woodey

Hi guys, I hope you can help me with some advice on this one. I made a miles + cash booking last October for my wife and I to travel to the USA in early May. We were booked LGW to PHX (via PHL) with US in C and LAX to LHR with LH in F. About a week after making the booking tickets arrived, my credit card was charged and the miles debited so everything seemed fine. Then a couple of weeks before Christmas I received a call from bmi to say that one of the flight numbers had changed so I needed to send the tickets back for re-issue. By the end of January I hadn’t received the new tickets so I called DC and they said there was no problem, the new tickets would be with me 8 weeks before departure. Everything including our seat allocations looked fine on checkmytrip.com.

The new tickets still hadn’t arrived a couple of weeks ago so I called them again, this time I was told they would be with me within 14 days. Again everything looked fine on checkmytrip.com.

I had a look at checkmytrip.com today and my part of the booking had gone completely and my wife’s itinerary was missing the LAX to FRA segment. I called DC and they confirmed the booking was now for one person from LGW (which they kept on calling LaGuardia) to PHX returning FRA – LHR. The person I spoke to obviously didn’t have a clue what was going on with the booking, they’ve promised to call me back tomorrow. I’ve done a bit of digging around and it looks like most of the seats we had reserved are now free so I think they’ve cancelled the reservation.

Hopefully they are going to call up tomorrow and say it’s all a big mistake and the reservation has been restored but I’ve got my suspicions. Looking at the ANA tool there's no availability between our chosen cities on the day’s we’re meant to be travelling. My questions are :

1) Who’s the best person for me to call tomorrow (the Indian call centre are dealing with it at the moment)
2) What sort of rights do we have with a miles + cash bookings?

Thanks very much for your help with this.

W

NoY

PM Julie a.k.a. Diamond Club on this board - I fear you need more help! Plse let us know how you get on!

preiffer

Did you take any copies of the original checkmytrip.com reservation, or your paper tickets before sending them away?

If you did, they may become VERY important over the next week or so, I fear...

woodey

I didn't copy the original tickets but I have got the original confirmation letter from bmi plus printed and electronic copies of the checkmytrip.com reservations.

Any idea what our legal rights are with miles + cash bookings? I mean they took payment and confirmed the reservation back in October so I assume they are legally bound to get us to and from the destination on the correct dates in the class originally booked. Is that right?

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,

W.

NickW

I can see this going very badly, very quickly

I suspect the key here is fast escalation.

I think you're going to need someone who has the authority to get bmi to pay for your seats (because I doubt a Star Alliance partner is going to release revenue seats into award inventory on the say-so of a diamond club representative), and that is going to mean someone senior.

sc_uk

I know this isn't any help at all, but I really sympathise and I hope that it all works out. I had a similar (but not quite as bad) experience with Expedia recently. It takes many phone calls and a lot of resolve to work things out. Best of luck.

LonLH

The same thing had happened to me on a BMI booking (not award)- the trip was confirmed, then one segment which was a UA codeshare with US flight number disappeared. I had to call BMI telephone sales several times to get it reinstated. Apparently it was some goof up that they did not properly confirm the flight.

woodey

Well after several phone calls to Diamond Club they confirmed that the missing segments had been cancelled due to a system error not an agent error (not that they’re in blame culture or anything !!!). I wonder if it was a system error or did the *A partners cancel the reservations because they weren’t ticketed properly 3 weeks before departure? Anyway the guys in India said they’d spoken to bmi in the UK and they were going to reinstate the booking. They refused to give me the number of the person in the UK who was dealing with this but they did give me a name. They assured me that the tickets will be issued today or tomorrow and they’ll definitely be with me by the end of the week. Sounds great but looking at checkmytrip.com the missing segments have now reappeared but they’re waitlisted.

I guess it all depends now if Diamond Club can persuade US and LH to release the seats back to them for an award booking. The ANA tool is still showing no availability.

I also e-mailed [email protected] and asked them to confirm in writing what they’d told me verbally.

I’m not sure how long to give them before chasing this again. I’m away on a business trip next week so it’s going to be hard for me to chase it up then and we’re due to fly out the following week I guess if the status hasn't changed on checkmytrip.com by Thursday morning I'll call them again.

Can anyone think of anything else I should do?

Thanks

W.

Colin

You should be looking for alternative flights. BD does not have the power to make the situation right -- it's not their inventory. US/LH will likely not open up space. BD is not going to spend 5000 pounds to buy you the tickets in revenue inventory.

The most BD will do is give you some miles for the inconvience. Probably no more than 5000 - 10,000 miles.

NickW

I think in this case they damn well should, and probably have a legal obligation to do so. They sold a ticket.

larsll

I read quickly though the EC regulation 261/2004, and it does not specifically address the situation where your booking is cancelled on a flight that is expected to depart.

Still; I think you can approach this by claiming that this is going to be a denied boarding situation (you have proof of purchase of a ticket, and they will deny you boarding). In that case they are obliged to re-route you onto the next available flight, regardless of if you are on a revenue or award ticket.

frankvb

I'm not a lawyer, but IMHO the OP created a contract with BMI to start with, he bought flights paying with BMI miles. As apparently BMI cancelled (part of) this contract they are liable for whatever the terms of the contract specify in that case. As it looks like what happened wasn't due to some 'act of god' I would like to think they are obliged to do anything within their power to restore the contract (such as paying US and LH for the flights if needed).

I do not think this has any relation to the EC regulation, but maybe like to be proven wrong here...

I hope that things will work out ok in the end for woodey!

Colin

The above advice (from lars) will likely ruin your holiday with your wife.

The comments from NickW are not reasonable. It is not reasonable to expect bmi to loose 5000 pounds due to a systems or even a human error. Mistakes happen.

bmi will likely devote much effort to finding alternative award inventory that is satisfactory to the original poster. The original poster should realize that situation and approach it with an accomodative posture. There will likely be other Star Alliance flights with premium cabin award inventory. The original poster should prepare himself for an extra connection or shift in flight dates. bmi will offer reasonable compensation for this inconvenience (the inconvenience of taking different flights, more stops, different airports, different dates, etc). Appropriate compensation for this level of inconvenience, in my opinion, is 5,000 - 10,000 free miles.

The original poster should begin his efforts to find alternative award inventory.

Don't get yourself worked up over the fact you were wronged. Instead, focus your efforts on finding a reasonable solution.

woodey

bmi are still saying at the moment that everything's fine even though the evidence appears to contradict this.

I have checked alternative flights, the ANA tool is showing no availability several days either side and I’ve tried all sorts or weird and wonderful route combinations. At this late stage paid seats in C and F are only available in the full fare variety and the cheapest Y class options have all gone. Paying for 2 tickets isn't a very attractive option but if we cancel the holiday there's more than £1,000 in non refundable deposits already paid on accommodation, car hire and internal flights. When you have a confirmed booking on an airline you assume confirmed means confirmed.

I have to believe bmi are going to put this right. After all they took the booking back in October, debited the miles + cash and issued a confirmation. If something’s gone wrong in their system they have a legal (as well as a moral) obligation to put it right.

We’ll see what happens, I’ll keep you all posted.

W

stut

woodey, try lis-ewr and dus-ewr/ord routings on the ANA tool. They don't come up by default, but you can force it, and there's been some decent availability recently.