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Looking to get some advice on my situation.
Had a BA avios redemption club europe flight booked from Vienna to LHR on 28/08/23 when all of the issues with air traffic control happened and the flight was cancelled when I arrived at the airport to check in. There was nobody from BA at the airport to help me rearrange travel and getting through to speak to anyone at BA was impossible. I wasn’t even able to logon to the BA website to see my alternative options as the site kept crashing presumably under the increased traffic load.
I needed to be in London by the next morning for a family wedding and was trying desperately to find alternative travel arrangements. Through the BA app, club europe flights were showing available to book for early next morning at a price of £1000. I, possibly wrongly, thought that if I booked one of these flights which was the same in my mind as the cancelled flight that I would be able to later claim a refund. After a few attempts with the app repeatedly crashing I managed to book the ticket and subsequently took the flight the next morning. I was sat in the normally empty middle seat of the club europe cabin but was not fussed as I was glad to be getting home.
I submitted my claim to BA shortly after getting home for reimbursement of the replacement BA flight I had booked but received an email today to tell me that my claim was rejected, saying they were only responsible for the cost of the cancelled flight.
Do I have any grounds to contest this? Had I been able to get onto the website at the time of the cancellation to rebook my flight with them I would never have paid for the alternative travel.
Thanks in advance
Due to the cancelation BA had to:
– Refund the original ticket OR
– Provide alternative transportation and cover any additional costs (for instance an extra hotel night in VIE and food)You were not able to talk to a BA representative and booked a new flight. This is common when these massive outages happen.
If BA sent the money/avios back following their unilateral cancelation you will need to go back to them and explain you never wanted a refund and instead wanted a rerouting but as nobody in BA was available you had to go ahead and book it yourself.
If you pushed this to arbitration or MCOL I believe they may be sympathetic to the fact BA has nobody in VIE, there was clearly a crisis situation and you booked the next available flight with them. Any screenshots or proof of you trying to get hold of BA and not being able to would help.
Don’t let BA say that the flight the day after had no Avios available and therefore was not an option. When your flight gets cancelled any flight is fair game regardless of Avios seat.
Good luck!
@pdp16 – the simple answer is yes, BA should refund you the cost of your replacement flights although you will probably have to fight for the money. It probably helps that your chosen replacement was on BA. You should set out in a simple format the efforts you made to contact BA, in person, on telephone and via the website. The bottom line is that the ticket you purchased was the flight BA should have provided you with if they had fully complied with UK261. The airline is responsible for rerouting you, even in these circumstances where the cancellation was out of its control.
Google the CAA’s CAP2155 document and look at paras 6.5 to 6.8 which are relevant to your situation.
I would respond to BA via the reply function in the decision you have received. Say that the response you have received is erroneous as BA failed to offer the assistance required, failed to propose any form of rerouting and following your unsuccessful efforts to contact BA in seeking such rerouting as provided for under Article 8 and your specific reasons for needing to get to a wedding, you were left with no option but to rebook yourself at £x cost and unless BA pays that sum within 14 days you will escalate the matter to CEDR or MCOL without further reference which, in view of the legal position, would be an absurd waste of BA’s and the passenger’s time and money. Tell them that BA’s erroneous position will be quite incomprehensible to any CEDR adjudicator or MCOL judge given that you travelled on BA and if they had been contactable, you could/would have been rebooked on that flight at no additional cost, so you are simply asking BA to put you back in the position you should have been, had it complied with the provisions of UK261. BA’s response to your claim effectively suggests you are trying to benefit from the situation!
@pdp16 please let us know how it goes.
BA should think themselves lucky that you didn’t pay for an Austrian Airlines flight or a flight even indirect, on another airline, which you’d also have had the right to receive a reimbursement of the cost of, from BA since they failed to reroute you, if the timing on another airline had been at least as good as or better than British Airways.
Thank you so much for your help, will keep you updated with the the response.
The whole situation was a frustrating one as I was originally in Ibiza over that weekend and due to fly home to London on the Sunday with BA but the flight was cancelled a few hours before by them due to some operational issues. The only subsequent flights they could offer were on the following Wednesday which would have been too late for me to get home and said if I chose anything else I would have to fund it myself. I scrambled to find any flights leaving Ibiza the following day and managed to find a Ryan Air flight to Vienna and also a subsequent flight from Vienna to London with BA a few hours later. The flight to Vienna with Ryan Air took off the next day but by the time I landed in Vienna the issues with NATS and the BA flight cancellation came to fruition.
BA refunded me accommodation costs for the Ibiza cancelled flights and gave additional EU compensation for that flight. Am I right in presuming that the roughly £300 I had to pay to Ryan Air to get to Vienna to then subsequently London was not something I claim reimbursement for?
Just an update, after having replied to BA using the information above they have emailed today to let me know they will be issuing a refund for the alternative flight. Thanks again for all your help, really appreciate it
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