FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Another 241 downgrade story - from F - with no [EC261] compo
Old Aug 24, 2017, 2:58 am
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KARFA
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Leeds, UK
Programs: BA GGL/CCR, GfL, HH Diamond
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Originally Posted by Raffles
I had an email last night from a HFP reader (not a reader here) who had tried to check in for the day flight to New York today in F.

He had checked in, his companion (who was the companion on a 241 voucher) could not.

I told him he was likely to downgraded with no EU261.

Turns out I was correct:

* Reader's companion has been downgraded from First due to "overselling" (which I am constantly told on here cannot happen in F)

* Companion was told that he would not be allowed any EU261 compensation because the 241 has no monetary value and he is on the 'companion' part of it, so his ticket was not paid for

* Companion has been given a seat in CW and a £500 gift card

To be fair, the reader has taken the same view that I would probably take if this happened to me and my wife (ie I can live without her for 6 hours and £500 will cover a nice shopping spree in NY) .... but I wanted to flag it as another datapoint in the "no, FLY is not deliberately downgrading 241 tickets first, honest guv" debate.
This still doesn't prove FLY is targeting companion vouchers though does it? There are potentially several downgrades at day by BA (in the context of several thousand passengers).

To prove that FLY systematically targets companion vouchers you either need to find someone in the know who confirms that is exactly what happens - my understanding is that someone in the know has actually said the opposite, or you need to show that downgrades are happening statistically more to companion vouchers than to any other subset of passenger.

I would agree of course that the advice the passenger was given about EC 261 by the agent was wrong.
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