Originally Posted by
IFlyPlanes
1) Would BA cover fuel costs? Going round trip to Heathrow twice is around 150-ish miles, and does of-course cost money in petrol etc. (If they would cover these costs, how would they be calculated?)
2) Since I resigned from the booking which was changed to depart at 8:55, could this hurt my possibility to claim as I requested a later departure time in order to go with the rest of the group? I am however aware that the 8:55 flight still arrives around 2 hours later than originally scheduled.
3) I've really not had to deal with flight cancellations like this before, so what could I realistically claim? I'm aware I can claim EU261, however could there be any additional claims we could try to get? (We have received £10 food vouchers, but this isn't enough for a 12 hour wait at the airport, if we were to stay.)
1) I think additional fuel costs are in scope over and above a single trip to the airport, this is under Right to Care. A taxi would be claimable.
2) What matters is whether BA offered a service that would leave no more than 1 hour before and arrive not less than 2 hours later. If there was no such offer then even if you don't travel at all you can claim cancellation compensation (this is different from delay cancellation).
3) Right to care is about what you need to sustain you, in terms of food, drink, comms charges, travel. So if by going home you minimise this then I would say that's a reason for paying point 1 rather than a reason to load up. So if you got the £10 vouchers - which we normally advise against accepting as per the Disruption Signposts thread - what happened next? If you went home and had a cup of tea then I guess you could charge for that, but this is all about what you did at the time. Comms may be chargeable, but it's free wifi in LHR. Perhaps parking?
This does illustrate the risks of splitting bookings, and as you have found, Avios bookings can be extra problematic. It's interesting the airport sorted you out, and I can see how they did this by just re-queuing your booking, but normally the advice is to rely on the Contact Centres. If they are non contactable then you can make your own arrangements, but BA won't make that too easy to claim.