As Virgin & Easyjet have done since the war has begun). Or does the war effect my rerouting rights?
Thanks.
@Ingking – your rights are not affected by the war for the better or the worse. However, BA changed its policy for rebooking onto El Al on 7 December. Your flight was probably cancelled a while ago as they were allowing all bookings up to 14 Jan to be rebooked onto LY for travel up to 31 Mar. LY no longer wishes to or cannot re-accommodate flights from other carriers so options are now rather tricky.
While in theory you could book onto LY and reclaim the cost, a successful claim may depend on whether you chose not to avail yourself of options that were originally offered or available so missed the boat. In view of the current security situation and very limited options now available, it’s quite possible that BA’s approach will be considered reasonable such that you won’t get reimbursed.
@Ingking – your rights are not affected by the war for the better or the worse. However, BA changed its policy for rebooking onto El Al on 7 December. Your flight was probably cancelled a while ago as they were allowing all bookings up to 14 Jan to be rebooked onto LY for travel up to 31 Mar. LY no longer wishes to or cannot re-accommodate flights from other carriers so options are now rather tricky.
While in theory you could book onto LY and reclaim the cost, a successful claim may depend on whether you chose not to avail yourself of options that were originally offered or available so missed the boat. In view of the current security situation and very limited options now available, it’s quite possible that BA’s approach will be considered reasonable such that you won’t get reimbursed.
I have a BA booking on 1 Feb, what should I expect to be offered by BA in the likely event this will be cancelled? just a refund?
@SR – BA had an Israel specific rebooking policy until 7 Dec but now relies on its standard guidelines, except those aren’t much use to anyone if they won’t rebook onto LY as they have for the last two months. What you should do rather depends on whether you still wish to travel to TLV if it becomes possible. If you do, it may be best to hang on as a lot can change in five/six weeks in case you can get rerouted or BA flights start again. Your rerouting or rebooking options are closed off if you take a refund now, so maybe only take the refund if you have no future intention of going. It’s possible that BA may agree to reroute you to Amman as it’s within 300km, but that may not be useful for you.
Worth noting Lufthansa Group are due to re-start flights to TLV in the new year: https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/en/lufthansa-group-airlines-plan-to-resume-flights-to-tel-aviv/
yes I still wish to travel and was hoping to be rerouted onto EL AL, I guess I will wait for the inevitable cancellation and then hang on until nearer the travel date to see what happens, I do not wish to travel through Amman anyway.
Thanks for your help@SR – if you still wish to travel, once your flight is cancelled (if it isn’t cancelled already) you need to get in touch with BA and ask to be rerouted on LY and as @PeteM helpfully mentions above also potentially on LH/OS/LX. BA will probably refuse or offer only OW rerouting that doesn’t exist – either record the call or make a careful note of exactly what they said, date and time. Then make the same call again the following day.
If BA still refuses you have the option of booking a flight yourself at a reasonable cost and seeking reimbursement from BA. There’s no certainty you will succeed, but it should be OK. You need to make these calls to show you have given BA ample opportunity to comply with the rules before making your own arrangements.
It’s worth googling CAP2155 and reading Chapter 6 of that CAA document before you call BA – its only a couple of pages but sets out your rights in plain English much better than I can.
Thanks @JDB. You’re knowledgeable advice is much appreciated.
My flight was cancelled on 28/11. I phoned BA on 11/12. They refused to rebook me onto LY then as my cancelled flight was on 10/01 & they had only cancelled upto & including 10/01. They offered to put me on the morning flight on 11/01. I refused knowing that it was highly likely it would be cancelled & said I would consider my options.
Not sure I’m willing to risk the 2k+ on rebooking myself with LY.
Also I’m pretty sure the unwillingnes to rebook isn’t on the Elal end. Just yesterday I had a Virgin booking from TLV in Feb rebooked onto LY.
As an aside, the CS experience with Virgin was light years ahead of BA’s. Short waiting time and a helpful agent. Whereas with BA I had a long wait and a pretty rude agent whose English was quite hard to understand
@Ingking – I also wouldn’t risk spending £2k in the hopes of getting BA to reimburse me. I don’t know why, after two months, they ceased to allow rebooking on LY after 7 December but BA may rely upon the fact that you could have contacted them in the 9 days after notification of the cancellation and been rebooked and also that you refused a proposed reasonable alternative. It’s a bit tricky to know how to proceed in the absence of co-operation.
I think VS does generally have more ‘can do’ staff empowered to be flexible although VS treated passengers very badly after they cancelled their HKG and GRU routes. They are not all sweetness and light! BA staff used to be given much more discretion, but these days they are bound by very tight guidelines, plus many agents don’t even know what they are allowed to do.
Was told today by an agent to cancel the booking, get my refund and then rebook onto LY and claim it back from BA.
Is that not incorrect? If I cancel the bookong then BA definitely won’t reimburse me as they are no longer required to offer alternative transfer.
Or have I got something wrong?I don’t plan on rebooking myself but wondering if I’ve lost my marbles or it’s regular BA misinformation.
No, definitely don’t cancel unless you do actually want a refund. BA aren’t going to refund you AND pay for an alternative flight, the agent was talking rubbish.
