We've never been in this situation before, so I'm not sure what I should be expecting from BA?

Family group of 4 adults travelling on BA2864 today (LGW-AYT, 12.45) but travelling on two seperate bookings due to returning on different dates. 2x silver members on one booking, two sons with no status on the other.

On arrival at the airport told 2 hour delay, not a major problem as seats in lounge comfy. Went to gate when the board/app indicated, to be told further delay because crew not yet on site and would need to check aircraft before boarding. No further updates given until just before 4pm, when we were told the flight is cancelled and we needed to go to luggage collection. On arrival there we were told that bags would take two hours to arrive, they took 1.5 hours.

The booking with the two silvers received a text saying we were rebooked onto tomorrow's flight and need to accept this via the app, the other booking got a text offering refunds but no available seats on tomorrow's flight.

Phoned BA to say that this would not be acceptable as a family group of 4, and also we had no transport as car in an offsite car park, and no overnight accomodation anyway. asked if we could be booked onto either the easyJet or freebird airline flight tonight out to the same destination and was told this was not possible as there is no agreement with BA. She then said there were no flights from LGW to AYT with spaces and pushed for me to take the two seats tomorrow. I said that I needed to discuss this with my family and would call back, asked for her name and she cut me off!!

On the advice of a gatwick staff member and along with what many people around me were doing, I quickly booked us onto the easyJet flight later tonight and went to speak to the BA checkin desk staff. I told them that I did not want the seats on tomorrows flights that we had been allocated as our whole group couldn't travel and that I had booked alternative flight out today, after checking with the BA phone line who said they couldn't do this. I said there were many people in the queue trying to get onto that flight tomorrow so it might help someone else. I checked that we were retaining the return flights on both bookings. was advised to email BA asking for a refund and attaching information about our easyJet booking, and we were given £10 vouchers for each person for 'light refreshments'. The checkin agent was really helpful, but we overheard another group being told that BA are not liable to pay compensation at all.

I've read that any claim should be submitted within 7 days, but my head is spinning and I'm not sure what to ask for or reasonably expect, and if there's any legislation (EC261??) that I should be quoting.

Thank you for any help/advice, we should have been at our resort about now to start our holiday, but we'll now arrive at about 8am local time...


edited to add - my husband said that we should have been provided with written notice of
our rights, but I'm not sure if this is just for a delay rather than a cancellation - although we actually had both of these!