KeaneJohn

I have had a flight cancelled on a forthcoming Club World trip in September. It is a connecting flight mid itinenary.

I am currently looking at rebooking options. If I reroute I have been told by BA that I have to pay the difference in fare. This is more than double the cost of the ticket as I booked a greatly discounted J fare in the January sale and am being told that this has to be rebooked at current prices therefore losing the sale benefits.

Is this true ?

dylanks

What was the original route, and what new route are you trying to fly? What are they trying to offer as an alternative? Without any specifics, it's difficult to know if the BA agent was correct or reasonable.

c1223

Also presumably the connecting flight is on the same PNR as the others?

KeaneJohn

Yes one booking.. all flights on one PNR.

Currently booked. LHR-MAD-MIA-CUN-DFW-LHR. The MIA-CUN flight has been cancelled. I had a 6 hour layover there and intended to meet friends, now proposed replacement flight is 2hrs after arrival so means that I would just connect and have no time in MIA.

Trying LHR/LCY-NYC - MIA-CUN

nux

Edit: Misread above post.

Do you know what fare you have? Is it a single LON-CUN fare or do you have end-on-end fares LON-MAD, MAD-CUN for example?

Often1

BA is entirely correct. Your new connection is above the MCT so remains valid. Since MIA is simply a connection, what you planned to do with your time is irrelevant.

You might have some luck if you can find a BA metal routing xMIA and nicely ask for that.

dutch_122

Or let you rebook to CUN next day.

You are able spending more time with your friends!

orbitmic

I'm afraid it is technically correct. Your options are full refund, rebooking on the best possible connection (but in fact, the connection they are now proposing you is considered better than what you had to start with!), and travel on a different date. You might have an argument to ask for a rerouting if keeping the same routing implied a much longer travel time but this is exactly the opposite here. What is more, for rebooking purposes, BA will not consider different airports as equivalents (ie if your LHR-EWR has a time change, they won't let you make it a LHR-JFK, and in this case they won't let you change your ex-LHR into an ex-LCY) because the contract of carriage is actually airport specific for the point of departure and destination.

Often1

I doubt that BA would refund at all. OP is booked LHR-CUN-LHR. As it stands, he will now arrive at CUN approximately 2 hours earlier than originally scheduled. Not a COC basis for refund or change.

Anything BA does is as a tremendous favor,

KeaneJohn

BA have offered a full refund. and initially said we could re-route or do anything. Called back to try and make the reservations to get computer says no and then.. ah yes but we can do that but it will cost you £xxx more.

Previous calls are currently being listened to as we were advised we could pretty much do anything.

KeaneJohn

Fare is LON-CUN return, one PNR, out via MAD/MIA back via DFW.

orbitmic

To clarify, were you explicitly told that you would be allowed to change your point of departure from LHR to LCY? I think that this would be very unusual and definitely not within BA's obligations. Again, regardless of whether airlines treat some airports as equivalent for fare purposes, contract of carriage is always from a specific airport to a specific airport (which often works in the passenger's favour by the way: if your flight back was cancelled and you were routed to LGW, BA would have to pay your ground transport from LGW landing point back to LHR as per your CoC) and the airline is certainly not obligated to allow a passenger to change his/her point of departure (or for that matter his/her point of arrival).

Andriyko

BA will always offer a refund if there is a cancellation, and it does not matter whether another/better connecting flight is available.

Unfortunately I don't think you have the grounds for re-routing. BA would only offer it if there was no way to connect from MIA but they actually re-booked you from MIA. It is true that in the event of cancellation you can do pretty much anything and change any other flight in your itinerary but that does not mean that you can select a different routing; all you can do is change dates/times of other flights preserving the original routing.

Final 3 Greens

Just worth pointing out that a verbal contract is binding in the UK, which is why BA will be listening to the conversations, to see exactly what was said between the parties.

orbitmic

Indeed, BA is listening to understand exactly what was say and act on that basis, but for the purposes of this thread, I guess my point was that in practice, an agent does not actually say "you can do anything", even if it is how the person on the other side of the line understands it. They might answer a question (like: "will we be able to reroute?" - "yes") or make a general point ("you could choose other flights if this is more convenient") but this is not at all the same thing and I think we need to understand what the agent said to the best of the OP's recollection rather than the OP's interpretation of it. Again, one of the main points here in my view is that the OP keep asking about a rerouting, but what he/she is proposing to do (start from LCY instead of LHR) is NOT a rerouting but a change of point of departure (be it by 40 miles) which is entirely different. This is why I wanted to encourage the OP to be more specific about what exactly was said so that we can advise more effectively.