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British Airways questioned by CAA about its strike rebooking policy

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The Civil Aviation Authority is investigating whether British Airways has complied with its legal obligations during its strike mitigation actions over the last few days.

Under UK consumer law, airlines are required to do one of three things when a flight is cancelled:

Refund the customer within 7 days, for either the full ticket or for those sectors not flown

Re-route, under the same conditions (ie. class) to final destination as soon as possible

Or re-route to final destination at a later date agreed with the customer

British Airways CAA complaint

If your flight is cancelled within 14 days of departure you will also be due EC261 compensation under EU law, but this is totally separate to the UK regulations quoted above.

The CAA – see here – seems to have decided that British Airways has not been as forward about these options as they should have been.

In particular, British Airways is being accused of not offering to re-route some affected passengers on other carriers.  If British Airways does not have a re-route agreement in place with an appropriate carrier for your journey, rebooking will not be cheap and is clearly something that the airline would prefer to avoid.

If the CAA believes that British Airways has been encouraging call centre agents to not offer re-routes where a discounted deal was not available – or blocking such functionality in the booking system – it would represent a breach of its legal obligations.

British Airways has issued the following statement:

“We appreciate the frustration and inconvenience that this strike action has caused our customers and our teams are working tirelessly to help them.

As soon as we were issued with dates, we contacted airlines across the world to support with rebooking agreements, and since Friday we have been providing customers with the option to travel on other carriers.  ​

Our contact centres are operating 24/7, and we have brought in additional resource, with over 500 colleagues working to support customers during this time. ​

Our teams are providing customers whose flights have been cancelled with options to seek a full refund or rebook, including to a different date of travel, or flying with an alternative airline​.”

BA is now allowing multiple changes to cancelled flights

As the days go on, British Airways is agreeing deals with more airlines, and indeed UK train companies, to accept its passengers.  Malaysia Airlines is one of the latest to sign up, along with LNER trains.

This means that if you agreed a change last weekend when the strike was first announced, you may not have got the ‘best’ deal.

British Airways has now agreed that “Multiple changes will now be permitted for customers travelling on cancelled flights, if space becomes available on an earlier flight.”  This is not usually the case – once you have accepted a flight change, BA will usually refuse to discuss it further.

If you are not totally happy with your new flight options, I suggest giving BA another call in a few days.  You may find something better is on offer.

…. and a 2-4-1 extension

I also heard from a HfP reader who had managed to secure a six month extension to her British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.  Interestingly, she had not actually got a flight booked but the voucher expired in two weeks and she was planning a last-minute break – something not now possible with most availability pulled.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (114)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Combatjohnny says:
    29 Aug29 August 08:48

    I visited Sarajevo a 2 years ago. An interesting place and the most hospitable people I’ve ever met

    • Genghis says:
      29 Aug29 August 09:34

      I went around 10 years ago and found it really interesting. Mostar too. There’s some amazing scenery on the train journey between the two. I remember going to an abandoned school in Mostar still with all the stuff there which was used as a sniper vantage point.

      • RussellH says:
        29 Aug29 August 10:19

        It was 1980 when I was in Mostar. Both very attractive place and interesting culturally. I was very struck by the way the culture changed after crossing the (original) bridge from the Roman Catholic to the Muslim side. The catholic side felt much the sameas all the bits of theAdriatic coast we had visited, while across the bridge it was like entering a souk in Marrakech or Tunis.

        • Lady London says:
          29 Aug29 August 10:31

          Daft question but is it upsetting to see so recent a war zone? There’s a couple of places i cant visit in Europe because I know I’m not strong enough, Dachau being one.

          • Craig says:
            29 Aug29 August 10:59

            That is an incredibly complex question to answer and the only way to know for certain is to bite the bullet and go. You will see the best and worst of humanity but I usually manage to take something positive from it. A good example would be Hiroshima, my wife had to leave the museum as several of the pictures were too graphic, however, the peace park was beautiful and very moving. What is essential is to research thoroughly the place you are visiting and its significance in history.

          • RussellH says:
            29 Aug29 August 11:54

            We were in Vukovar and Osiek (eastern Croatia) in June. Local guides pointed out the war damage, and we met local people who had been evicted from their homes by the Serb army. The day before we had been in Serbia. No mention of the war there, I do not think there was any infantry activity in those parts of Serbia though, though certainly Belgrade was bombed by NATO.
            Vukovar looked still really run down, having been literally on the front line. Serbia is the other side of the Danube and Vukovar was shelled from just across the river.
            OK, the Danube is wider than the Thames, but imagine Windsor being shelled from Eton…

            My partner insisted around 25 years ago that we go to Dachau on one of our many research business trips to Bavaria.
            The Czechs took all of us on an Educational some years ago to Theresienstadt / Terežin (the concentration camp that the Nazis, at least early on, were happy to allow the Red Cross into as their ‘show’ concentration camp), though this was not a ‘Vernichtungslager’ (= destruction camp) like Dachau or Auschwitz. I featured it in my description of a cycling trip from Praha to Dresden that I used to sell.

            And a tour operator friend of mine found that Auschwitz was among his very best sellers for school trips.

            Particularly at times like the present, I do think it essential that people visit these places and see for themselves just what man’s inhumanity to man will lead to. I rather suspect that few, if any of the current crop of cabinet ministers have really seen what has happened in any of these and many other places.

          • Shoestring says:
            29 Aug29 August 11:58

            you have to man up

            I drove around Croatia/ FRY etc with my wife in around 2000 – 2001 – lots of villages with burned out houses where it was obvs they’d killed somebody or just burned their house to the ground

            the potential for man to do evil to man was very apparent

            neighbours they’d had many years of laughs with in the village pub – war comes along so they kill them instead

            which is partly why this stupid Brexit is so wrong

          • Lady London says:
            29 Aug29 August 18:51

            You are all stronger than me.

