Hi guys

this saga has been running for a while on PPRUNE (passengers and SLF) but I've been told
that more people will get to read it on Flyertalk, so here goes.

My wife had a British Airways booking to go to her sister's wedding.

8th August Glasgow - London City 1900
9th August Heathrow - Gibraltar 0800
11th August Gibraltar - Heathrow 1440
11th August Heathrow - Glasgow 1750

She got to Glasgow outbound and discovered that BA had cancelled the London City flight. She was involuntarily rerouted to Heathrow on a much later flight but she caught the flight to Gibraltar on 8th as scheduled.

On arriving at check-in at Gibraltar for the return flight the BA representatives told her that she had been a “no show” on one of her outbound legs and that her return tickets had therefore been cancelled (BA gets to keep the money of course!)

Despite vehement protestations that she hadn’t been a no show, the BA reps made absolutely no attempt to check her outbound flights and told her that she’d have to pay about £800 for a flight home via Malaga the following day. She was upset to put it mildly. The Gib BA staff simply kept repeating “no show, no show”

She fortunately got flights later that day back to Glasgow on Easyjet, which cost her £432. I had to drive 135 miles to Glasgow to pick her up as by then she’d missed the last train home.

This was naturally queried with BA who admitted that Glasgow BA had failed to “protect” her ticket after her initial involuntary rerouting and that as a result she had been erroneously classed as a “no show” and her tickets cancelled. Something which the Gibraltar staff could easily have established long before her flight was due to depart. I strongly suspect that her scheduled Gib – LHR flight was full as she wasn’t offered even the opportunity to buy another ticket for it.

We claimed reimbursement from BA for the Easyjet flight (£432) plus £121.50 (270 miles a 45 pence/mile) plus one meal (£8.50) plus car parking at Glasgow (£6.50) total £573.25.

We also requested the statutory (EU 261) “denied boarding” compensation of 400 Euros, which seemed fair enough for the upset, stress etc caused to my wife.

BA offered to reimburse the Easyjet cost plus a £50 “contribution” to my car costs. They also offered a £250 discount voucher (with a 12 month life) off her next BA flight.

BA’s “Customer Relations” departments exact words were:-

“I appreciate that you feel that you were denied boarding in Gibraltar, however this was not in fact the case. Due to an error at Glasgow your return ticket was cancelled by mistake. This meant that your ticket wasn’t valid for travel from Gibraltar. I do not underestimate your inconvenience but unfortunately this is not a situation where we would offer denied boarding compensation”

My wife isn’t planning any trips on which she could use a £250 voucher in the next 12 months, so that’s pretty worthless. Ongoing correspondence has so far failed to achieve an agreement and I can see us ending up taking legal action. What BA will do to save a few quid!