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@meta I am not saying BA will agree to pay out. I was suggesting an argument to make to justify what they spent. It is a difficult argument for @carousel to make but having spent the money because of BA’s actions I would not settle for a low offer. That’s the same thing that you’re advising Angela.
I find it odd that BA having cancelled a flight then failing to comply with the regulations also has the temerity suggest a rerouting in a wholly inferior cabin resulting in an argument with the passenger wishing only to fly in the booked cabin and only suggests its own flight two nights later when it could have rerouted them onto JAL (an airline it shares revenue with) in the same cabin the next day. And then it complains that the customer has spent too much money by staying an extra 2 nights in the same hotel they were already staying in.
I agree that it would have been sensible to look for cheaper accommodation but why is that the responsibility of the customer who has been inconvenienced? BA should not abandon its inconvenienced passengers and then argue with them afterwards.
Brilliantly put, @AJA.
Thank you for for the support and clarification. I responded to their offer yesterday. I also requested they inform me if this is their final offer as I intend to use CEDR should full settlement not be forthcoming.
@LadyLondon I will add a note tomorrow regards the 7 day timescale for payment. Unfortunately I have no extra receipts in my bag lol, as my daily expenses were documented & photographed each night in a spreadsheet.
There is no requirement on an airline to pay Article 9 expenses in seven days. Only Article 8 refunds and Article 10 downgrade reimbursements carry the seven day requirement.
There you go again @JDB forcing me to haul out the text of 261 snd read it. You’re right it’s sloppy the 7 days is directly next to refund and also to downgrade, but not in the compo section. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. There is however an instruction to pay compensation “immediately” in the case of denied boarding, as a general consolation, so it’s just sloppy not to have the 7 days on compo as well.
So sorry @Angela for your particular case which was cancellation compo and BA wriggling about tiny expenses, it might be best not to wind them up by muttering about interest as @JDB has pointed out the words are not there. I don’t think you’ll need to go anywhere near CEDR, I expect them to cave.
@AJA unfortunately the system doesn’t work in the way you would like it to work and over twenty years there has been considerable clarification from the guidelines and CJEU and Court of Appeal judgments.
There is no specific accommodation or food cost limit specified by BA or the regulations but the courts have set the basis. You say that BA should be liable for some greater sum because they allegedly didn’t comply with other parts of the regulations but no adjudicator or court considers or is allowed to consider matters in that manner; they can’t order an airline to pay more Article 9 expenses because they failed to comply with another Article. The rules have to be strictly applied but you are trying to add a punitive element.
I am not saying BA should be punished for failing to comply with the regulations.
I am saying BA shouldn’t be quibbling over expensive hotel costs that were only incurred because BA cancelled a flight within 24hours of ETD
The rest of my argument is explaining why BA should be paying the customer’s extra hotel bill. The fact that the customer suggested a reroute that would have saved an extra night’s hotel accommodation but BA rejected it because you only get one bite at the cherry is a bit rich.
I also thought the £300 amount is supposed to be per person not per couple. Therefore for 2 passengers and 2 nights accommodation BA would be expected to pay 300x2x2=£1200. So the difference being argued over is £800. But BA merely offered £300. Not sure if that’s per night hotel or in total.
Thanks all for your helpful responses, I agree £1000 is very high for a hotel, my alternative was to move to another hotel which, to be honest when I was also having to work from Tokyo (I had no annual leave left) and my husband be vulnerable was just too much. It was my birthday and our wedding anniversary trip hence we were staying in a lovely hotel in the first place. I actually only claimed for one meal each day, didn’t submit any other expenses incurred because as long as they covered our accommodation that would have done. We switched to a twin room too as there were no double rooms left. We also had to sit 6 rows apart on the flight as they messed up our booking and there were no other seats left. I carry two epi pens for my husband as he has a nut allergy, all this made it quite stressful. I know some on here will think all of these things are “first world problems” but my preference would have been getting on the original flight on Sunday and being seated next to my husband as we had originally booked. I did ask why the 4 separate people I spoke to on the phone didnt offer me the JAL flights that went on the Sunday and Monday and they seem to completely ignore that point. I will continue on and have pushed back again. I wouldnt have been in the situation if they’d actually given me a better re booking option. One positive is I was impressed how quickly they have been responding, I was expecting weeks and weeks delay but they came back within a few days
Also on the reroute, when I called from Tokyo and asked to get onto the JAL flight they said we’d already accepted the new flight, what I actually realised when we went to checkin online is that they hadn’t put my husbands executive number against the booking, when I added this on checkin it popped up with a message saying our flight had been cancelled and to accept the new one, so technically I felt we had actually accepted it.
@Carousel, whatever your own views are regarding your entitlement and justications for your choices and actions I strongly recommend that when you submit your claim to BA you strip them all out and stick to the bare facts. Otherwise it is inevitable that you will be facing a prolonged interaction with BA CS and perhaps ultimately their legal department too.
