Originally Posted by
Bierjunge
Upon check-in, the lady said that they are going to issue $500 eCredits per passenger (which they already did the day before) + reimburse the fare difference between PS and Main within the next 10 days without us having to file any forms or the like (so DOT comp instead of EC261).
EC261: I am not entirely sure on how to do the calculation to see if its worthwile going after EC261. As I understand, EC261 is based upon the base fare + YR of the affected segment. In our case, the outbound had a domestic connection which was totally fine. Only the TATL of the outbound was affected by the downgrade. I have read somewhere that in such cases, the segments are caluclated based on great circle distance (in our case 90% of the great cirlce distance).
1069 EUR (base fare + YR) / 2 (Assumption to split this evenly as only the outbound TATL segment was affected) * 90% * 75% = 360 EUR
DOT: Is it known which Main cabin fare they are using for the calculation of the fare difference? The cheapest Main fare on the day I purchased my tickets or the full flex Y fare on the day of departure? In the later case, the difference would certainly be negative...
In the BA thread there's some references including to court cases that then became the "Mennens formula" - I've never gone through it myself.
For when airlines calculate the fare difference, I've seen reports that they often use the unrestricted Y to compare to what you purchased, which is obviously inadequate. But I'm not sure if someone has taken them to court about it. A while back I've been able to keep pushing AA to refund me a PE to Y downgrade and they eventually did after some back and forth.
If you do get the actual fare difference, or very close to it, and the $500 credit, I personally would just call it a day at that point and not waste more energy.