MrsFolds

After following threads on this forum I booked an ex Eu return from ABZ for CPH-LHR-LAX for myself, husband and 2 teens. All went perfectly on our outbound and on our return we arrived in London as planned on BA282/816 11/12 Aug. Waiting for the final leg in the lounge we kept checking the boards but no gate was displayed for our flight. The desk then, unusually, began announcing final calls and gate numbers for other flights. We went to the desk who informed us the information boards weren't working and we were too late to board our flight. As this was beyond our control BA would rebook us. At this point a queue had built up behind us with pax in similar situation needing to rebook and an announcement about the board failure was then made . The next 2 departures to CPH were full and limited seats on the last flight to CPH. We enquired about a re-route to ABZ and the ticket agent advised this was OK and proceeded to rebook us and gave us boarding passes for BA1314. Result ! I called SAS and paid a change fee to change the CPH-ABZ flights to later date
We arrived at the gate for BA1314 but as we'd gone through flight connections we had no photo associated with our boarding passes so the gate agent called security to process us. There were around 20 people congregating behind the desk waiting for security (not sure why). Security then advised us that as we'd arrived internationally we needed to go through passport control to officially enter the UK. There was not enough time to do this so would be rebooked on a later Aberdeen flight. Security also advised us they should have been called by the agent on rebooking and they would have processed us then and we would have had no further problems.
We were taken to the ticket desk en route to passport control where the agent disappeared for a long time into the back office. The BA Commercial and Transfer Manager came out to speak to us and advise us that a fee would be payable to fly to Aberdeen. The re-routing was a ‘mistake’ – we shouldn't have been allowed to re route and the advisor in question would have a note made on her record and be ‘spoken to’. BA would rebook us to CPH but not to Aberdeen. We tried to press the point that we were not trying to drop the last leg but were forced into doing this by the Aberdeen reroute and now no longer had our flights back to Aberdeen, we basically received a dressing down for trying to cheat the system by booking a flight which ‘undercut UK pricing’ and this was a risk we took booking non connecting flights. The fact that this was due to 2 errors on BA’s part cut no ice.
We were left with two options
Buy flights to Aberdeen at £317 each – total £1270 or
Fly to CPH at no cost. There were no seats left so would be given hotel accommodation for Friday night and fly to CPH Saturday morning. There are no Saturday flights CPH-ABZ so would have incurred the cost for 1 nights accommodation (2 rooms) plus £325 fare x 4 on SAS (or a further change fee and fare difference ~£280 each)

We were left with little option but to pay for new tickets to Aberdeen. At the risk of incriminating the ticket agent once her manager left she expressed dismay at the way we’d been treated and asked that we made BA aware of the issue. She apologised that she had no power to do anything and said BA was becoming a horrible place to work as due to ‘Mr Cruz’ there was no Customer Service left as agents had no discretion to do anything.

I call on the experience of the board to advise
1. Who/how would we be best raising the issue with?
2. What if any compensation / recompense should we ask for / be likely to receive– we are £1270 out of pocket and holiday insurance will not cover BA ‘mistakes’
Completely irrelevant but husband is Gold, I'm bronze and boys gained bronze on return to UK.

Calchas

Welcome to FlyerTalk MrsFolds. So sorry to hear this has not gone so well for you.

I am not sure you'll squeeze much out of BA I'm afraid.

henkybaby

And why not? They have the boarding passes to prove that they were rebooked. The fact that the BA agent failed to inform them of the proper procedure or follow it should not become the customers' problem.

You really think that the customer has no case here?

lorcancoyle

I'm struggling to think of any explicit liability BA has (beyond the moral obligation)
- don't see any claim on EU261 for IDB: have to (usually) present at gate for that, so CPH out, and ABZ was arguably a valid reason given the regulation
- EU261 delay compensation for CPH seems a stretch, as didn't fly to final destination
- reroute to ABZ purely discretionary as not part of the impacted ticket
- maybe an outside shot at pro rata refund as the final leg served no purpose, don't think there's a get out on extraordinary circumstances on that one... (Would be 10% of flight cost applying the ruling on downgrade of a leg vs. total trip distance, but pure conjecture on my part that this would be a valid calculation)

This might be best dealt with in the 261 compensation thread?

Oxon Flyer

Given the complexity and rather unique circumstances of this particular case, we'll keep this as a standalone thread for now.

/mod

YuropFlyer

That's quite a unique thing indeed.

Considering I also trust the boards to some degree (ie, as long as it doesn't display "boarding", I won't really move, especially in airports I really know the length to my gate) I might also have failed into your category, and inquired too late (in fact, I've had a similar experience and paid with my wallet for it, too, and had a long time to get it recovered)

The problem is, they'll say that it was "your" responsibility, and that BA isn't responsible for the boards, that your boarding pass said "XX:XX boarding time", that you weren't on the gate etc. etc. - in fact, they've, from what I can see, not totally put the blame onto you (they know they're in fact the ones to blame as they've offered hotels and free rebooking) but their attempt of "fixing" it is really low.

