Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
So to answer your question: the agents gave the best advice they could, but in reality I very, very much doubt that the rest of the itinerary would have been cancelled in this situation, and it would be legally dubious if they did.
If the prime reason to go to Montréal was that meeting, your wife would actually have been within her rights to demand a return to London and a full refund.
That's what we were hoping (that BA would have kept the rest of the itinerary), but after little sleep and an accommodating set of meeting participants, my wife opted to catch up on lost sleep. Perhaps we'll get to test this hypothesis in the future, and find out for ourselves.
I agree with your recommendation on working with ground staff at the airport on initial arrival as the best option. Unfortunately this this may have been one of those no-win situations. There were 3 BA staff handling baggage related queries after the flight landed at Toronto, but none of them appeared to be performing any kind of ticketing.
Kudos are in order for the flight crew. There was minimal information to the passengers on arrival, which was being broadcast through the PA system. The directions were to use the hotel shuttle and call BA at 7am in the morning. The flight crew stuck around the terminal after the flight and were offering additional advice and information to some of the passengers.