Old Key West

Yes, that is exactly what happened. Exactly.

Dave Noble

Then I would write to AA putting clearly what happened and ask for refund of 22k miles and $406

Just stick to facts and put in bullet point form what happened and when

guv1976

Not 22K miles, 32K miles: see Post #27 .

Dave Noble

It did say 22k in 1st post - but indeed - whatever the extra cost (other than seat selecton fees) was should be refunded

footballfanatic

The option via ORD was in coach. Would you accept that alternative in this situation? I do not view a downgrade as an alternative, but a downgrade.

Often1

The question is not whether one accepts it or not, but rather the consequences of not accepting it.

If the selected reroute is a downgrade, BA would then owe OP 75% of the segment fare (a mess with a redemption ticket, but that is a separate matter). If the passenger declined that routing, but sought something later which resulted in a higher fare, an overnight and, in this case, significantly higher taxes, that would be the passenger's to deal with.

Note that the above applies because this would apply to BA to, from or within the EU and, in other situations, to AA departing the EU.

MSPeconomist

I'm surprised that BA (or AA) didn't suggest moving the intraEU flight forward one day, to the same day as the new TATL flight. This would have avoided the APD (although there might have been a later intraEU flight that would have allowed OP to visit London for less then 24 hours and also avoided APD).

However, I'm not sure what the implications would be for BA's duty of care in terms of paying for a night in London or an additional night at the destination (Budapest???).

OP doesn't say whether the hotel that was reserved in London for the night used a nonrefundable rate, which might have also been a consideration when AA offered the coach return through ORD on the original travel date.

carlosnunez.dfw

On that note, if you didn't sign up for travel insurance through your ticketing carrier (the one you booked the tickets with; AA in this case), call your credit card company. If the incidental purchases that you made were purchased with a credit card, then they might be able to reimburse you for them.

carlosnunez.dfw

Is the OP more likely to get this charge refunded if the seats they were given after the schedule change (if deemed involuntary) were suboptimal to the seats they chose or were originally given?

Dave Noble

If they had paid for seating on the original flight then they should have been able to select seats for free on the new flight - with the flight being cancelled, if seats were paid for on the original flight, then the selection fees there should be refunded

FlyerTalker688786

The simply solution was to move flight to LHR one day later to connect the new BA log haul. Should OP asked help on the day it happened here in the forum, I would have suggested OP to talk to BA to move the flight one day later by asking revunue department to release an award seat. That would avoid the extra tax and the hotel in London.

MSPeconomist

That's what I said in my earlier post.

arollins

It is amazing how errors like this still happen. You plan and book your trip, and yet things outside your control occur. It is almost as if sometimes we need someone to hold our hand while making the ticket reservation, or having some sort of guide book about the do's and don'ts of travel. This is where Flyertalk comes in handy. I supposed that you had no idea that the extra +24hr layover in LHR change your one way ticket BUD-BNA to 2 separate one way tickets BUD-LHR 24+ layover & LHR-BNA. Your LHR mini vacation basically cost you about at least $1000 when you add the extra ticket cost, miles transfer, 22k miles usage and the new LHR hotel. It would have been a lot cheaper to spend an extra day in BUD and delay your connecting flight one day.

BA did is part, as you where accommodated on the next day flight. Would you have liked to leave the day before? I highly doubt it. BA most likely passed all the info to AA. BA is AA customer as they are operating a flight booked through AA, and you are AA customers as you book your flights. AA never informed you of the ticket change, and by time you communicated with AA, you where already committed to the 24hr stay in LHR as you already had booked the layover hotel and paid for the seats, this is on you. Regarding the seats, do you think that BA would have left you in LHR if you had not paid, no, you would have been assigned seats AT NO COST. $310 is not a fee I would pay to seat next to my spouse, and she agrees with me as well. Besides, Business Class seat are like a mini cabin on its own, you are not that physically close to the next person, or you can always swap seats to be next to your spouse.

At the 3 week mark, when you noticed that the return flight was changed to a latter date is when you should have contacted the original ticketing agent (AA) to solve the problem, instead you accepted what was given to you by the operating carrier (BA) and proceeded to purchase your seats. The thought of having an extra mini vacation added to the already planned one without affecting your time appeared to be a great idea to you.

You are upset about all the extra $ spent, and feel that AA should have waived the extra fees, or that BA should have advised you of the 24HR rule. I'm not sure how your call with BA went, but it seems to me the biggest concern was the return trip LHR-BNA and you decided to commit your self to stay extra day in LHR, but again, it is at that 3 week mark when you should have immediately contacted AA to solve the problem. There was plenty of time to come a sensible solution, without breaking the bank and wasting the miles. By the time you found out the problem, you where not in a situation to deal with it due to your company show and couldn't provide all the attention it required. A DOT claim would not do much as it will come up that you already accepted the outcome.

At the very least, you can complaint to AA and see if they throw some miles as a customer service gesture, but that's about it.

view-with-a-room

If you checked the itinerary three weeks out why didn't you check the itinerary two weeks out to confirm the ticket was issued? Complain all you want but few airlines are proficient with processing award travel, especially changes to award travel. Into the rabbit hole we go every time we call to book award travel. Call it water under the bridge and send AA a nice email expressing concern for the processing of changes and the resulting additional expense and expect 7500 miles when all is said and done. The airlines have no interest in dumping miles or money on a client that will ultimately not be pleased with the end result.

Old Key West

There has been some very good suggestions and for that, I thank the posters. Some of the responses have made some assumptions, so I'll try and clarify what I did. I'm not an expert on the machinations between airlines and I thought be checking my itinerary multiple times, I was doing what I should. Here is a quick breakdown. The original post was too long and had too much information.

• Found out the date changed when I went to buy my seat selection (I understood the $310 cost and never asked for that back, that was my decision)
• I was surprised about the change, told the BA person this when I called, said I would have to get a room and so on, but I accepted and said it was okay. Went ahead and made stay arrangements on my dime and wasn't going to ask for anything else. No conversation about additional costs incurred by the BA change.
• BA calls me on November 23 (I leave for Europe 12/3) and tells me AA hasn't issued the ticket for the 12/14 return. I tell them I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to do about it (only the second time I've used miles between airlines), so we have the three way with AA. And I'm told by AA they won't issue the ticket without an additional 32,000 miles and an additional $493.00. So I pay it because AA tells me they won't issue a ticket otherwise. Since I only had 10,000 miles left in the account, I had to transfer 22,000 miles over which cost $232. Totals out to $725 and 32,000 miles out of pocket on that call.

Thanks again for the help FT. I should have found a way to fight this upfront and we likely wouldn't be reading this now. I'll only post here in future to let people know what the final resolution is just to tie off the thread.

Happy New Year all