Originally Posted by
Tootall33
Forgive me for following up again for more clarity, but I’m still a bit confused about the best way forward for me. My return BA flight has now been cancelled also of course. It seems I fell foul of being too quick to call BA before all the agents were made aware of the rebooking policy that seems to have become fully implemented a few hours after I called. So, to recap I booked a biz (approx £550) flight from Luton and a return to LHR (approx £300) on LY (13-23rd May) myself - there was no econ availability on the day left, and indeed all availability next week disappeared soon after I booked. So - should I call BA and explain the situation or just request the cost of my flights (or perhaps a reasonable approximation of what econ would be - £500 and eat the extra for the biz sector) via the website, and when is best to do this - now or after the date I would have flown with BA? Thank you so much for any further advice - kicking myself that in my panic I booked myself when waiting a few hours would have got me rebooked gratis (hopefully!).
Yes, it was kind of inevitable that El Al rebooking would happen, and was mentioned upthread. Where you are now is a bit complex. At the time you called you were not offered a rebook, if you call now you presumably will get that rebooking. I don't know if the El Al flight is refundable, but the ideal solution now is
- refund El Al, call BA, get rebooked on El Al, but that's subject to available services and booking classes on the various route
- get a full refund on the BA booking and accept your loss as the price of a secured flight
- run on with the basis that you were told "no rebooking possible" and see whether CEDR / MCOL lands in your favour - and I wouldn't say that is a certainty.
- make a complaint to BA Customer Relations - maybe get some Avios for the initial response, though to be fair BA did move more quickly on this one than on previous such occasions
I can't see the basis of BA paying for an economy ticket instead, other than via MCOL or CEDR, firstly it's a double hypothesis (if you could buy and had BA not moved position); secondly it's just not how BA would handle this sort of thing, they would normally say "we can give a refund, and you can submit a complaint".