Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd piggy back on to this one given the title reflects my experience.

Returning from Havana, we changed in Madrid en route to Birmingham, UK. We arrived at the gate for the Birmingham flight at the appropriate time but there was no one there to let us on - the board said "boarding" and then "final call" but still one one was there. As it got close to the departure time we asked at the information desk and were told we'd missed the flight.

Having gone land-side, we were told our bags were still on the flight and were on their way to Birmingham. At the main Iberia sales desk, we were told that the next Iberia flight to Birmingham we could be transferred to was on Tuesday (it was Sunday afternoon at this point) or Monday if we went to Heathrow. The only option they gave for traveling that evening was to buy tickets on a BA flight to Heathrow for £500 each. We bought tickets with Easyjet in to Luton for that evening.

I've written to Iberia twice and they have dismissed the claim on both occasions. They stated "We were unable to allow you to board because the minimum time had been exceeded. Even if passengers arrive at the boarding gate before the aircraft doors have been closed, for operational reasons it is sometimes not possible to access the aircraft". This wasn't explained at the time and at no point were we informed that we had to be there at a certain time, beyond what was shown on the tickets/board.

I intend to raise this with AESA but wanted to find out if anyone has had a similar experience and if they were successful in gaining compensation.

Thanks