@BJ to be honest I’d quite happily take this to their legal department. I look forward to their response
@carousel BA only needs to pull out info about how much right to care reimbursement they provided to other passengers on that flight or throw historical rate information from a nearby comparable hotel and that’s your claim dismissed.
I’m afraid it’s difficult to come back because you have show a weakness to BA CS and they will exploit it now because they know you might not have a clue.
@BJ to be honest I’d quite happily take this to their legal department. I look forward to their response
@carousel – I would proceed with caution! Bullish talk about writing to the legal department is fine when you have a good case, but you have a weak case and they know that.You will only get BA to pay what you seek or pay something closer to it by smart negotiation.
Statute sets out BA’s Article 9 obligations and the courts have set the guidelines for interpretation thereof. Your claim clearly falls significantly outside those guidelines unless you can provide objective evidence as to why the cost was reasonable. The ‘soft’ or subjective reasons you have cited above carry no weight. If you were in the Maldives or St Barth’s or if there were some major event in Tokyo pushing up prices £1000/night might be justified. You need an objective angle – eg you looked at three other hotels and they were similarly priced (with attached evidence) so you decided to stay where you were. Unfortunately, your case is weakened by moving rooms as in having to pack to do that, you have taken one of the larger steps towards moving hotels.
Realistically, you are unlikely to get paid in full whatever route you take, but as you are also expecting £520 each compensation, that should cover some of the cost. I would be surprised if you could push BA beyond £750 and that will require some skill!
BA won’t pay more on the hotel because you didn’t claim all the meals as that’s not how indemnification is supposed to work so you should claim for those which are hopefully reasonable.
Quick up date as I got a quick resolution. I got up this morning and wrote a strongly worded email to the GGL team, explaining my refutation of their partial offer had not received a response as yet. I outlined again why the expenses should be paid in full using the wording from Articles 8 & 9, provided in this thread. Namely, the three conditions of necessary, reasonable and appropriate were met within my claim. They phoned to confirm they have agreed to settle in full. Thank you all for the encouragement, advice and support with this.
@angelamc11 – well done; I’m delighted that it was resolved so quickly; I don’t understand why they didn’t pay up initially.
For what it’s worth, the order of the words is “necessary, appropriate and reasonable” and the test effectively runs in that order. If something doesn’t meet the “necessary” test it can’t be either appropriate or reasonable etc.
Also I should add, other than the penny pinching in expenses, the GGL team have been fantastic. We had one broken seat in F which needed manual recline for which they offered me £140k Avios. Broken and intermittent IFE, which resulted in 60k Avios, and broken Wi-Fi for 30k avios. Total 230k avios for these issues was more than reasonable in my opinion.
@angelamc11 – well done; I’m delighted that it was resolved so quickly; I don’t understand why they didn’t pay up initially.
For what it’s worth, the order of the words is “necessary, appropriate and reasonable” and the test effectively runs in that order. If something doesn’t meet the “necessary” test it can’t be either appropriate or reasonable etc.
That’s very interesting to learn. I will store that in my brain for future use.
I am glad @Angelamc11 has had her claim settled so quickly. I now hope BA makes a more reasonable offer to @Carousel.
It clearly shows that being GGL has more sway than being a mere BAEC member passenger but it also shows that BA is prepared to pay out a total of £1.8k for 3 passengers so I think BA should up its payout to @Carousel.
I really can’t see why it is not reasonable and proportionate to continue staying in the same hotel you were already staying in other than it might be expensive. Especially when BA has left you to your own devices to arrange accommodation that they are required to provide for free. They cannot have it both ways – either they provide a hotel reservation and control the cost they pay out or they leave it to the passenger and just refund their expenses.
Expecting the passenger to pay first and then argue afterwards when the passenger doesn’t try to save BA money is extremely poor.
Excellent result @Angela, the benefits of GGL combined with a steady, measured approach. £140k would have be fabulous though 🙂
Excellent result @Angela, the benefits of GGL combined with a steady, measured approach. £140k would have be fabulous though 🙂
Lol, it won’t let me edit. But the 140k avios certainly felt more than reasonable. I confess my 12 yo daughter took the seat which needed manual reclining and was absolutely fine with that.
I hope Santa’s good to your daughter then…
@AJA BA is not alone with this. But the problem arises also from @carousel not researching properly all their options (i.e. earlier JAL flight) before calling BA to re-book. I agree BA should pay up more, but you have to pitch it right.
Even in clear cut cases, judges can and do rule based on what and how you pitch to them. And you only have one go at hearing, too.
