Originally Posted by
gutt3d
I'll get in touch with Expedia and see if they can give me more of a breakdown, but it's beginning to sound like there's a good chance that the fare BA quoted (and thus the CEDR figure) is correct.
[snip]
The excess APD thing may be worth looking into, too - thanks to all for flagging that. Is this different from the £75 "ex gratis" payment that BA gave me - the thing I'd imagined to be a goodwill gesture? Or is that £75 in fact something they were legally obliged to give me anyway (i.e. is it likely this was a refund of the excess APD)?
Thanks for the replies, and particular thanks also to
EsherFlyer and
Globaliser for researching away into the potential background fares.
gutt3d, from the additional information you provided and the other information now in this thread, I think it is looking like you have not had the correct refund. The £75, however, is not usually ex gratia, this is what you get if you don't bother to claim EC261, but normally they subtract that £75 from the claim, so essentially you are on £540 approx. Incidentally usually any at-gate payment is close to the lowest possible EC261 payment, and AUPs are sometimes available in the £200 region (bearing in mind APD).
What you now need is something similar to
EsherFlyer's post above, with a breakdown of each element and each tax. The final Fare Construction isn't that useful here, good if you can get it (since it shows the exchange rates being applied) but not essential.
It is certainly the case that BA say they can't see TA's fare constructions. And that sounds plausible given the multiple channels involved, but more likely it would take BA a stupid amount of time to forensically reverse engineer fares from a haystack of OTA fare channels. However CEDR were given BA's full calculation and nothing as useful from your side, plus you asked for the incorrect amount in the first instance. So I think it's becoming very clear why you lost out here.
So the first step is to get the Expedia information, ideally in email format, otherwise you will have to submit it based on your conversations with them as a Statement of Truth (hence the need for names, dates and times)
Then calculate the precise amount due based on the information in the main EC261 thread, so deducting the World Traveller levels of government taxes, but not deducting carrier fees such as the £229 mentioned upthread. There is one very arguable point (using the legal meaning) which relates to fare construction. If BA maintains that the base fare outwards was a lot cheaper than the base fare back, that is only valid as a calculation (in my opinion) if that base fare can be applied to a WT fare, and sometimes they are not, and crucially is shown to the ticket buyer in that format. In any case if this was WTP out, WTP back, the passenger can in my view rely on the total base fare divided by two. I am not a lawyer (but I think I know what I'm talking about here!).
Going to MCOL is entirely legitimate if CEDR made the wrong calculation. However (a) firstly you need to give BA the chance the fix the mistake, by formally asking it from them before MCOL submission (see main thread to see why) and (b) you need to be utterly precise and very careful in your MCOL submission.
For anyone else looking at this thread perhaps at an early point in the process, as pointed out in the main EC261 thread it is best to let BA initially do their "involuntary fare refund" calculation first, which is an internal BA process which sometimes comes up with a higher figure than EC261, then appealing if it is lower. Involuntary fare refunds are generally the best route for CE to ET refunds, and often the best route for CW to WTP downgrades. For WTP to WT (as here) it's a thoroughly bad calculation if it was a DIF WTP fare since the refund may be zero. The only trouble with this stage is it often takes weeks for BA to do this calculation, however in the meantime you can be ready with your own calculation to see whether this is the best outcome or not.