There are some significant revisions to EU 261/2004 in the wind; on Feb 5th, the EU passed some amendments which clarifies some things, changes others and introduces more.
Draft changes start from page 11:
amending Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 establishing common rules ...
The full lists of amendments to this draft in the passing of this are here in this 2.1 MByte ms-word document.
Starts from page 341:
Wednesday, 5 February 2014 - Strasbourg - texts (Part 3)
I have been looking at these and among others (paraphrasing/generalising here) "Mechanical (unless a design/build defect of the aircraft
)" will NOT be a get out.
In fact the "exhaustive list" of "extraordinary circumstances" has been defined as an appendix. (If an event is not on the list, it can't be used to avoid compensation.)
What I will note here is the compensation for involuntary Downgrades has been changed to be based on "Flight Price", not "Ticket Price". Definitions for both have been added. See below.
The new Article 10 reads as follows:
Article 10
Upgrading and downgrading
- If an operating air carrier places a passenger in a class higher than that for which the ticket was purchased, it may not request any supplementary payment.
- If an operating air carrier places a passenger in a class lower than that for which the ticket was purchased, it shall within seven days, by the means provided for in Article 7(3), reimburse
- 30 % of the flight price for all flights of 1 500 kilometres or less, or
- 50 % of the flight pricefor all intra-Community flights of more than 1 500 kilometres, except flights
between the European territory of the Member States and the French overseas departments, and for all other flights between 1 500 and 3 500 kilometres, or
- 75 % of the flight price for all flights not falling under (a) or (b), including flights between the European territory of the Member States and the French overseas departments.
Here's newly regulated "flight" and "ticket" "price" definitions:
(s) ‘ticket price’ means the full price paid for a ticket, including the air fare and all applicable taxes, charges, surcharges and fees paid for all optional and non-optional services included in the ticket,such as all costs for the check-in, the provision of the tickets and the issuing of the boarding cards and for the carrying a minimum amount of luggage, including an item of hand luggage, an item of checked‑in luggage and essential items, as well as all costs related to payment, such as charges for paying by credit card; .the ticket price published in advance always reflects the final ticket price to be paid.
(t) ‘flight price’ means the value obtained by multiplying the ticket price by the ratio between the distance of the flight and the total distance of the journey(s) covered by the ticket; where a ticket price is not known, the value of any refund shall be the supplement paid for a premium seat on the flight
Of course, (I guess) the law of inadvertent consequences comes into play here and by those definitions, if one were upgraded using points/miles/instrument and subsequently downgraded, all one would get would be the points/miles/instrument back.