Annekr

I would appreciate the thoughts of the experts here on my recent experience. Should I be grateful or miffed?

I had an economy return booked ABZ to BGI, travelling to LHR and transferring by national express to LGW and staying overnight. On Christmas Day my daughter's partner decided he wanted me to have a First experience and as my economy ticket was not upgradable he purchased a new single in first with AA after purchasing some additional AA miles. All of this without my knowledge. When I found out alarm bells started ringing as I frequent this site too often. However he told me not to worry as when booking they had attached a note to my file to protect my return economy journey..

so so I check in for the Aberdeen London flight and the London to Barbados in first (bagging1a). I head to the airport at Aberdeen early as I want to confirm things there. As suspected I mentioned protected return and they said no no as if I didn't fly the economy portion to Barbados then the return would be automatically cancelled. They did say to go to customer services at Gatwick as they might be able to help. So then comes the London fog and my 2.30pm flight is delayed until at 6pm the departure Board changes to 'next information 5.30am' with announcement to pick up checked luggage at domestic arrivals. Daughter and partner (who live in Barbados) book me a train to Edinburgh then sleeper to Euston so to cut a long story short I am at gatwick on time for my First experience. The Aberdeen flight left at 6.15 am but I would have missed the Barbados flight. Received an email from BA at around 7.30pm telling me flight from Aberdeen now 6.15am but by that time I am on train to Edinburgh. No option of cancellation or rebooking given.

At gatwick I bag drop and at the counter ask about protected return. Agent says she can't do it there but to go to customer services. Daughter by this time had been on the gold line and given short shift. I was under orders that I had to use the First ticket as it cost a lot of money and my return would be sorted somehow even if new ticket was needed. Anyhow I checked MMB at gatwick and my whole journey had disappeared. I went to customer services at the lounge and the woman looked me up and phoned ticketing and said I should be sorted for my return. Phew but still stressed about whether that would be the case.

My my first experience was great. After dinner I had bed made up as I hadn't slept that well on sleeper. However experience lessened by person in 1b having visitor with booming voice for around 2 hours both quaffing wine like there was no tomorrow.

In barbados checked MMB daily and surprise surprise my flights reappear showing I had flown both outgoing flights (which I had not). As a further safety net I booked a seat home and it all went through. Checked in on Tuesday and all well but I was still expecting something to go wrong at airport. It did hang over me while I was away.

As an aside had my first BOB experience on the domestic to Aberdeen. Wasn't impressed with crew. Cabin crew gave a noticeable yawn during safety demonstrating then disappeared for about half an hour

navylad

Sorry, I'm a little confused, complaint about what exactly, did the return flight not work out fine?

Glad you had a good BA F experience albeit with a noisy neighbour.

Tafflyer

I would be feeling lucky about having taken control and got myself to LGW in time to save the F ticket from becoming void. I would also be grateful for BA protecting the return portion after an unused outbound sector. I believe the weather cancellation actually helped you get this and had weather not been bad you may have had more problems.

It's just another story of the perils of bookings on separate tickets. That the ABZ-LHR was delayed due to weather and you would have missed the LGW-BGI flight would have been protected by BA on your original booking.

Annekr

I'm not looking to complain as it all worked out in the end but just showing that rules can be bent if speaking nicely to right person. I would have thought I should have been given option to cancel when first leg delayed overnight. I could then have rebooked a single return.

jerry a. laska

Kudos for making your own way to London amid the fog.

Imo, you should not be miffed but happy that it all worked out. Having duplicate bookings and not flying the outbound is usually a recipe for disaster.

Anonba

I think you were extremely lucky and the fog and the fact that your new ticket was first definetly combined to help you out.As a word of caution I wouldnt try booking seperate tickets and noshowing outbound flights i would see this case as one off gesture.


Its good how it was handled though and glad it worked out in the end.

patgarrett

Congratulations - you made the clickbait on FT's homepage. Headline:

"Our Crew Yawned During the Safety Demonstration"