Originally Posted by UKtravelbear

It's not a poor excuse. I actually find it refreshing that BA gave you the full reason - incident at the hotel - instead of something bland.

Minimum crew rest periods are required by legislation. A tired crew is not a safe crew..

Yes BA might have 12 flights from Berlin but as 5 (If I counted rght) of those go to LCY you would need two sets of spare flight crew there on a just in case basis.

As to why OP wasn't rebooked perhaps the other flights were full? The Sunday 23rd (when the OP was due to fly) was a couple of days after Storm Desmond so BA (and other airlines) was likely still recovering from the impact and delays and cancellations of that.

Looking at the timetable for this Sunday (and hoping it was the same on the 23rd) the first 3 departures to LHR are

07.05
12.25
13.50

So assuming the OP was on the 07.05 (i.e. the night stopper ) the earliest they could have been rebooked would have been to 12.25 so a 5 1/2 delay in any case (and that assumes there were free seats)

And looking at google flights all other flights TXL-LHR require at least one stop so beig rebooked to another carrier wasn't really a tme saving option either