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good outcome for this lady, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-64788448
why it had to go this far seems ridiculous, keeps the courts busy I suppose 🙂
I came to report it, too.
Do we have her here? 🙂BA’s defence was pretty much:
“Aint nobody got time for yo jibba jabba”Suing BA is intimidating indeed and I did gulp when I got sent a brief from some swanky sounding chambers in London, but the small claims court was actually very friendly and accessible.
A good result for the lady and of course the correct one. BA offering vouchers was OK but then insisting that once you accept vouchers that is it was wrong. BA got to keep her cash for a lot longer than they ought to have done which is why there was interest paid in the award by the court. I wonder how many others will now pursue BA for refunds?
I am quite surprised that as BA cancelled the flight, she wasn’t given the cash refund she asked for as BA broke the contract. Regardless of whether her ticket was nonrefundable.
I am really not sure why she had to resort to frustrated contracts legislation which is generally a lot harder to prove than BA’s simple failure to provide travel on the date booked and paid for.
Nor indeed, on any near date if anyone thinks that would be something she should have been required to accept (I don’t think a change of date should have been something she should have been required to accept either.) She was due a cash refund.
A good result for the lady and of course the correct one. BA offering vouchers was OK but then insisting that once you accept vouchers that is it was wrong. BA got to keep her cash for a lot longer than they ought to have done which is why there was interest paid in the award by the court. I wonder how many others will now pursue BA for refunds?
It may make a good headline, but in reality it’s a very disappointing outcome for her. If she got any interest at all, it will have been de minimis and she has spent three years trying to turn a voucher into cash which, with inflation, is now worth c. 80% of the face value in real terms. In air fare terms it’s worth more like 60% of the 2020 value.
Unfortunately she made two big errors – if she still wished to travel at some stage, she should have exercised her UK261 rerouting rights and preserved the value of the trip or requested a cash refund at the time rather than taking a voucher, something that was always an option by calling rather than cancelling online. Now she has quite unnecessarily taken a huge haircut and probably had a lot of stress as well.
I am quite surprised that as BA cancelled the flight, she wasn’t given the cash refund she asked for as BA broke the contract. Regardless of whether her ticket was nonrefundable.
I am really not sure why she had to resort to frustrated contracts legislation which is generally a lot harder to prove than BA’s simple failure to provide travel on the date booked and paid for.
Nor indeed, on any near date if anyone thinks that would be something she should have been required to accept (I don’t think a change of date should have been something she should have been required to accept either.) She was due a cash refund.
The complication seems to be that she accepted a voucher in the first place. The article suggests that’s what she requested, perhaps not realising at the time she was entitled to a cash refund. Whether or not that was the case, BA benefitted from keeping her money during the pandemic.
In my view they rightly lost the argument that she should use the value on flights she did not want, or lose it, when her planned destination did not reopen as expected. Perhaps in that scenario the frustrated contracts legislation provided the easiest vehicle to achieving that. However, if BA failed to inform her of her rights at the time and told her she had to request vouchers, I would have thought that would have been sufficient grounds.
It may make a good headline, but in reality it’s a very disappointing outcome for her. If she got any interest at all, it will have been de minimis and she has spent three years trying to turn a voucher into cash which, with inflation, is now worth c. 80% of the face value in real terms. In air fare terms it’s worth more like 60% of the 2020 value.
Unfortunately she made two big errors – if she still wished to travel at some stage, she should have exercised her UK261 rerouting rights and preserved the value of the trip or requested a cash refund at the time rather than taking a voucher, something that was always an option by calling rather than cancelling online. Now she has quite unnecessarily taken a huge haircut and probably had a lot of stress as well.
Indeed… We were in a similar position to her, kept the tickets alive (it did take a lot of effort to be fair) and managed to make it to Japan over Christmas and NY just gone where ticket prices were in the £6-7k pp bracket.
Unfortunately she made two big errors – if she still wished to travel at some stage, she should have exercised her UK261 rerouting rights and preserved the value of the trip or requested a cash refund at the time rather than taking a voucher, something that was always an option by calling rather than cancelling online. Now she has quite unnecessarily taken a huge haircut and probably had a lot of stress as well.
Agreed with you here, I never got why people did not demand back their cash when it all hit, I was very wary of accepting vouchers, to each their own I guess, but as they say Cash is King.
A good result for the lady and of course the correct one. BA offering vouchers was OK but then insisting that once you accept vouchers that is it was wrong. BA got to keep her cash for a lot longer than they ought to have done which is why there was interest paid in the award by the court. I wonder how many others will now pursue BA for refunds?
It may make a good headline, but in reality it’s a very disappointing outcome for her. If she got any interest at all, it will have been de minimis and she has spent three years trying to turn a voucher into cash which, with inflation, is now worth c. 80% of the face value in real terms. In air fare terms it’s worth more like 60% of the 2020 value.
Unfortunately she made two big errors – if she still wished to travel at some stage, she should have exercised her UK261 rerouting rights and preserved the value of the trip or requested a cash refund at the time rather than taking a voucher, something that was always an option by calling rather than cancelling online. Now she has quite unnecessarily taken a huge haircut and probably had a lot of stress as well.
I agree that she could have done better but having taken the vouchers she was then stuck as she was unable to use them to get her trip to Japan. I suspect that she was pushed to take the vouchers rather than actually offered a cash refund let alone the option to preserve the flight for a future date. My point about it being a good result is that she has finally got her money back plus statutory interest. Of course it is probably insufficient to be able to book flights to Japan today.
@AJA one thing we can be sure of is that she didn’t receive interest at the statutory rate of 8% which is why she has lost out really quite badly; it’s a rather notional win that simply went part of the way to correct her original error(s). She has received far less than the real 2020 value of the vouchers, used a lot of her time and had an awful lot of aggro. How is that good?