Was told today by an agent to cancel the booking, get my refund and then rebook onto LY and claim it back from BA.
Is that not incorrect? If I cancel the bookong then BA definitely won’t reimburse me as they are no longer required to offer alternative transfer.
Or have I got something wrong?I don’t plan on rebooking myself but wondering if I’ve lost my marbles or it’s regular BA misinformation.
It’s not misinformation; BA is being practical and anyway cannot and is not intending/attempting to extinguish your UK261 rights here. It’s a common misapprehension re taking a refund having this effect. Obviously any refund would be set against your reimbursement claim. Keep a note of the advice you were given with date/time just in case.
However, for practical reasons, as you are swapping a BA Avios ticket for an El Al cash ticket, it may be easier not to refund your existing booking and be fully refunded for the rerouting ticket so there is no question about the value of the Avios. If it were cash for cash, I would take the refund as you will likely be out of pocket for a while.
Hi @JDB
thanks for all your help, I will wait for the inevitable cancellation for my 1 Feb flight and keep you posted.
As expected my LHR-TLV is cancelled but BA are refusing to reroute me on LY, just offering me a refund, as @JDB says see chapter 6 of CAP2155 which I quoted to the CS rep but got nowhere.
Anyone got any ideas as to next steps?Will they also not re-route on any LH Group airlines?
no nothing, just a refund or to a later date after April when flights restart which is useless to me.
Then I would say, as discussed above, keep all the evidence of this refusal, book your own LY flights and submit a claim to BA. Which will likely get rejected, then take them to arbitration. Good chance they will settle before it reaches an arbiter.
in that case should I accept a refund and claim the difference or just not touch my booking, also LY have no business availability on my date so I will have to book economy, and also what happens with the avios I have used?
in that case should I accept a refund and claim the difference or just not touch my booking, also LY have no business availability on my date so I will have to book economy, and also what happens with the avios I have used?
You have two choices – the easy life or the fight! It’s more complicated if you are planning to book in a lower class as you probably don’t get effectively compensated/reimbursed for that.
So the easy thing is to take the refund and put that towards your new flights and just accept the situation. You could theoretically still then claim for any additional costs of the LY ticket but with the class difference and Avios involved it’s messy.
If you are up for a fight, book your ticket(s) on El Al and put in a claim with BA after you have flown for the full sum and if they say no, take them to CEDR. The cost of your LY ticket needs to be reasonable. If you win, obviously BA gets to keep your Avios/cash paid for the original booking. While there is no provision for war within 261, BA may plead their case on that basis and it could possibly be met sympathetically.
I’m up for a fight, the question is how to go about it.
currently booked in club using an upgrade voucher, if I now book in LY economy what should I be claiming for and should I cancel my booking to get back my avios and voucher?I’m up for a fight, the question is how to go about it.
currently booked in club using an upgrade voucher, if I now book in LY economy what should I be claiming for and should I cancel my booking to get back my avios and voucher?The easiest way as suggested above is to leave your booking with BA and rebook economy flights with LY, ensuring the cost is reasonable. After you have flown, claim for the full cash cost of the LY ticket plus claim for the upgrade voucher to be returned as you booked economy. BA will get to keep the economy Avios and whatever cash you paid if they agree or are instructed to pay by CEDR.
I’m really quite amazed that British Airways is openly saying their policy (that suits themselves) outranks the statute. This is not legally the case.
You have a right to choose to be rerouted ie BA is responsible for getting you to your destination, if you choose, after they cancelled your flight and it’s your choice not theirs. Of course they would like to just get out of it by trying to make you think you can only have a refund and then leave you with the problem. But that’s not what the statute says and any policy or preference of BA is outranked by the statute if you prefer what the statute says – and you do : you want a rerouting.
If you are able to book yourself on El Al or another carrier then there’s no reason BA can’t. So I can’t imagine why BA would not be required to pay the costs of that.
The fact that BA has even dared say “the policy has changed and they will only rebook onto One world partner” is an outright declaration that they have decided to systematically flout the law. They are simply not allowed to restrict rerouting to their own flights or to their own alliance( OneWorld )flights and the CAA has reminded airlines that they may not restrict reroutings in this way. Just for even saying this to a passenger should get BA actioned by the CAA.
@Lady London
I quite agree with you, however, as BA will not offer re-route when I spoke to them I would have to pay out and claim later which is a big pain.
Any ideas how to get them to pro-actively re-route me?@Lady London
I quite agree with you, however, as BA will not offer re-route when I spoke to them I would have to pay out and claim later which is a big pain.
Any ideas how to get them to pro-actively re-route me?There’s no science to this, but one thing is to propose specific flights/dates where you know there is availability rather than just asking to be rerouted. It would appear that something has happened between BA and LY as the rebooking agreement ended rather abruptly, so that may be tricky.
In BA’s Customer Guidelines (which are for travel agents but the same as BA applies) Option 10 allows the agent to rebook you on any carrier (although they may try to suggest this only relates to on the day cancellations) and Option 12 specifically allow rebooking onto any LH group carrier which is probably the option you want. Both of these are below the refund option in their tree! You just need to fall on the right agent.
Just for even saying this to a passenger should get BA actioned by the CAA.
Yeah well we know many regulators in the UK are toothless. Not sure why.
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