Have you contacted them? After all, you saved them 2x a hotel room in London, and those flights to Aberdeen didn't really cost them money. While paying through the nose for it.

You CLEARLY weren't attempting to dump the last segment, so BA really should show some sympathy towards your case.

I call that really bad sports from their side, and obviously towards an otherwise loyal (but smart enough) customer, this is quite unacceptable. But then they're going to whine about customers prefering to fly with other companies

crazy8534

Oh dear. I am pretty sure you should have walked away and booked stand alone LHR-ABZ flights instead of accepting a re-price (sorry. Edit: I now think you did actually do that). Not that that is much help now. My condolences.

A bad turn of events and evidence if any was needed that BA are on the war path over ex-EU indeed.

windowontheAside

Ouch! What a mess.

This is no consolation for you but after being a caught by something similar once, now I always check with the desk if my flight isn't showing on the boards at 30 mins out.

Flexible preferences

I'm sorry to hear of this very unfortunate trail of events MrsFolds.

If the agent had refused to rebook you to Aberdeen, as the manager maintained, would you have taken that last flight of the day to CPH? Or would you have purchased the tickets to Aberdeen anyway?

This may help to clarify your loss regarding the rescinding of the gratis Aberdeen flights.

Thank you for bringing this tale to the forum and with a thread title like this I'm sure you'll get lots of attention here!

corporate-wage-slave

Goodness MrsFolds!

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum. Thanks for posting that experience, and it was good of you to share this.

I have never come across a situation like this before, and you were incredibly unlucky on several fronts. The gate number not showing - not something I've seen but apparently it does happen very occasionally - seems to have been the root cause, and then everything escalated from there.

I also don't see any traditional remedies open to you, the circumstances are so unique that I can see why you seem to be left high and dry, and unfortunately the BA manager concerned held all the cards. I believe I know the manager concerned, and he isn't readily confused for being a ray of sunshine.

Personally I think I'd have taken up the hotel offer and then sloped off on the train home (or found an Avios redemption overnight).

As to what you can do: it seems customer relations' area, but I'm not hopeful, it was quite a senior manager who did this and CR would not be able to countermand his decision. Your best line of approach seems to be to ask for a refund based on the fact that had you been told all the options at the point of the first rebooking, there is no way that you would have agreed to go to ABZ, and therefore BA changed the deal at a point where it was very unfair to you.

Having said that, which is basically an appeal to BA's better nature, I'm not convinced this is going to work, and I can only express my regret at the bad situation you've found yourself in. By posting about it here, you may well help someone else in a parallel situation.

Ldnn1

Welcome to FT, MrsFolds.

Well, this is a highly unusual series of unfortunate events!

I can see henky's point that having been rebooked you were then well and truly shafted and there may be a case in that. But there are a lot of factors involved which will likely make it a hard fight.

Given it's a substantial amount of money, it's worth the time making a complaint but I don't know what would be the best channel for this. Perhaps an initial call to the Gold line in Newcastle to try to get a sympathetic agent to start someone looking at it, with a follow up in writing?

lorcancoyle

I read OP as saying the LHR-ABZ cost was for new tickets, not a reroute of the main ticket.


Maybe I misinterpreted though. I do think that might (only might!) open up a partial refund option - although would need to work out how 8.1a would apply, it's caught be denied bordering, cancellations and delay, so universal, but comes back to how to map these specific circumstances to those...

simons1

Very frustrating I can imagine but as Calchas says I think the risk is ultimately yours.

BA accepted responsibility for the error with the displays and covered the cost of getting you back to CPH, however the fact that you had separate tickets on another airline really isn't their issue. That's the risk you take with ex EU.

The only moot point here is whether you are due EC261 compensation for your late arrival back in CPH. The fact that BA have accepted responsibility for the events at Heathrow and rebooked you suggest that you may have a claim. However if pushed they may claim exceptional circumstances as it was down to HAL and not BA.

MrsFolds

Thank you for the warm welcomes. I agree any form of recompense is a long shot but wanted to raise the issue. We are well aware of the risks with connecting flights and had mitigated this with our timings and would indeed have made our own way home if a delay had caused us to miss our home flight. I ruled out EU261 as I didn't think it remotely applicable.
My point is that the only reason we missed our flights was caused by BA error in agreeing to reroute us to Aberdeen and then rescinding this offer leaving us too late to consider any viable alternative

fiona

I just don't understand why it should be so difficult.
Its actually none of the managers business why this family booked ex eu. They were not trying to cheat in any way. If the boards had been correct they would have been on their way. They were then offered the ABZ re route and it was ticketed. How on earth can this manager decide afterwards that they would need to pay? With the correct information i would assume they would not have taken the re route.
Very poorly dealt with and I would not let it drop.
Good luck from a fellow Aberdonian!