Didn’t BA take away the ability to get a cash refund online, only offering vouchers when someone asked for a refund. You could only ask for a refund by phone which it seems almost no one could get through on. I also believe from what I’ve read here that they tried to push you into vouchers on the phone as well.
Didn’t BA take away the ability to get a cash refund online, only offering vouchers when someone asked for a refund. You could only ask for a refund by phone which it seems almost no one could get through on. I also believe from what I’ve read here that they tried to push you into vouchers on the phone as well.
I had zero issues getting cash refunds where I wanted them via the phone. They did make it quite painful as you did have to call and hold.
@JDB I will defer to your superior knowledge on this but how do we know she didn’t receive interest at the statutory rate? The original BBC article merely mentions that she received a total payment of “£2,523.42 to cover flights, interest up to the date of judgment and costs.” On the assumption that is for the two tickets she originally purchased I think it’s possible she may have purchased WTP at most. I will agree that the net result is that she is badly off since BA today is quoting £2,526 for a single return economy ticket direct on BA LHR to HND for mid-March. But at least she got her money back since she would not have been able to use the vouchers she was issued to buy two tickets to Japan.
As many others I am confused with the article.
BA was refunding passengers when the flights were cancelled. Vouchers were for those where planes were still flying but passengers preferred to stay put. So she basically asked for a voucher when BA was still flying and then was stuck with it from the looks of it. If her flight had been cancelled she would have been given the option for a reroute, voucher or money back.
The problem is that flights to Japan are now super expensive so she should have hold to the original ticket and changed the date.
I had a May 2020 Japan trip that was cancelled too and I got the money back without the courts or anyone else getting involved.
I don’t get why this is news when more important issues are discussed here (like the 1 yr limit on rebooking).
Suing BA is intimidating indeed and I did gulp when I got sent a brief from some swanky sounding chambers in London, but the small claims court was actually very friendly and accessible.
With my dispute with orangeJet, Sean Gates’ crew sent some lovely letters and I met a lovely barrister at a hearing, the Judge was very good and a cheque eventually arrived in the post. Don’t be put off accessing justice.
As many others I am confused with the article.
BA was refunding passengers when the flights were cancelled. Vouchers were for those where planes were still flying but passengers preferred to stay put. So she basically asked for a voucher when BA was still flying and then was stuck with it from the looks of it. If her flight had been cancelled she would have been given the option for a reroute, voucher or money back.
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Indeed. Where the flight was cancelled I took the refund. Even though at times it was hard getting through I always took the refund and never got any pressure to take a voucher.
All the vouchers I generated were from where the flight still operated but I decided not to fly because of restrictions at the destination or I felt unwell. And a voucher was far better than cancelling and just gettign the proper taxes and airport fees back.
@AJA the 8% statutory rate of interest is rarely paid, even in the small claims track. It’s a very ancient rate, not reflective of current interest rates and as the interest is supposed to be compensatory for the time value of money rather than punitive, BA or any corporate defendant will challenge the rate of interest and it’s likely to be more like 2-3%. The Financial Ombudsman does award simple interest at 8%.
I think some people here are overlooking the borderline dishonesty from airlines where they led people to incorrectly conclude that a voucher was all they might be entitled to.
There are plenty of people who don’t question decisions and just assume major organisations like BA wouldn’t mislead.Add to that the growing uselessness of customer service people in all companies and it isn’t difficult to see why so many people have accepted vouchers or weren’t aware of what they might have been entitled or, or in some cases were just pushed back time and again by shitty customer service people.
I’m actually very unhappy with the state of customer services across most organisations these days. Even Amex are borderline useless and full of shit lately.
Thanks for the information @JDB That is interesting.
Not everyone is blessed with the knowledge and expertise to be found on this excellent forum. She probably thought she was doing the right and tbh I’d have proably done something similar though generally pretty good at preserving monetary value. Yes she maybe could have done things differently but we don’t know what we don’t know. Plus when the pandemic broke who knew when we could fly again or her personal cicumstances and a refund may have had more value than the promise of a flight some time in the distant future.
I think some people here are overlooking the borderline dishonesty from airlines where they led people to incorrectly conclude that a voucher was all they might be entitled to.
There are plenty of people who don’t question decisions and just assume major organisations like BA wouldn’t mislead.Add to that the growing uselessness of customer service people in all companies and it isn’t difficult to see why so many people have accepted vouchers or weren’t aware of what they might have been entitled or, or in some cases were just pushed back time and again by shitty customer service people.
I’m actually very unhappy with the state of customer services across most organisations these days. Even Amex are borderline useless and full of shit lately.
You mean the interests of the little people are irrelevant in our neoliberal utopia?
I think some people here are overlooking the borderline dishonesty from airlines where they led people to incorrectly conclude that a voucher was all they might be entitled to.
There are plenty of people who don’t question decisions and just assume major organisations like BA wouldn’t mislead.Add to that the growing uselessness of customer service people in all companies and it isn’t difficult to see why so many people have accepted vouchers or weren’t aware of what they might have been entitled or, or in some cases were just pushed back time and again by shitty customer service people.
I’m actually very unhappy with the state of customer services across most organisations these days. Even Amex are borderline useless and full of shit lately.
In view of the extraordinary dishonesty exhibited here by a fortunately small minority, it is hardly surprising that organisations sometimes treat us rather badly as we are all tarred with the brush of the entitled who think ripping off financial institutions or airlines is fair game. The biggest surprise to me is how the worst behaviour is lauded by many here when in fact we all suffer from their abuses.
@JDB What’s the worst cancellation or delay situation that you’ve experienced from an airline?
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