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So BA cancelled our flights to Tenerife less than 2 hours before we were meant to board! We were all checked in and at the airport.
No alternative flights available today. They offered us indirect via Madrid tomorrow.
We didn’t like the idea of that, so made an emergency booking to fly with easyJet a few hours later.
Now wondering what the best way to proceed is.
If we cancel the outbound BA flight, or reject their offer will we lose our right to the €400 compensation per person?
We currently still have return flights with BA next weekend. we want to keep these but not sure if we should accept the alternative outbound flight offer and just not turn up. I know we’d need to speak to BA to make sure if we did this they wouldn’t cancel our return.
But just unsure what the best thing to do is in relation to compensation. Today has been an absolute nightmare with 2 little kids!
Any advice gratefully received!
The alternative flight we’ve been offered flys at 2pm tomorrow so I think as long as we speak to Ba in the morning we should be fine
Oh dear. Did they explain why the flight was cancelled? If it wasn’t cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances you are entitled to £350 per passenger so for all 4 of you.
As for flying on EasyJet today instead of indirect on BA via MAD tomorrow if you are expecting BA to refund that expense you will probably have to go via CEDR to get your money back as BA generally doesn’t agree to this.
You definitely need to phone BA and explain that you don’t want the outbound tomorrow but want to protect the return flight. If you simply accept and then don’t turn up then you will be a no-show and BA will cancel the entire reservation.
Thanks AJA, really appreciate your response.
it’s been such a stressful day and having someone reply is so helpful!
I’ll be on the phone to BA in the morning to make sure they don’t do anything with our return flights.
If you didn’t accept the reroute then your return flight is very likely fine but worth calling anyway
DO NOT ACCEPT ANY BA REFUND
The CAA view is if there was a same day option to your destination and BA didn’t offer you one then you were entitled to it. There is a document online if you google. So put in your receipts for reimbursement. Also claim compensation but it’ll depend on the cancellation reason
Hi
Firstly I hope you made it out ok and are having a great time and can relax for the rest of your holiday. We came back from Tenerife on Friday; I’m pretty sure we were booked on the flight that would have been returning from yours as it was cancelled around 1pm. I have since ben told (on Facebook so no guarantee) that that flight out was cancelled as the plane was used to replace a faulty plane that had to turn back from Malta earlier during the day. So I believe we should all be entitled to the EU compensation.Our situation was similar although being our retun flight not the complexity of yours.The the next alternative on ‘Manage My Booking’ was for Tuesday and I rang BA and they could only put us on an inderect flight via Dublin arriving 8 hours later to Heathrow rather than Gatwick. I did not accept this flight or a refund at this point but did ask to be put on a direct flight we could see with Ryan Air, Easy Jet etc. BA refused saying they could only book us on carriers within their network.
We then booked our own flights with Jet2 to Bristol (roughly equivent cost to the original BA ones, maybe slightly more) as the Ryan Air ones had sold out, and paid £380 for a taxi home. On arrival in the UK I received an email from BA with a booking for Sunday 29th from Tenerife to Heathrow via Brussels. Obviously we no longer required these flight so I contacted BA to explain and they have said they will refund me as I was worried if I did nothing we would be considered a ‘no show’ and lose the refund option or access to compensation. I’m not sure this was the right thing to do as I have probably now stopped any rights to claiming for the Jet2 flights and the taxi cost, although it is a minefield understanding what rights we have and making decisions under stress and with everyone else from the cancelled flight booking any available flights up too!
Luckily in this case our Jet2 flights weren’t much different to the BA refund, although the taxi was a lot more than our booked taxi from Bristol. But I would be interested to know if we could have claimed the flights we booked with Jet2 especially as we returned to a different airport (Bristol rather than Gatwick) and also the taxi cost.
@jostarling – yes you could in principle have claimed the cost of the Jet2 tickets after the event but where the cost is broadly similar as you suggest, it’s much simpler and quicker to pay and get a refund from BA which you should hopefully get within a week or so. A self rerouting claim for the cost of the tickets might have taken months.
As to whether BA would have worn the £380 cost of a taxi, I think it’s partly a question of presentation. Obviously it’s a big absolute number for a taxi, although less per person if there were a few of you but it would effectively need to be presented as the cheapest overall package for getting you home while avoiding additional overnight costs etc. and backed up by alternatives you considered but rejected in order to mitigate the costs. Travel insurance might still cover it but some insurers might expect you to offset any cancellation compensation against it.
Thanks JDB. Out of interest (and resigning myself to being in this situation again at some point) did I need to do anything about the replacement flight they put me on (which I only received an automated email from ‘itinerary@amadeus.com’ about after our original flight would have departed, no text or phonecall or anything in the App). Or should I have contacted them saying I don’t accept or decline the replacement flight to leave my options open?
They’d very likely have rebooked you on the replacement flight as a confirmed passenger so it was good to take some action before that flight left. But you could have called them and had them delete the reservation and leave the ticket open if you wanted to claim the Jet2 flights as a rerouting instead.
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