    • Craig says:
      29 Aug29 August 10:56

      Several times in the 90’s for me, unfortunately not for sightseeing.

      • Lady London says:
        29 Aug29 August 18:58

        I did work briefly for the guy that ended the Yugoslav war though. A very interesting guy who really knew about international affairs. Even he said it was scary to go in there.

  • fivebobbill says:
    29 Aug29 August 09:00

    If you are using a VPN make sure you have it turned off when accessing the Hilton site, otherwise, whilst the site will still let you login ok, it throws up an error page when trying to search and book.
    Well it does for me anyway…

    • RussellH says:
      29 Aug29 August 10:13

      I got the impression that most hotel booking sites objected to VPNs.
      I clearly remember the Starwood site always failing to even log me in when connected through Tunnel Bear.. As soon as I turned TB off. I was able to log in and use the site normally.
      I had less severe problems with Hiton + IHG (and many other sites) too.

      • Lady London says:
        29 Aug29 August 10:28

        You should report any failure like this to the vpn. A lot of thé VPN game is cat and mouse and there’s a good chance the vpn can tell you a way to connect now or that they might relatively quickly be able to fix it.

        Certain compagnies are known to be suite agressive about blocking vpn’s but i havent seen Hilton as a particular case.

  • A270 says:
    29 Aug29 August 09:04

    OT: Booking 4 x Swiss Air economy tickets. I have looked at the wheretocredit website but still finishing it confusing. I only have an account with Singapore but for most economy it’s showing 10% miles of none! We are a family of 4 so household accounts work better. Do Swiss, Lufthansa etc do such a thing. It’s a long haul flight so do want something I can make use of rather than little bits here and there that expire. Please advise.

    • Sundar says:
      29 Aug29 August 09:12

      How many Star Alliance flights are you likely to take ? If you will take about 24K miles worth of *A flights, then Aegean can be an option to acquire status and get a household account, thereby merging all miles together.

      • A270 says:
        29 Aug29 August 09:16

        Thanks. I take about 2-3 holidays with family usually on economy flights. Ending up with so many accounts here and there. With BA it’s easy as I get all my Qatar etc miles in one place. Maybe not the best use but somehow they accumulate and we make some use of them. To answer your question, not likely to take many star alliance flights.

        • A270 says:
          29 Aug29 August 09:47

          Although bought from the Swiss Air website, one flight is with Swiss and the next with Etihad. Etihad are not part of Star Alliance from what I can see so not sure crediting them to Singapore Krisflyer would work.

          • tony says:
            29 Aug29 August 10:20

            SAS Eurobonus now offers pooling of miles.

            Also, if you can find the availability, it’s only 100k miles for a round trip to Asia in J so long as you fly SAS, plus about £300 of taxes.

      • Lady London says:
        29 Aug29 August 19:01

        Could also look at how thé flights would crédit to TK which can also be a good Star Alliance program.

        Can also check if jour flights could be usefully crédités to Alaskan which is outsider thé l’Ain alliances but has specific tie-ups across all for mileage earn and burn.

        • Jtz says:
          30 Aug30 August 17:03

          I also had some Turkish economy flights and am deliberating over crediting to Turkish, or another star alliance programme, not sure yet which one though

  • A270 says:
    29 Aug29 August 09:12

    I didn’t have an access error message but kept saying there was an error pretty much all day yesterday.

  • ChrisC says:
    29 Aug29 August 09:18

    I see the Transport Select Committee (when we have a functioning Parliament) taking an interest in how BA dealt with this and the CAA probably realised it could be on the cards as well hence then getting in early so they look good.

  • AJ says:
    29 Aug29 August 09:22

    OT: has anyone tried repaying CapitalOnTap balance using Curve (linked to credit card) to ‘double dip’ on points? Or will it go through as a finance transaction to underlying credit card?

  • Rhys says:
    29 Aug29 August 09:38

    Article should still be active.

    • Jerry says:
      29 Aug29 August 11:19

      Original post doesn’t seem to accept comments. No email from BA but did a test clubcard transfer and the 40% bonus posted (just once) will now convert all my tesco vouchers as this is the best bonus likely. I also have the grandfathered 800 conversion rate.

  • Paul says:
    29 Aug29 August 09:43

    BA once cancelled the LHR – KEF route that I was booked on and I was given the option of refund only.

    They were absolutely adamant that they had no obligation to reroute me with Icelandair despite my many arguments.

    It ruined my holiday since Icelandair tickets were then three times the cost of what I’d paid BA. But they simply wouldn’t budge.

    In the end they sent highlife vouchers as an apology despite me telling them I’d never fly with them ever again.

    I hope their shoddy practices get picked up by the CAA and there’s a case to answer for all the people who have rebooked and paid for new flights given the lack of options offered by BA.

    • Gavin says:
      29 Aug29 August 10:06

      Could not not claim back the cost of the Icelandair flights via MCOL if BA were incorrect about their obligations?

    • skins says:
      29 Aug29 August 10:10

      This has happened to me too for an upcoming KEF flight in November that we booked in February. LHR flights cancelled but agreed to LCY on same dates. Then LCY flights cancelled and no BA flights now on our dates. BA call centre refused to book either Iceland Air or EasyJet replacements so reluctantly agreed to change dates extending by one day incurring extra hotel costs (rate and extra day). Didn’t know rules Rob outlines above.

    • Lady London says:
      29 Aug29 August 10:14

      Was it within the last 3 years? If so lodge a claim online at money claim dot gov dot uk. You will get the small fee back when you win.

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