Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave

My experience about irrops on Christmas Eve (which isn't always a busy day incidentally, this year it's a Saturday so there will be a lot of people going on Friday too) is that BA move Heaven and earth to get people home that day. Rebooking on airlines they never touch, if necessary. They rarely cancel flights, they may run services late, and in your case you are not on the final MAN flight of the night. But yes, regardless of circumstances, regardless of Christmas, if a service is cancelled and you find another way of getting there, just mention to BA - ideally at the airport - what you are doing and the key phrase here is ask them "to protect the return" and ask them to add a specific note in the PNR. It's just a few key strokes.

Then if you can't OLCI for the return, ring BA immediately, it's possible they didn't do it correctly.