Originally Posted by
Voltron86
What precautions can someone take if stuck in this situation?
Genuine questions as I'm not a frequent flyer but interested in the story.
Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum
Voltron86, it's good to see you here and I hope we will see more of you.
Here are a random set of "precautions" off the top of my head
- knowing when to give up with a service and then who to contact to re-route. This would be the Contact Centres if looking to travel on BA or other Joint Business Airlines (which is pretty much all you would need in this situation); or prevailing yourself on airport staff if the best option was an alternative airline. Some passengers on this service did rebook themselves off the aircraft rather than persist with the replacement services.
- Listen carefully to crew announcements and note them down for later reference.
- being familiar and up to date with the BA App. This has improved of late in terms of allowing self rebooking, however it still has long standing bugs relating to accepting or rejecting alternative flight suggestions.
- Booking your own hotel and transport as soon as you know your flight is cancelled. Particularly being a Hand Baggage Only passenger I wouldn't want to wait until baggage is returned and authorised for those with checked bags - and only then heading to a coach for the hotel.
- Which means a few useful Apps on your phone for Hilton, IHG, Accor, Marriott groups of hotels. Plus Uber (Grab in Asia)
- Have a clutch of 1 dollar bills available, these can be used for tips all over the world.
- Not worrying too much about running up a hotel bill, ideally keeping it sensible and well below £200 a night
- Having Skype as an App on your phone so you can make long calls without too much cost
- An external charger for your phone in hand baggage.
- Have at least a few days medicine in your hand baggage, and a few "just in case", for me that's paracetemol, Vicks, throat lozenges, anti-acid and contact lenses.
- photo all claimable receipts
- have a decent roaming package on your phone
- consider contacting your insurers (do you have their number to hand) though usually this area can be handled after the event
- Knowing about ba.com/delay and the generalities of EC261 (there's a thread in the Dashboard).
- Keeping USA / Canada ESTA / ETA (etc) valid
- Knowing whether it really is essential to travel immediately - can it wait a few days until the panic is over?
- Reaching out on Flyertalk in the middle of difficulties - there is almost always at least one expert watching this site 24/7