Yep I agree with everyone’s view I should have researched more as I’d had a previous similar experience where I successfully got rebooked on Qatar business to Bangkok which was fabulous. I just panicked as I was due back at work and was worried with a whole plane of people being in the same position I grabbed at first option. My husband was stressing too so I’m just putting this down as a life lesson and in hindsight would have gone back to the hotel, researched and then called. We were out for our anniversary and it was a knee jerk reaction. I work in Finance and with Consumer Duty and all the other regs we work to I spend my whole life ensuring good client outcomes not relying on which clients know the rules we should adhere to and basing my service on that
It happens to all of us, so just take it as a positive experience rather than negative one. Hopefully you can get BA to pay a bit more.
@meta indeed, thank you. This forum is fabulous and the advice everyone provides is beyond helpful
Just stick to the bare gacts and hope for the best from BA. Sometimes I think it just comes down to agent gandling tour case. No need to create more stress unnecessarily, just aim to get it wound up with as little fuss asap. If BA do respobd unreasonably (and based on reports here, they might well do) then you can cross that bridge when you come to it. You can always come back here for collective wisdom and advice on BA response and next steps if necessary. Good luck with it.
@carousel Good luck with your case. If you want, post your draft response here, and I am sure collectively we will help refine and sharpen it.
As @BJ says stick to the facts, do not use emotional language. Quote the text from Article 9 about right to care which does not mention any monetary limit. Do not admit that in hindsight you would have chosen a cheaper hotel as that gives BA ammunition to pay out less.
Instead say something along the lines that as you were already staying in x hotel having paid £x for your holiday, you explained to the hotel front desk your predicament that BA at short notice had cancelled your flight but left you to your own devices to arrange hotels so you urgently needed accommodation beyond your check out date and that since the hotel had availability you thought it was reasonable and proportionate to have booked the necessary extra nights in the same hotel.
I think that while it is fair to try to limit costs that really should have been explained to you by BA when agreeing to rebook you on their own flight two nights later before they allowed you to commit yourself to the hotel.
Did BA suggest where you could stay and how much you could spend? Did BA explain, as they should have done, that the extra hotel costs only up to £300 per passenger per night would be reimbursed? Indeed did the issue even come up or did BA merely advise you to find somewhere to stay?
That bit of information might actually help your case since it is BA’s responsibility per the regulations to advise you of your rights and actually provide accomodation for free or agree that you can book yourself and reclaim afterwards? And if they failed to do so they then cannot really argue with you after the fact if they dislike the amount you spent. It is unreasonable to expect every passenger to have detailed knowledge of their rights and to know that you should only find an inexpensive hotel.
@AJA & @ BJ I will continue working on this and possibly ask more questions, thanks so much again for your help
@AJA – if you don’t believe me, read what @meta has helpfully written.
I’m afraid that what you posted at 09.03 is seriously counterproductive for the OP’s case and demonstrates that you haven’t read the texts, guidance or cases that provide further elucidation, so I’m not sure why you might be in a position to comment on any draft by the OP.
You suggest or imply that because Article 9 doesn’t specify a limit, a passenger can infer that it is unlimited. That’s a terrible argument, and a bad argument is often worse than no argument. The CJEU and the Court of Appeal have set the limits to be determined by local courts in line with the specific circumstances of each case.
You refer again to “proportionate and reasonable” but those are your words not the legal test which is all that matters. Wishful thinking won’t get the OP additional reimbursement; one needs to stick to the facts and objective facts/evidence.
You suggest that because BA didn’t offer a hotel for free, make the arrangements themselves or advise of any cap (which there isn’t anyway), that again means the sky’s the limit but none of that matters. It is both wrong and irrelevant unless BA made some specific representation.
There is no sanction for BA not adopting best practice (and these days it’s very rare for any airline to do this) so then 4.3 of the Interpretative Guidelines kicks in and, although most people aren’t going to be familiar with those, there’s plenty of resource on the internet from independent bodies that will quickly tell you the facts. There’s also common sense; even if I were totally unfamiliar with any of the rules, I would know that it would be a massive stretch to get anyone to reimburse me £1000/night. If I were at all bothered about losing that sum, I would check before incurring the cost. It was also open to the pax to ask BA. If your employer had no specific policy but expected people to be reasonable, would £1k wash?
You then put a made up scenario about the OP’s interaction with the hotel in making the arrangements without knowing what actually happened!
You haven’t taken into account the specific problems with the case identified by @meta and me.
The OP has got themselves into a difficult position and a lot of flannel won’t maximise any additional reimbursement.
At the end of the day one of two things are likely to happen here, either BA try their luck at dismissing the claim and getting home free, or they be fair and provide reasonable settlement. What BA will consider reasonable is inevitably going to fall short of what OP hopes for. IMO OP has to get to this point first with a minimum of stress and fuss, and then decide how to proceed after BA response. IMO a reasonable response from BA would be in the ballpark we usually discuss in these cases.
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