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I am booked on BA for an afternoon flight in August which is the most convenient and practical time with kids.
BA have contacted me that the flight was changed to over 4 hours later landing at 4am which is terrible.
It is a different flight number than originally booked.
They have given me an option of the later flight or refund.
What are my rights?
1) Can I ask them to put me on another airline at times similar to the original booking?
2) If yes, will/should they make the booking for me?
Thank youYour rights will depend on whether your original flight has been cancelled. The change of flight number is potentially indicative of a cancellation, but far from definitive. BA’s standard guidelines for a schedule change are to allow rebooking but only onto another BA or OW joint business partner flight.
If your original flight has been cancelled you are theoretically entitled to be rebooked on another (non OW) airline but at five months notice, BA is very unlikely to agree to this and with a four hour difference, however inconvenient, it would be high risk to buy new tickets on another airline and hope to get the difference back from BA.
In practice you can see this as a cancellation and re-booking. This gives you some differences in rights instead of a re-scheduling with the same flight number, although BA will let you change flights for changes over 4 hours anyway. Your rights and what will be able to do in practice are not necessarily the same.
You will be able to be moved to another BA flight within a few days of the original one without any issue. That would include flights to/from any of LGW/LCY/LHR if relevant. You should also be able to change to a BA flight to/from another destination within 300 miles of wherever it is you are flying to/from.
You will find it less easy, perhaps impossible to get put on other airlines (except maybe Aer Lingus or Iberia, or AA/Finnair if it’s transatlantic). If the replacement flight offered is the same day then BA have essentially done what they need to – you would be very lucky to be paid back for booking other flights. You can still change to better flights as above.
Work out what your best option(s) are and call BA to request it.
If you give more details about what the cancelled flight is then more accurate advice/suggestions would be possible.
Have you checked in MMB to see if it will allow you to change flights to something more suitable, as per @Matt’s post above? BA’s tinkering with flight schedules is notorious – our OPO flight in September has been moved by 8 hours!
Assuming this is short haul BA will not rebook you to anyone else in this situation except Iberia. You can go up to 3 days earlier or 14 days later if that helps to get better timings.
I believe The CAA consider getting you home the same day as reasonable so personally I’d be very hesitant in going down the route of booking my own replacement flights and pushing BA to reimburse
If there are other options then you could price it up and take the BA refund and book it yourself. Otherwise do not take the refund, do not touch the booking and then claim for the rerouting once you’re back
What is the route – I’m thinking this must be long haul if a 4-hour change now gets you in at 4 am?
LHR-TLV
What is the route – I’m thinking this must be long haul if a 4-hour change now gets you in at 4 am?
I would assume that other options are fairly limited then, at least direct?
August?
TBH I wouldn’t rush into this as there are likely to be other changes in the schedule before then.
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